Why it Sucked to Be a Medieval Blacksmith

You're born in 12th century England. Your parents, peasants. Yeah, that means your life is already set in stone.

They break their backs on some noble's farm. And guess what? You're expected to do the same.

From the moment you pop into the world, the struggle begins. Your diet, mostly bread. Maybe some vegetables or fish if you're lucky.

Meat, forget it. That's for rich folks. Your future?

Work hard. Stay loyal to a noble. Maybe, just maybe, you'll own a tiny house, then die, leaving your kids to repeat the cycle.

No wealth, no glory, just another faceless peasant. Then your father tells you something that changes everything. There's a way out, a real shot at a better life.

But here's the catch. It won't be easy. Then again, can it really be harder than toiling in the fields forever?

Your father's plan, he knows a blacksmith in the city. And this guy, he's everything your father isn't. Rich, respected, and actually important.

He makes weapons for the nobles, and your father wants you to go learn from him. This is it. Your one shot at escaping peasant life.

So, at just 8 years old, your parents send you off to the city. And wow, the city, it's nothing like your tiny village. It's loud, packed with people, and smells like a weird mix of animals, sweat, and burning fires.

Then you reach the blacksmith's forge, and suddenly you really start questioning your life choices. It's chaos. The place is packed with kids just like you, running around, hammering metal, and shouting orders.

Then the blacksmith spots you, looks you up and down, and barks. Change your clothes and get to work. Wait immediately.

No settling in. No welcome to your new life. Nope.

Hope you like the sound of hammering metal cuz it's about to become your new lullabi. Congratulations, you're an apprentice now. That means your days are filled with thrilling activities like fetching water, hauling charcoal, and keeping the forge hot with the billows.

From dusk till dawn, you're working. And if you slack off, you're back to shoveling manure on some noble's farm. No second chances.

There's a line of kids who'd kill to take your place. Speaking of slacking off, who knew back pain and joint pain were possible at the age of 10. Turns out carrying buckets of water and heaving sacks of coal every day isn't great for your spine.

Shocking, right? And it's not just about brute strength. You keep one eye on your work and the other on your masters and senior apprentices, watching, learning, absorbing everything they do.

Because here, you're not paid in coin. You're paid in food. And if you don't prove you're worth every scrap of bread, well, you might just stop getting bread.

And if that isn't enough, the competition is brutal. James over there will sell his soul just to impress the master. Henry, his dad's an influential blacksmith in another city.

Richard, that guy's basically a metalworking prodigy. And you? Just another kid trying to survive.

Oh, and one more thing. Don't break the rules. The punishment, extra work hours or straight up starvation if you really tick off the master.

Basically, being an apprentice is like juggling knives while walking on eggshells. One wrong move and it's game over. Now, grab that bucket and get moving.

The forge isn't going to heat itself. After years of sweating over the forge, you've finally graduated. No more just fetching water and shoveling coal.

You're actually fixing weapons and tools now. Yeah, you're still working yourself half to death, but your drive for a better future keeps you going. The heat, exhaustion, and ruthless competition are just tiny pins trying to pop your bubble of ambition, but you're not about to let that happen.

And finally, at 15, you've made it. You're no longer just an apprentice. You're a blacksmith.

You've mastered the craft. You can mold metal into whatever you want. And finally, your master acknowledges it.

He calls you over, congratulates you, and then gives you two choices. One, stay and work for him. You'll be an official blacksmith, earn wages, and have a secure job.

Two, become a journeyman. This means traveling from town to town, finding work where you can. It's a gamble.

You could make it big or you could end up homeless and starving. You hesitate. Security sounds nice, but so does the idea of carving out your own destiny.

Then your master throws in an unexpected offer. After your journeyman years, he might take you back. Might.

No promises. That's enough to push you over the edge. You take the risk.

You become a journeyman. Journeymen travel from city to city working odd jobs to survive. Most blacksmiths have to do this after their apprenticeship because well, you need to eat.

But unlike them, you actually had a job offer and you turned it down. Big mistake. You're about to find out.

You leave your master and step into the unknown and immediately regret everything. For weeks, no one hires you. No money, no food, no place to sleep.

You scrape by doing whatever menial jobs you can find at the market. Carrying sacks, cleaning stalls, even sharpening knives for street vendors just to earn a few scraps of food. At night, you sleep wherever you can.

