Fueller
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Basic Information

The Fueller is a profession common to the Middle Ages (and probably going back further). It's a job of one who sells fuel, often a traveling salesman type. Wood and Charcoal were the most common fuels of the era. Prior to rural electrification and similar technological and societal developments, people who didn't own land with woods on it needed someone to provide them with the fuel for heating their homes in the winter. Hence, the fueller.

The term is rather archaic, and rarely used in the current day unless you work in the energy sector in England. Said energy industry remembers the name in the title of a Livery Company (a sort of blend of charitable organization and Trade Guild specific to London): The Worshipful Company of Fuellers.

Subtypes and Variants:

The following jobs are either specific types of fuellers, or else closely linked the the fueller's trade.

  • charcoalburner - one who gathers wood, and burns it into charcoal; a fueller who specializes in producing charcoal
  • collier - originally, one who makes or sells charcoal - thus, either a charcoalburner, or his sales partner; later the term came to mean a miner or seller of coal
  • hetheleder - one who sells the dried branches of heather as fuel
  • oiler - a trader in fuel oils (also oil seller etc.), initially mostly lamp oil but later progressing into vehicle and domestic fuel oils.
  • woodmonger (also wood seller) - a seller of fuel wood
  • woodcutter - one whose job it is to cut wood for others, often a woodmonger or collier; however this can also apply to someone who cuts wood for a carpenter or other craftsman
  • woodward - one who is responsible for a forest owned by royalty, nobility, or the government. Among other duties, they regulate coppicing practices to ensure a supply of wood for the future. A woodward who is bad at his job will find deforestation deprives him of it.

Sources

Game and Story Use

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