mangonnier

chained_bear commented on the word mangonnier

"Like a botanist enumerating flora and fauna, he distinguished every possible variety of artisan, emphasizing local specialties—glove makers, perfumers, traders in verdigris—and working through the types that proliferated everywhere in early modern cities: cobblers, pewterers, tailors, saddlers, locksmiths, goldsmiths, glaziers, braziers, wig makers, rope makers. The list stretched into hundreds of workshops and lost itself in untranslatable trades—the mangonniers, romainiers, passementiers, palemardiers, plumassiers, and pangustiers—that have since become extinct."

—Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre, And Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 126–127

September 22, 2008

reesetee commented on the word mangonnier

A fishmonger; specifically, a fisherman on the coast of Languedoc.

February 5, 2011