January 14, 2021 • 25 mins
Don't shoot the messenger! as Matt and Helen talk about Town Criers. David Mitchell brings his booming voice to the show to give Matt and Helen the scoop on what it takes to be a Town Crier. Matt and Helen are inspired to try it out for themselves.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. This is jobs elite.
I'm Matt beat and I'm Helen Hong, and today we're
talking about the town crier. Get it. Yes, there are
at least a dozen, maybe more instances historically in Britain
(00:23):
of town cries who have the job who were blind.
Think about how you get the news today. It's inescapable, right,
you get the news even when you're trying to avoid it. Now,
remember how folks got the news before the Internet or
before any mass communications. Now, imagine going back further back,
(00:44):
before even the printing press was invented in fourteen forty. Well,
in fourteen forty, the majority of the world could not read.
If you learn something new, someone told you something new. Well,
as you could imagine, this could lead to lots of
misinformation and just straight up rumors being spread around. Who
(01:06):
could you really trust regarding the latest market sale or beheading?
So here, ye, here, ye gather around as today we
learned loudly and clearly all about the town crier. I
love that you pose that question, And now I'm like, yeah,
who could you trust about the latest be heading? And
(01:30):
I think it's like, it's so interesting to think because
you're right, we do take it for granted that everyone
knows how to read and and today in our society,
if you run into someone who's illiterate, it's very unusual.
But there wasn't time not that long ago, where lots
of people didn't know how to read. Right, Yeah, I
actually have statistics on this. I knew you would. Yeah,
(01:51):
I'm just gonna pull them straight out of nowhere. No,
this is you can look this up. But this is
a relatively new thing. And in terms of like society,
das all being able to read and write. So literacy
rates historically have been very low, and it was really
only the last few hundred years it's picked up. And
really the first countries that attempted to have onecent literacy
(02:14):
in their countries did so only in the eighteen hundreds.
My grandmother did not to read. That's crazy. My maternal grandmother,
who lived with us and helped raise me for a
while in my childhood, learned how to read, like I
want to say, in her forties or fifties, and so
when she read anything, she read it very slowly and
(02:37):
very haltingly, like she was clearly not like a natural reader.
Like she would read the Bible out loud, and it
would be like painfully slow because she had just learned
how to read. That's crazy. Yeah, I just you know,
I watched my six year old just reading, you know,
like I don't think I was I was reading at
that young of age. But it's it's an amazing thing
(02:58):
that we can read and right. And as late as
nineteen seventy, thirty seven percent of the world could still
not read or write, and today that numbers down to
but but yeah, it's we take it kind of for
granted today. So are you saying the town crier was
the Twitter of the day, Matt? The town crier was, yeah,
(03:19):
literally the news, Like you know, well, let's just get
into the definition here what the town crier was. The
town crier sometimes called a bellman or historical newscaster actually,
but the town crier was a person employed to make
public announcements. And usually it was in a part of
town where there was a lot of people out and
about and they'd gather around, and you know, these announcements
(03:43):
were simply just the news, or maybe it was proclamations
or new laws announced to the public. I am only
mildly familiar with this job. Because it does come up
in movies, right, like in in period pieces, especially like
medieval times, you'll see this character of the person who
likes you know, it's like hey, yeah, hey yeah, and
(04:06):
then they stand on a box or something and they
like maybe they sometimes they unroll a scroll, like unfurl
a long scroll and they'll read something out loud, or
sometimes they seem to be like a messenger directly from
the king, who's you know, like you know, kind of
driving from town to town to give the bad news
(04:26):
from the king or whatever. So I'm only familiar with
this job from from you know, from the way that
it's depicted in movies. I guess, well, yeah, I mean
I've seen the town crier in person, but it was
at a Renaissance festival, so I don't know if that counts.
When you happen to the Renaissance fair, there's a town
crier character there, Yeah, typically somebody does fill that role,
(04:46):
you know, and it's I think it is kind of
it always goes back to medieval times. Yeah, that's that's
kind of I think that's the I think that's the
stereotype of the town criers, that it's it's medieval times
and it's always like in Europe and they're they're dressed
up in like the freely blouse and like a big
hat with a feather in it or something, and they're
(05:08):
like here, yeah, here, yeah. Like that's kind of my
impression of the stereotype of a town crier. How accurate
is that? Would you say? Well, the heyday kind of
was in the Middle Ages, but it it actually went.
