Chatting Smack
Some awesome medieval mace pictures:
Talking Smack
Graphic by jurvetson
Waiting for the SVB charity poker tournament to begin previous night…
Jeff Loomans and the Sierra group had particular super-intimidating t-shirts produced up for the function. Jeff also had a mace (the medieval spiked ball and chain) hanging from his belt. His even bigger equipment did the trick, as he went on to conquer every person from our team.
Update: This just in. JLo’s great functionality was not sufficient to win it for the staff. The winner of the NVCA Chairman’s Cup was….. Crew DFJ. I was asleep by then. The leading person was Rob McIntyre of CMEA Ventures, and he will get a seat at the 2005 WPT Invitational.
Oh Yea, Oh Yea…..Johnny’s Back!
Picture by JohnnyEnglish
Preston’s City-crier.
In Medieval England, city criers ended up the chief signifies of news communication with the individuals of the town considering that several folks could not study or compose. Royal proclamations, nearby byelaws, market days, adverts, even marketing loaves of sugar ended up all proclaimed by a bellman or crier all through the centuries—At Christmas 1798, the Chester Canal Co. available some sugar ruined in their packet boat and this was to be marketed by the bellman.
Chester’s 1st recorded ‘belman’ was in 1540, when costs recorded included a single (old) penny for ‘going for nearly anything that is lost’ and 4d for primary the funeral procession. In 1681, a hearth basic safety buy by the town Assembly that all properties ought to be tiled, not thatched, was to ‘be printed through the metropolis by the day bellman. In 1553, the Crier was paid 13d for ‘ridunge the banes’ (studying the banns or adverts for the Chester Mystery Performs. In 1598, Bellman Richard Woodcock should have been dressed in a similar way to the London Bellman, for he had ‘a tymber mast typt at the two endes and embellished in the middest with silver. In 1620, there was a battle at the cross amongst the butchers and the bakers in which the ‘Cryer brake his Mace in peeces Amonge them’. In 1607, 1 public notice study by George Tunnall, the bellman, forbade tipping garbage in the river. In 1715, a nearby man recorded that the’Belman at the Cross … Reads publicly a proclamation in the Mayor’s title, commanding all persons in the City to bee of peaceable and civil behaviour, not to stroll close to the Streets or Rows at unreasonable hrs of night’. In 1743, John Posnitt took about as ‘Day and Evening Bellman’. In 1792, Chester had a day and night time bellman, John Yarwood and a crier, William Ratcliffe, but by 1835 there would seem to have been only one position. It was not till 1998 that Chester had a crier and a bellman once again.
City criers have been safeguarded by the ruling monarch, as they at times brought poor information, for case in point, tax raises. To this day, any Town Crier in the British Commonwealth is safeguarded under outdated English legislation that they are not to be hindered or heckled although doing their duties. To injure or hurt a City Crier was witnessed as an act of treason against the ruling monarchy. This is how the term "don’t shoot the messenger" arrived about. A minor recognized reality is that the term "Posting A Recognize" in fact will come from the act of the Town Crier, who getting go through his communication to the Townspeople, would attach it to the door publish of the local Inn or Tavern, so that it could be examine by any person who could read it for themselves—normally only the clergy and wealthy land homeowners could do this.
For the most portion, the citizens of the cities relied on the crier for the most recent info, be it great or negative information. These could contain Famine, War, Feast, and Taxation Alterations. Bear in mind there was no radio or Television in olden Days!
Criers had been not often guys. Many Town Criers had been ladies. Bells were not the only consideration acquiring device. In Holland, a gong was the instrument of option for several, and in France they utilised a drum, or a hunting horn.