Skills for Medieval Times #OpenBook Blog Hop

What skills do you have that would make you useful in the medieval time period and/or would get you condemned as a witch?

To make this discussion easier, first thing I'm going to do is eliminate any skills that are tied to inventions that didn't exist in medieval times. No computers, no modern-day appliances, no modern medicine. Any one of those would get me condemned as a witch in a flash.

I do have a few skills that existed back then and would make me useful. Sewing, for one. I've sewn some basic clothing by hand and decorated them with embroidery. That was years ago, and I don't have any pictures, but they turned out pretty good, in my humble opinion. Both the basic sewing and the embroidery would make me useful in the Middle Ages.

I also do needlepoint, a skill that would translate well to the tapestries of those years. I've posted pictures of some of my work here before, but I'll show you one.

I might have to do some bartering to get the proper materials to practice that skill, but I think I could find customers for my work.

I'm also pretty good at growing things. Not so good that I'd be accused of being a witch, but good enough to provide food for the community. And I know a little about preserving fruits and vegetables, so that's another reason to keep me around.(Although canning didn't exist back then.)

I have a couple of skills that could go either way. Reading, writing, and arithmetic. Not skills that most people, especially women, had a lot of knowledge of. I'd have to pretend to know less than I do to fit in. The task would be made easier by the language shifts that have occurred in the passing years. I'd sound foolish using the wrong words at the wrong time.

I wanted to include at least one skill that would get me condemned as a witch, but as I've eliminated modern technology, it was hard to come up with something. I'm not skilled with any weapons that might get me into trouble as a woman-no sword fighting for me. And I don't have much knowledge in the way of herbs used as medicine.


But what I decided is that my modern knowledge of earth science might get me in trouble. The whole "the earth is round" and "the earth revolves around the sun" thing. It would be far too easy to let slip some seemingly ordinary scientific fact that people of that time frame didn't know. Something as simple as understanding meteors and comets could put me in the unwanted limelight. Heck, even understanding the link between cleanliness and disease is reason for suspicion.

So, I think it might be safer to stay right where I am, time-wise. And I'll take advantage of modern technology to hop on over and see what the other authors have to say.



July 2, 2018

What skills do you have that would make you useful in the medieval time period and/or would get you condemned as a witch?

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