There were town criers all the way up into the
twentieth century, believe it or not. But we're going to
hear from an expert on the on the town crier,
and that is David Mitchell. So let's just have him
(05:29):
introduce himself here. So my name is David Mitchell and
the town crier of Chester, England and allegedly the world's
most talented, handsome and humble town crier. I'm also the
author of this fabulous book, The Word on the Street
History of the town Crier and Bellman. The first time
ever a history of these two historic, essentially historic roles
(05:52):
has ever been published. It's a fantastic book. It's only
been out just over a year and I've read it
forty times already. Like this guy, he is humbul wait
so he is currently a town crier. Is that what
he said? Yeah, he does. He is a town crier
in a town called Chester, England. He is I believe
(06:15):
there are others just like him, but he, I believe
is the main one who. Well, this is assuming that
things are back to normal. But every Tuesday to Saturday
between June and August, they they're about this big pedestrian
area in Chester and they're out there like with proclamations
and gathering people around with big announcements. And I assume
(06:37):
if he's doing this today in that he it's like
a tourism thing or like he's not actually giving the
actual news. Yeah, it's for tourism. But that's cool that
he's I love that he's like a town crier. And
he also literally wrote the book on town crying. I
love that that he's read forty times already. He course
(07:00):
goes through the whole history of the town crier, and
so he actually had an interest anything about the origin
of town criers. Okay, nobody knows the history of the
origin of town criers because before you have printing, before
you had microphones, the only way you could reach people
any efficient way rather than just individually is to go
(07:22):
to the places where they gathered and typically the marketplace,
and have somebody with a loud voice and an attention
gaining device which was usually a bell, but sometimes a
drum or a trumpet or a bugle, and address the people,
having got their attention addressed them on mass. That is
such a good point because if the reason why town
(07:42):
criers existed was because nobody could read, and hence nobody
was writing things down, you wouldn't have like a historical
reference to town crier because nobody was writing things down.
Very good point. Yeah, a record of it, But so much,
you know, throughout history is just passed on verbally. We
all know about the telephone game. You know, you have
(08:03):
a line of students or whoever, and you whisper something
into their ear and it goes down the line and
then by the time it gets to the end of
the line, it's something completely different than what it was
when it started. Well that the town crier had to
make sure that they got it right, and they did.
They were credible. People believe them, and they had you know,
they were accurate from what I could gather. So do
you so, does he have any idea how far back.
(08:26):
I mean, I know he doesn't have an exact idea
because there's nothing written down in the record, but like
you know, we're their town criers and like biblical times.
But if you wanted to look in the Bible, in
the Old Testament, you can find in the Book of
Proverbs an exact allow doesn't use the word town cry.
There is an exact description both in Proverbs want and
Proverbs eight of a character called Wisdom standing in the
(08:49):
market square raising a voice to all the passers by.
And also we have records of they were probably town criers.
In ancient Greece, there was a down crier with the
Spartan runners, and the most common proclamations that they made
would be that they were going to war because somebody
done messed up. So I actually, in preparation for today's recording,
(09:13):
asked my dad if he knew if Korea had town
criers back in the day, and he said, there wasn't
actually like one person whose job it was, but there
would like if there was a proclamation from the king,
it would get written down and it would get posted
in a public place, like you said, like a marketplace
or like the town square or something, and then people
(09:33):
would just kind of stand around and ask each other
like do you can you read it? Can you? Does
anyone want to read it? And like the one and
like one of like the three people in the town
that knew how to read would actually be the ones
that I guess took the town crier job. Essentially. Yeah.
After proclaiming the message, the town crier often would attach
(09:55):
what they had just read to a doorpost at a
local inn or someplace that where people walked by a lot.
It was called posting a notice and fun fact is
the reason why newspapers today are often called the post
fun fact that it was very fun. So he also
(10:22):
mentioned that they're sometimes called bellman. Oh. Yes, they did
ring a bell to get people's attention. I mean, here
you hear you could only go so far, so you
need to have something really loud that they could ring,
although in other places they had different instruments. He mentioned
a bugle. Sometimes there were trumpets or drums or even
gong's to get people's attention. Really, I would always go
(10:46):
with a gong. Gone makes sense to me. Nobody's ignoring
a gong. Actually, this is a question that kind of
was piqued from my curiosity is like, you know, we
trust our family and our friends to give us new information.
Why did we really need town cry triers? I mean,
couldn't people just spread word one by one? I'd mentioned
the telephone game and all that, but still, you know,
how can we know for sure that this town crier
(11:07):
wasn't spreading fake news? You know? Point yeah, especially in
today's world where there's like rampant fake news. Yeah, how
did you know, like could you bribe a town crier
to to say like something not correct? Or like how
did you know to trust the town crier? Like did
he have some sort of legitimate credits or something? When
(11:28):
I researched this, I could not find any, of course,
documentation of a town crier actually being you know, charged
with bribery. But surely it happened, all right, So what
were the credentials that you had to have to have
this job? Like I assume you had to read, but
what what were the other things that you needed to
(11:49):
have to possess to have this job? They had to
have a degree in town cryology. I'm kidding. Oh that
was what, wasn't it? Im? Sorry? Was really bad? Okay? Now,
first of all, they did have to be well spoken
and intelligent. That was definitely something that made sense. I mean,
and they had to be a centaurion. What I assume
(12:11):
you're gonna you want me to ask you what is
a centaurion? Centaurians were people that had loud voices. Wait,
centurion literally means someone with a loud voice. Yeah. Yeah,
they can really wail, they can they can really shout.