A street corner, a stable. Once in a pile of hay you really hope wasn't somebody's toilet. A month of pure suffering later, you finally get your first gig.

A farmer needs his hoe repaired and you're desperate enough to do it for just a day's meal. Then another week of nothing. Your clothes are ragged, your stomach empty.

And at this point, you don't look like a blacksmith. You look like a beggar. The hunger, the exhaustion, the endless rejection.

It's too much. You seriously consider crawling back to your master just for the promise of food. But then finally, luck throws you a bone.

You land another job. This time with actual pay. No more just working for a bowl of stew.

And after that, another job. Then another. Over the next few months, you go from barely surviving to actually making money.

Coin by coin, job by job, you start to climb the ranks. And you don't just save, you invest. You travel to other towns, learning advanced blacksmithing techniques and expanding your skills.

The better you get, the more valuable you become. And when you finally return to the city, you're not just another blacksmith, you're a damn good one. Word spreads fast.

Your name is everywhere. With your growing reputation, people start lining up to hire you. Nobles, mercenaries, even army generals.

Sounds great, right? wrong. Because these aren't the kind of people who negotiate.

They don't offer contracts. They don't ask politely. They take.

And during this time, a civil war is brewing. Blacksmiths like you aren't just in demand. You're a valuable weapon.

One day, you hear whispers. Someone wants to kidnap you. If they get their hands on you, you'll spend the rest of your life forging weapons like a slave.

So, what do you do? You disappear for a month. You go into hiding.

If they catch you, it's over. Luckily, they never found you. And by the time things settle down, you're still free.

At 22, your journeyman days are officially over. You're no longer some desperate kid looking for scraps. You're a master blacksmith.

With your skills and experience, you can go anywhere, work for anyone. You choose power. A powerful lord hires you as his personal blacksmith.

First order of business, build your own forge. Second, move into your new home. A place so grand it might as well be a castle.

You don't just have a roof over your head. You have servants. You have the best food, the finest clothes, and the wine that only nobles drink.

This This is the life you dreamed of as a child. And you earned every damn bit of it. You made it.

You won. But success comes at a price. Your patron, the Lord who gave you this life, needs weapons.

Thousands of them. Swords, axes, chain mail. And not just for war, but for his lands, his soldiers, his empire.

Before you were just struggling to finish a couple of swords. Now, entire wars depend on how fast and how strong you can forge weapons. You can't do it all alone.

So, you hire other blacksmiths and apprentices to help you. You build a workforce, a machine. But even with a team, it's never enough.

The forge burns from dawn till dusk, just like in your apprentice days. The only difference, you're not eating stale bread anymore, but the workload brutal and your name legendary. Your forge becomes the beating heart of the city.

Blacksmiths speak of you the way you once spoke of your master. You are now the most important blacksmith in England. And then the war ends.

England finally finds stability. And with peace comes organization. And that's when the guilds are formed.

Blacksmiths now have rules, regulations, a system. You never asked for this, but you support it with everything you have. You know firsthand how hard it is to survive in this world.

And this guild, it's going to make sure future apprentices don't suffer like you did. And guess what? You're appointed as the head of the blacksmith's guild in your city.

That's right. You're not just a craftsman anymore. You're in politics now.

and politics. It's a whole different battlefield. Instead of pounding metal, you're navigating backroom deals, noble rivalries, and the constant stress of keeping the guild strong.

You thought forging steel was exhausting? Try dealing with power- hungry nobles. But you do it because someone has to.

Then one day, you notice something's wrong. The forge's smoke makes you cough hard. Your back too stiff to bend.

Your hands shaking like you've just plunged into freezing water. You push through it, ignore it until you can't. So, you visit a doctor.

The diagnosis? Lead poisoning. A lifetime of inhaling toxic fumes, handling metals, and working in the forge has caught up with you.

There's no cure, no treatment, just the slow march toward death. Most blacksmiths don't live past 50. You're 47, so you accept what's coming.

You've trained dozens of apprentices, built a city around your craft, and created a guild that will protect blacksmiths for generations. Your body is failing, but the fires you lit will never go out. And as you take your final breath, the city roars with the sounds of hammers striking steel.

Because you, you were never just a blacksmith. You were the fire that shaped an empire.