I’ve been around a while and I’ll tell you, speaking from experience, bartending during actual medieval times was nothing like this new one. Back then life was hard.
At 4am the Angelus bell rang to announce the first Mass of the day and the end of the night watchman’s duty. Then after mass at 6am the shops and market stalls opened and all the serfs and peasants had to have the animals ready for work for the day and out of the wattle huts with no windows or chimneys. Let me tell you!
Then, at 8am, the foreign merchants were allowed to start trading, and nobody knew what they were talking about — and nobody could read, so there was a lot of confusion. At 9am we ate breakfast and worked until 3pm, when most of the shops and market stalls closed.
Then, if we were lucky, we got to work tending to our own business, mending and cleaning, washing down the animals, getting them ready to bring inside our wattled huts again for the night where they lived with us.
We’d patch any areas that needed it with fresh horse dung. By then it was 8pm and the Curfew Bell would ring. The town gates closed, the houses were all shut up, and the night watch began. Anyone late getting home was arrested and put in the stocks. It was hard.
We had no barbacks or ice of any kind. The moat had the queen’s turds floating it, so you couldn’t use that water for brewing beer, and anyone who stole a turkey leg was flogged and hung.
Then there was the escaped serfs. All those uppity “I’m going to take your position if I remain escaped a year and a day, and become a village freeman!” people showing up without notice wanting to steal our jobs.
No strainers. We had to use our fingers! And tips? What tips? At Christmas, they demanded that we give THEM money! It was tradition! Let me tell you – Life was hard!
All those lords and ladies, living in their castles, nobody but them having anything to say or have a vote. You people have it easy now. AND there was no toilet paper in the ditch on the side of the road, OR anywhere to wash your hands after except in the moat!
When customers complained in THEM days that their mead tasted like shit, it did taste like shit. Oh no. You young ones nowadays have it easy if you ask me.
Site Author, David Jonathan Curtis: David Jonathan Curtis, a seasoned professional in his fifth decade of bartending and bar management, began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in both iconic Midtown clubs and Wall Street bars, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa, Florida. David’s roles as a Bartending Instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, while maintaining a second job bartending, and his years experience of managing bars, and working as a Brand Ambassador along with his extensive professional library of over 1,000 bartending books, highlight his dedication to continually refining his craft. He holds a diploma in Bar Management and is BarSmarts certified by Pernod Ricard.