So here's David Mitchell to describe more specifically the requirements.
(12:33):
The prerequisite for being a town cry would have fluctuated
throughout history to a degree, but the primary basic requirement
will be somebody with a loud enough voice to reach
the crowd in the gathering places. Generally speaking, a town
cry would also be able to read, because the announcement
would often be given to him on a piece of paper.
(12:54):
So we need to be able to read out loud. Wow. Yeah,
because they didn't have they didn't have p A systems
back in the day, right, or they didn't they didn't
even have those like bull horn things like the cheerleaders
used to use. Yeah yeah, those did not come around
till later too, surprisingly, so so they must have been
I mean, they must have had a really like be
(13:15):
able to like broadway level diaphragm to be able to
reach the the people in the back because if there,
you know, if they're talking to like everybody in the town,
you better have to a really loud voice. So you
have to have a loud, booming voice, an air of
confidence to command attention for all the people in the town.
(13:36):
And you usually had to be able to read, because
the messages came in in written form. You know, not
all of them knew how to read. Wait what yeah,
so get this. Uh. There were a few town criers
that were blind. Yes, there are at least a dozen,
maybe more instances historically in Britain of town criers who
(13:58):
had the job who were blind. In fact, there was
a town just in the up in the northeast that
seemed to have had a policy of appointing blind cries.
That might seem like a strange thing to do, but
in the days before you had social services and people
making provision for people who couldn't undertake ordinary jobs, this
(14:19):
scheme seems to be a kindness that they would appoint
these people to give them a useful income earning role
in society which they could carry out with their disability. Wow.
But also didn't you have to be able to read.
If you're like reading the proclamations from the king and
they're coming to you on a you know, like a
(14:39):
little written scroll or something. They were just given verbally
and they just memorized it and they had good memory. Wow,
that is you know, I've never seen blind town criers
in any of the movies or the TV shows that
have tongue writers. You know what, I also have never
seen matt is a woman town crier. Did they? They
(15:00):
did exist. There are accounts of women town criers. Yes,
we should probably talk about the heralds as well. This
is a special type of town crier. It would basically
be the town criers who were specifically for the royal
courts or the proclamations by the king or queen. There
was another system, the national system, whereby if the king
(15:23):
or queen, but usually the king, wanted to make an
announcement to the whole population, he would use a herald
and that was the same basic, same technology. Somebody going
to the main governing places again the market, usually a
market square, the market cross, but this time be a
higher status official care of a royal herald or sometimes
the local sheriff and he would make basically the same
(15:46):
kind of announcement, but it would be something of applying nationally.
Oh so so this guy came in from like the
King's castle and was like if you guys don't settled down, yeah,
and so they would have to have protection. A lot
of times the crowd would get a little rowdy, and
you know, especially if there was something where they'd have
(16:08):
to pay more taxes or yeah, be drafted into the
oh yeah, yeah. If a guy, if a guy rolls
into town and he's like, guess what your taxes are
going up ten, I'd be like, what who is this?
Beat this guy up? So there's there's an old saying,
you know that old saying, don't shoot the messenger. Yes,
(16:29):
that that comes that goes back to the town crier.
Really quite literally, people might you know, be angry enough
of the town crier. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna so
it kind of goes back to the don't shoot the messenger. Yeah,
that makes sense. To this day, English law still states
that they are quote not to be hindered or heckled
while performing their duties. Apparently that's wow, that's as a
(16:54):
stand up comedian, there is no law protecting us from
hindering or pulling. Yeah, wouldn't that be nice though? So
did they have like armed guards? Generally speaking, it was
(17:18):
not a dangerous job, but occasionally there have been instances
where town crier upset someone. Plus if he did upset somebody,
the town criers carrying a large metal object with which
to defend himself. And at night, on the night shift,
the night bellman had a think called a halberd, which
is six ft long pole with an ax plade on
the end of it, and he would also be followed
(17:40):
around by a dog who was off a leash and
generally trained to be able to attack anybody. What these
town criers were packing? Wait, so some of them were
carrying a large metal object. Well, I mean, here's the thing.
The night bellman also was some This is really the
(18:01):
night watchman. So they were really the ones who went
around at night to make sure that everything was safe.
They had the authority to make arrests. They were basically
law enforcement, kind of the precursor to the modern police.
And so yeah, they still made announcements while they were
doing that job, but it was it was a dangerous
job at night. You know who who who knows who
could be out when they were out doing that. So
(18:22):
as far as screaming in the middle of the night,
you might be wondering, why are they screaming making big
announcements in the middle of night? What do you think
that's about? I have no idea. Well, here's one thing
you might hear at, say, two o'clock in the morning,
two of the clock and all's whoa, yeah, that does
(18:43):
ring a bell? Like I feel that sound familiar? Yeah,
I feel like I have seen that in a movie somewhere.
