What was the life of a medieval lawyer like? -

Im doing a project for school that requires me to take on the role of a medieval lawyer and i need to know the following. What were the specific duties of a medieval lawyer? Where would I live? What kind of house would I live in? What kind of clothing would me and my family wear? where would I get the clothing? What kind of food would me and my family eat? How would I prepare the food? Would someone prepare it for me? How much leisure time would I have? What games or activities are popular for children and adults?

What were the specific duties of a medieval lawyer? Where would I live? Well, one can generalize from Medieval life, and carry on from there. What you ought to do is find a book on medieval life and check it out for yourself. Remember that the period was some four of five hundred years long, so there were a number of changes in that time. I can give you some basic information, but not with certainty, never having been a medieval lawyer. What were the specific duties of a medieval lawyer? During the middle ages, law was not nearly the scam it currently is, since the justice system was much more brutal, and much more one-sided. Up until the 15th Century, torture was still an accepted means of eliciting testimony. So, the lawyer of the day was much more like a clerk, and often a cleric as well. Most of the population was still illiterate, recall, so record-keeping was a lot of their purpose in those days. Other than that, they wrote legal papers for the transfer of property, for marriage settlements, and whatever other agreements any two or more people wished to codify between them, through a third party, And were responsible for making the participants copies and for filing the papers with the appropriate authorities. Then, too, at least in Englad, there is a distinct difference between a lawyer and a barrister, one of which mostly does paperwork while the other deals in criminal procedure, and neither the twain mostly meet. What kind of house would I live in? That would depend upon how much money you started out with, where you lived, and whether or not you farmed also, or pursued a craft. Besides the law, that is. In a city, you might well have lived in a small stone house, though there were some, depending on the area, made of timber, and a lot of wattle and daub, which is sort of the olf-style poured concrete. Mostly, the rooms would have been smallish, low-ceilinged and pretty basic, and multi-purpose. What kind of clothing would me and my family wear? The sumptuary laws were still in effect, so that would depend on your birth: noble, gentle or common. Pretty much, as a gentle, you would have been restricted to native fabrics like linen and homespun, perhaps dimity and broadcloth, and the more common furs such as weasel and fox, maybe. I m not sure about which were allowable for which group. where would I get the clothing? In a city, there would be tailors, modistes or seamstresses, though ready-to-wear was not yet available. Many people just made their own, though the poorer people often bought or scrounged used clothing. What kind of food would me and my family eat? Barring a farming capability, mostly they ate bread, veggies and fruit, with the occasional meat--often game birds or smaller mammals. Sugar was practically unheard of, but a favored food was pasties, or small tarts made of any number of things, often something like stew. How would I prepare the food? There were street vendors, and in some cities, eateries just a hair short of restaurants, but mostly, they cooked their food at home. Stoves were not common, though there were some primitives varieties later in the period. Mostly, food was cooked either in cauldrons over the floor, or on spiders; which held the pot or pan off the fire in the fireplace. Some lucky folks had ceramic ovens, and often they just used a brazier to grill or heat their food. Would someone prepare it for me? If you were married, yes. Or if you were able to afford a maid or housekeeper. Some homes kept cooks, but chefs were much less common. Ordinarily, the womenfolk of the house took care of the cooking, as well as the cleaning, laundry and sewing. How much leisure time would I have? Leisure time depended on your income, and your inherited assets. But it wasn t nearly as much as today s working people have. Evenings were probably free, but otherwise, it would depend on how intent you were on making money, and how many routes you took to do so. If one wanted to make good, one often spent many hours a day at one thing or another, to make that money. What games or activities are popular for children and adults? Women mostly worked at things like sewing, knitting, cooking and household type stuff, while men often read--those who could--but they played things like fox and hounds, chess, gambling games like dice, and some card games. Ball games were also popular, and dancing among some groups. Physical games were very popular, as was hunting. And, the traveling players or circuses were always well received. Hygiene was iffy, and waste disposal was usually rough, excepting the occasional outhouse. Bathing, outside the Roman outposts who kept public baths, most people either didn t, or just washed off with a rag and a basin, and not more often than once a week or so. Bathing had at one time been very popular, until the claim that some wormen had gotten pregnant throuogh bathing in a pool used by men. So the gentler b