Two of the clock and all's well. Wait, so they're
just saying, like, everything's cool. Yeah, do you wake up
every night at two o'clock? I you know what, honestly,
if I heard if somebody woke me up by saying, hey,
it's two a m. And everything's cool, be so annoyed.
(19:05):
I would be so annoyed. I feel like I didn't
need to know that I was asleep. Bro. So people
are often interested in why we always begin our proclamations
oh yea, oh yeah, oh yeah. Well, the first thing
to say is that if you've got people walking past
you in in the market square, there are not they're
not necessarily knowing that you're about to make an announcement,
(19:27):
so you need to get them to tune in. If
you just started the announcement before their tune in, they're
going to miss your first words. So you do two
things to get their attention. You use your attention gaining device,
and you also shout out these three words oh yea,
oh yea, oh yeah, now oh yeah. Derives from the
(19:47):
fact that we were invaded, as you may know in
Tense sixty six by the Norman French and their historic word.
I don't think it's used quite as much these days,
but there word for listen when it was a command
was oh yea, so we still use that Norman French
word for listen. I was like, taken aback that he had,
like actually the bell, Like he's legit, the experts actually
(20:10):
legit because he's like your attention getting advice, ding ding
ding ding ding. I was like, whoa, but no, yeah,
he is a town crier. We should probably get into
whatever became of town criers, because not everybody is like David,
you probably already know this. I mean, what would be
your assumption as far as the biggest reason why we
don't have town criers? Anymore because people learned how to read. Yeah.
(20:32):
Also just the just technology in general, with communication, yeah, everything.
I mean, I assume probably the first of those things
would be like newspapers, right where like the population started
reading more, and then like printing, like you know, widespread
printing became available, so you could like get a newspaper
(20:53):
and even if you say you didn't know how to read,
you could actually get the newspaper and find someone who
knew how to read to read it to you. Yeah,
the printing press was the game changer. The printing press
made it so that you could mass produce printed material.
You didn't have to write it out by hand. And
so yeah, I think it's time to hear a pro
do it. Yeah, we're gonna hear David David do a
(21:14):
proper town cry. Yeah, ohiya oia, oh yeah from our
colonies in America. News has just reached Chester our protests
(21:35):
against British taxation. It is even rumored that the colonists
are going to fight for independence. But obviously it is
quite inconceivable that America could ever learn to govern herself.
Man much as easily imagine that one day he will
(21:57):
fly through the sky, oh walk on the surface of
the moon. In Boston, we hear that chests of tea
have been thrown into the harbor. Let me ask our
colonial cousins, will you ever learn how to make a
(22:17):
decent cup of tea? First? You should have boiled the harbor,
then made the tea. Get that right, and you might
be ready for self government. But even then, would you
follow our perfect model and choose a king? Who would you,
(22:38):
in your foolish vanity, prefer to elect a president and
thereby think to trump us. See how that works out
for you on your own heads. Bit, God save the King. Wow,
that was amazing. Always ended it with God Save the
(23:01):
King or God Save the Queen. It was really good
because it was funny and it had a lot of personality,
and it also threw some shade. It threw some sade.
A man, what a show. Okay, So we're going to
have a cry off here and I don't think we
can we can top that, but we're going to do
our best. Oh, I wish I had a bell. I
wish I had a bell. Sound Can we get sound
(23:22):
effects in and like put a bell as if I'm
ringing a bell? I they can add in post Okay,
oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, I comment with news
from Washington, d C. Hey virus as continue you to
spread take heed, wash thy hands to protect your family,
(23:45):
wear thy masks to end this disease. Stay in your homes,
keep very low key. If we all do this well,
then it will be a breeze. God save the Queen.
All right, wow, Matt, I'm super impressed. You're being too kind,
but thank you. Very impressive. All right, is it my turn?
(24:09):
Time for the gangster rip? All right, here we go again.
I wasn't really sure how to do it, so it's
not quite well. All right here we here we go, here,
ye here ye, how do you all be? I'm recording
job Sleete with my friend Matt beat. It's a real treat.
(24:32):
I hope you think it's neat. If you dig it,
please retweet because we think it's real sweet. But we're new,
so we're still petite. God save the Queen so much.
You should have you should have boxed. Hey, what you
(25:00):
think about our town cry off? If you want to
vote for who did the best town cry? Or if
you want to send us your own town cry, you
can tweet us at job Sleete. Pod job Sleete is
produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing hand Forge
Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen Hong That's
(25:21):
Me and Matt beat That's Me. The show was conceived
and produced by Anthony Savini, Jason Elliott, and Steve Zamrki.
Our editor is Tommy Nichol, Our researcher is Amelia Paulka,
our production coordinator is Angie Hymes, and theme music is
by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to our I
Heart Radio team led by Nikki Eatore, Katrina Norvell, Ali Cantor,
(25:45):
Mangesh Hattie Kador, Will Pearson, conal Burne and Bob Pittman
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. This is jobs elite.
I'm Matt beat and I'm Helen Hong, and today we're
talking about the town crier. Get it. Yes, there are
at least a dozen, maybe more instances historically in Britain
(00:23):
of town cries who have the job who were blind.
Think about how you get the news today. It's inescapable, right,
you get the news even when you're trying to avoid it. Now,
remember how folks got the news before the Internet or
before any mass communications. Now, imagine going back further back,
(00:44):
before even the printing press was invented in fourteen forty. Well,
in fourteen forty, the majority of the world could not read.
If you learn something new, someone told you something new. Well,
as you could imagine, this could lead to lots of
misinformation and just straight up rumors being spread around. Who
(01:06):
could you really trust regarding the latest market sale or beheading?
So here, ye, here, ye gather around as today we
learned loudly and clearly all about the town crier. I
love that you pose that question, And now I'm like, yeah,
who could you trust about the latest be heading? And
(01:30):
I think it's like, it's so interesting to think because
you're right, we do take it for granted that everyone
knows how to read and and today in our society,
if you run into someone who's illiterate, it's very unusual.
But there wasn't time not that long ago, where lots
of people didn't know how to read. Right, Yeah, I
actually have statistics on this. I knew you would. Yeah,
(01:51):
I'm just gonna pull them straight out of nowhere. No,
this is you can look this up. But this is
a relatively new thing. And in terms of like society,
das all being able to read and write. So literacy
rates historically have been very low, and it was really
only the last few hundred years it's picked up. And
really the first countries that attempted to have onecent literacy
(02:14):
in their countries did so only in the eighteen hundreds.
My grandmother did not to read. That's crazy. My maternal grandmother,
who lived with us and helped raise me for a
while in my childhood, learned how to read, like I
want to say, in her forties or fifties, and so
when she read anything, she read it very slowly and
(02:37):
very haltingly, like she was clearly not like a natural reader.
Like she would read the Bible out loud, and it
would be like painfully slow because she had just learned
how to read. That's crazy. Yeah, I just you know,
I watched my six year old just reading, you know,
like I don't think I was I was reading at
that young of age. But it's it's an amazing thing
(02:58):
that we can read and right. And as late as
nineteen seventy, thirty seven percent of the world could still
not read or write, and today that numbers down to
but but yeah, it's we take it kind of for
granted today. So are you saying the town crier was
the Twitter of the day, Matt? The town crier was, yeah,
(03:19):
literally the news, Like you know, well, let's just get
into the definition here what the town crier was. The
town crier sometimes called a bellman or historical newscaster actually,
but the town crier was a person employed to make
public announcements. And usually it was in a part of
town where there was a lot of people out and
about and they'd gather around, and you know, these announcements
(03:43):
were simply just the news, or maybe it was proclamations
or new laws announced to the public. I am only
mildly familiar with this job. Because it does come up
in movies, right, like in in period pieces, especially like
medieval times, you'll see this character of the person who
likes you know, it's like hey, yeah, hey yeah, and
(04:06):
then they stand on a box or something and they
like maybe they sometimes they unroll a scroll, like unfurl
a long scroll and they'll read something out loud, or
sometimes they seem to be like a messenger directly from
the king, who's you know, like you know, kind of
driving from town to town to give the bad news
(04:26):
from the king or whatever. So I'm only familiar with
this job from from you know, from the way that
it's depicted in movies. I guess, well, yeah, I mean
I've seen the town crier in person, but it was
at a Renaissance festival, so I don't know if that counts.
When you happen to the Renaissance fair, there's a town
crier character there, Yeah, typically somebody does fill that role,
(04:46):
you know, and it's I think it is kind of
it always goes back to medieval times. Yeah, that's that's
kind of I think that's the I think that's the
stereotype of the town criers, that it's it's medieval times
and it's always like in Europe and they're they're dressed
up in like the freely blouse and like a big
hat with a feather in it or something, and they're
(05:08):
like here, yeah, here, yeah. Like that's kind of my
impression of the stereotype of a town crier. How accurate
is that? Would you say? Well, the heyday kind of
was in the Middle Ages, but it it actually went.
There were town criers all the way up into the
twentieth century, believe it or not. But we're going to
hear from an expert on the on the town crier,
and that is David Mitchell. So let's just have him
(05:29):
introduce himself here. So my name is David Mitchell and
the town crier of Chester, England and allegedly the world's
most talented, handsome and humble town crier. I'm also the
author of this fabulous book, The Word on the Street
History of the town Crier and Bellman. The first time
ever a history of these two historic, essentially historic roles
(05:52):
has ever been published. It's a fantastic book. It's only
been out just over a year and I've read it
forty times already. Like this guy, he is humbul wait
so he is currently a town crier. Is that what
he said? Yeah, he does. He is a town crier
in a town called Chester, England. He is I believe
(06:15):
there are others just like him, but he, I believe
is the main one who. Well, this is assuming that
things are back to normal. But every Tuesday to Saturday
between June and August, they they're about this big pedestrian
area in Chester and they're out there like with proclamations
and gathering people around with big announcements. And I assume
(06:37):
if he's doing this today in that he it's like
a tourism thing or like he's not actually giving the
actual news. Yeah, it's for tourism. But that's cool that
he's I love that he's like a town crier. And
he also literally wrote the book on town crying. I
love that that he's read forty times already. He course
(07:00):
goes through the whole history of the town crier, and
so he actually had an interest anything about the origin
of town criers. Okay, nobody knows the history of the
origin of town criers because before you have printing, before
you had microphones, the only way you could reach people
any efficient way rather than just individually is to go
(07:22):
to the places where they gathered and typically the marketplace,
and have somebody with a loud voice and an attention
gaining device which was usually a bell, but sometimes a
drum or a trumpet or a bugle, and address the people,
having got their attention addressed them on mass. That is
such a good point because if the reason why town
(07:42):
criers existed was because nobody could read, and hence nobody
was writing things down, you wouldn't have like a historical
reference to town crier because nobody was writing things down.
Very good point. Yeah, a record of it, But so much,
you know, throughout history is just passed on verbally. We
all know about the telephone game. You know, you have
(08:03):
a line of students or whoever, and you whisper something
into their ear and it goes down the line and
then by the time it gets to the end of
the line, it's something completely different than what it was
when it started. Well that the town crier had to
make sure that they got it right, and they did.
They were credible. People believe them, and they had you know,
they were accurate from what I could gather. So do
you so, does he have any idea how far back.
(08:26):
I mean, I know he doesn't have an exact idea
because there's nothing written down in the record, but like
you know, we're their town criers and like biblical times.
But if you wanted to look in the Bible, in
the Old Testament, you can find in the Book of
Proverbs an exact allow doesn't use the word town cry.
There is an exact description both in Proverbs want and
Proverbs eight of a character called Wisdom standing in the
(08:49):
market square raising a voice to all the passers by.
And also we have records of they were probably town criers.
In ancient Greece, there was a down crier with the
Spartan runners, and the most common proclamations that they made
would be that they were going to war because somebody
done messed up. So I actually, in preparation for today's recording,
(09:13):
asked my dad if he knew if Korea had town
criers back in the day, and he said, there wasn't
actually like one person whose job it was, but there
would like if there was a proclamation from the king,
it would get written down and it would get posted
in a public place, like you said, like a marketplace
or like the town square or something, and then people
(09:33):
would just kind of stand around and ask each other
like do you can you read it? Can you? Does
anyone want to read it? And like the one and
like one of like the three people in the town
that knew how to read would actually be the ones
that I guess took the town crier job. Essentially. Yeah.
After proclaiming the message, the town crier often would attach
(09:55):
what they had just read to a doorpost at a
local inn or someplace that where people walked by a lot.
It was called posting a notice and fun fact is
the reason why newspapers today are often called the post
fun fact that it was very fun. So he also
(10:22):
mentioned that they're sometimes called bellman. Oh. Yes, they did
ring a bell to get people's attention. I mean, here
you hear you could only go so far, so you
need to have something really loud that they could ring,
although in other places they had different instruments. He mentioned
a bugle. Sometimes there were trumpets or drums or even
gong's to get people's attention. Really, I would always go
(10:46):
with a gong. Gone makes sense to me. Nobody's ignoring
a gong. Actually, this is a question that kind of
was piqued from my curiosity is like, you know, we
trust our family and our friends to give us new information.
Why did we really need town cry triers? I mean,
couldn't people just spread word one by one? I'd mentioned
the telephone game and all that, but still, you know,
how can we know for sure that this town crier
(11:07):
wasn't spreading fake news? You know? Point yeah, especially in
today's world where there's like rampant fake news. Yeah, how
did you know, like could you bribe a town crier
to to say like something not correct? Or like how
did you know to trust the town crier? Like did
he have some sort of legitimate credits or something? When
(11:28):
I researched this, I could not find any, of course,
documentation of a town crier actually being you know, charged
with bribery. But surely it happened, all right, So what
were the credentials that you had to have to have
this job? Like I assume you had to read, but
what what were the other things that you needed to
(11:49):
have to possess to have this job? They had to
have a degree in town cryology. I'm kidding. Oh that
was what, wasn't it? Im? Sorry? Was really bad? Okay? Now,
first of all, they did have to be well spoken
and intelligent. That was definitely something that made sense. I mean,
and they had to be a centaurion. What I assume
(12:11):
you're gonna you want me to ask you what is
a centaurion? Centaurians were people that had loud voices. Wait,
centurion literally means someone with a loud voice. Yeah. Yeah,
they can really wail, they can they can really shout.
So here's David Mitchell to describe more specifically the requirements.
(12:33):
The prerequisite for being a town cry would have fluctuated
throughout history to a degree, but the primary basic requirement
will be somebody with a loud enough voice to reach
the crowd in the gathering places. Generally speaking, a town
cry would also be able to read, because the announcement
would often be given to him on a piece of paper.
(12:54):
So we need to be able to read out loud. Wow. Yeah,
because they didn't have they didn't have p A systems
back in the day, right, or they didn't they didn't
even have those like bull horn things like the cheerleaders
used to use. Yeah yeah, those did not come around
till later too, surprisingly, so so they must have been
I mean, they must have had a really like be
(13:15):
able to like broadway level diaphragm to be able to
reach the the people in the back because if there,
you know, if they're talking to like everybody in the town,
you better have to a really loud voice. So you
have to have a loud, booming voice, an air of
confidence to command attention for all the people in the town.
(13:36):
And you usually had to be able to read, because
the messages came in in written form. You know, not
all of them knew how to read. Wait what yeah,
so get this. Uh. There were a few town criers
that were blind. Yes, there are at least a dozen,
maybe more instances historically in Britain of town criers who
(13:58):
had the job who were blind. In fact, there was
a town just in the up in the northeast that
seemed to have had a policy of appointing blind cries.
That might seem like a strange thing to do, but
in the days before you had social services and people
making provision for people who couldn't undertake ordinary jobs, this
(14:19):
scheme seems to be a kindness that they would appoint
these people to give them a useful income earning role
in society which they could carry out with their disability. Wow.
But also didn't you have to be able to read.
If you're like reading the proclamations from the king and
they're coming to you on a you know, like a
(14:39):
little written scroll or something. They were just given verbally
and they just memorized it and they had good memory. Wow,
that is you know, I've never seen blind town criers
in any of the movies or the TV shows that
have tongue writers. You know what, I also have never
seen matt is a woman town crier. Did they? They
(15:00):
did exist. There are accounts of women town criers. Yes,
we should probably talk about the heralds as well. This
is a special type of town crier. It would basically
be the town criers who were specifically for the royal
courts or the proclamations by the king or queen. There
was another system, the national system, whereby if the king
(15:23):
or queen, but usually the king, wanted to make an
announcement to the whole population, he would use a herald
and that was the same basic, same technology. Somebody going
to the main governing places again the market, usually a
market square, the market cross, but this time be a
higher status official care of a royal herald or sometimes
the local sheriff and he would make basically the same
(15:46):
kind of announcement, but it would be something of applying nationally.
Oh so so this guy came in from like the
King's castle and was like if you guys don't settled down, yeah,
and so they would have to have protection. A lot
of times the crowd would get a little rowdy, and
you know, especially if there was something where they'd have
(16:08):
to pay more taxes or yeah, be drafted into the
oh yeah, yeah. If a guy, if a guy rolls
into town and he's like, guess what your taxes are
going up ten, I'd be like, what who is this?
Beat this guy up? So there's there's an old saying,
you know that old saying, don't shoot the messenger. Yes,
(16:29):
that that comes that goes back to the town crier.
Really quite literally, people might you know, be angry enough
of the town crier. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna so
it kind of goes back to the don't shoot the messenger. Yeah,
that makes sense. To this day, English law still states
that they are quote not to be hindered or heckled
while performing their duties. Apparently that's wow, that's as a
(16:54):
stand up comedian, there is no law protecting us from
hindering or pulling. Yeah, wouldn't that be nice though? So
did they have like armed guards? Generally speaking, it was
(17:18):
not a dangerous job, but occasionally there have been instances
where town crier upset someone. Plus if he did upset somebody,
the town criers carrying a large metal object with which
to defend himself. And at night, on the night shift,
the night bellman had a think called a halberd, which
is six ft long pole with an ax plade on
the end of it, and he would also be followed
(17:40):
around by a dog who was off a leash and
generally trained to be able to attack anybody. What these
town criers were packing? Wait, so some of them were
carrying a large metal object. Well, I mean, here's the thing.
The night bellman also was some This is really the
(18:01):
night watchman. So they were really the ones who went
around at night to make sure that everything was safe.
They had the authority to make arrests. They were basically
law enforcement, kind of the precursor to the modern police.
And so yeah, they still made announcements while they were
doing that job, but it was it was a dangerous
job at night. You know who who who knows who
could be out when they were out doing that. So
(18:22):
as far as screaming in the middle of the night,
you might be wondering, why are they screaming making big
announcements in the middle of night? What do you think
that's about? I have no idea. Well, here's one thing
you might hear at, say, two o'clock in the morning,
two of the clock and all's whoa, yeah, that does
(18:43):
ring a bell? Like I feel that sound familiar? Yeah,
I feel like I have seen that in a movie somewhere.
Two of the clock and all's well. Wait, so they're
just saying, like, everything's cool. Yeah, do you wake up
every night at two o'clock? I you know what, honestly,
if I heard if somebody woke me up by saying, hey,
it's two a m. And everything's cool, be so annoyed.
(19:05):
I would be so annoyed. I feel like I didn't
need to know that I was asleep. Bro. So people
are often interested in why we always begin our proclamations
oh yea, oh yeah, oh yeah. Well, the first thing
to say is that if you've got people walking past
you in in the market square, there are not they're
not necessarily knowing that you're about to make an announcement,
(19:27):
so you need to get them to tune in. If
you just started the announcement before their tune in, they're
going to miss your first words. So you do two
things to get their attention. You use your attention gaining device,
and you also shout out these three words oh yea,
oh yea, oh yeah, now oh yeah. Derives from the
(19:47):
fact that we were invaded, as you may know in
Tense sixty six by the Norman French and their historic word.
I don't think it's used quite as much these days,
but there word for listen when it was a command
was oh yea, so we still use that Norman French
word for listen. I was like, taken aback that he had,
like actually the bell, Like he's legit, the experts actually
(20:10):
legit because he's like your attention getting advice, ding ding
ding ding ding. I was like, whoa, but no, yeah,
he is a town crier. We should probably get into
whatever became of town criers, because not everybody is like David,
you probably already know this. I mean, what would be
your assumption as far as the biggest reason why we
don't have town criers? Anymore because people learned how to read. Yeah.
(20:32):
Also just the just technology in general, with communication, yeah, everything.
I mean, I assume probably the first of those things
would be like newspapers, right where like the population started
reading more, and then like printing, like you know, widespread
printing became available, so you could like get a newspaper
(20:53):
and even if you say you didn't know how to read,
you could actually get the newspaper and find someone who
knew how to read to read it to you. Yeah,
the printing press was the game changer. The printing press
made it so that you could mass produce printed material.
You didn't have to write it out by hand. And
so yeah, I think it's time to hear a pro
do it. Yeah, we're gonna hear David David do a
(21:14):
proper town cry. Yeah, ohiya oia, oh yeah from our
colonies in America. News has just reached Chester our protests
(21:35):
against British taxation. It is even rumored that the colonists
are going to fight for independence. But obviously it is
quite inconceivable that America could ever learn to govern herself.
Man much as easily imagine that one day he will
(21:57):
fly through the sky, oh walk on the surface of
the moon. In Boston, we hear that chests of tea
have been thrown into the harbor. Let me ask our
colonial cousins, will you ever learn how to make a
(22:17):
decent cup of tea? First? You should have boiled the harbor,
then made the tea. Get that right, and you might
be ready for self government. But even then, would you
follow our perfect model and choose a king? Who would you,
(22:38):
in your foolish vanity, prefer to elect a president and
thereby think to trump us. See how that works out
for you on your own heads. Bit, God save the King. Wow,
that was amazing. Always ended it with God Save the
(23:01):
King or God Save the Queen. It was really good
because it was funny and it had a lot of personality,
and it also threw some shade. It threw some sade.
A man, what a show. Okay, So we're going to
have a cry off here and I don't think we
can we can top that, but we're going to do
our best. Oh, I wish I had a bell. I
wish I had a bell. Sound Can we get sound
(23:22):
effects in and like put a bell as if I'm
ringing a bell? I they can add in post Okay,
oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, I comment with news
from Washington, d C. Hey virus as continue you to
spread take heed, wash thy hands to protect your family,
(23:45):
wear thy masks to end this disease. Stay in your homes,
keep very low key. If we all do this well,
then it will be a breeze. God save the Queen.
All right, wow, Matt, I'm super impressed. You're being too kind,
but thank you. Very impressive. All right, is it my turn?
(24:09):
Time for the gangster rip? All right, here we go again.
I wasn't really sure how to do it, so it's
not quite well. All right here we here we go, here,
ye here ye, how do you all be? I'm recording
job Sleete with my friend Matt beat. It's a real treat.
(24:32):
I hope you think it's neat. If you dig it,
please retweet because we think it's real sweet. But we're new,
so we're still petite. God save the Queen so much.
You should have you should have boxed. Hey, what you
(25:00):
think about our town cry off? If you want to
vote for who did the best town cry? Or if
you want to send us your own town cry, you
can tweet us at job Sleete. Pod job Sleete is
produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing hand Forge
Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen Hong That's
(25:21):
Me and Matt beat That's Me. The show was conceived
and produced by Anthony Savini, Jason Elliott, and Steve Zamrki.
Our editor is Tommy Nichol, Our researcher is Amelia Paulka,
our production coordinator is Angie Hymes, and theme music is
by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to our I
Heart Radio team led by Nikki Eatore, Katrina Norvell, Ali Cantor,
(25:45):
Mangesh Hattie Kador, Will Pearson, conal Burne and Bob Pittman
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