I opened a Series 17 Boys Figure yesterday (it’s another story as to why I am 4 months late doing this). The first part out of the bag was a spirit level. ‘This will be another handyman Figure’, I thought. But then I emptied out the other parts and thought, ‘No, it’s a Hobo’. When assembled, I was still thinking ‘Hobo,’ especially with that pouch-onna-stick. ‘The spirit level must be from another figure,’ I thought, so I checked the Figures pages at Animobil (thanks Tim!) and discovered the spirit level does belong with this Figure! ‘So’ (I thought) ‘is this some sort of itinerant carpenter?’
I entered ‘itinerant carpenter’ on Google and the first hit was a Wikipedia article entitled ‘Journeyman Years’. This turned out to answer all my questions about the Mystery Figure I had just opened, it answered why geobra would include it in the series and explained the origin of several familiar words, song titles and even a favourite Mahler recording I had years ago…
From medieval times (especially in German-speaking countries and France), apprentices reaching the end of their apprenticeship were allowed to be paid by the day either through employment in their home town or by roaming about to seek work in other towns. The French word
journée means a day’s work or a day’s travel and gave rise to the words
journey and
journeyman (
Geselle is the German for journeyman), though there were some journeywomen too. Although the journeyman practice declined over time, since the 1980s the tradition has seen a revival, with 600-800 in 2005.
The period of roaming (
Wanderjahre) traditionally lasted 3 years and a day, but halfway through this time, journeymen or women could apply to join a Guild as an apprentice Master. When he or she had gained enough experience in that role, they would then produce a
Masterpiece and, if accepted, gain full membership of the Guild and open their own workshop. A big advantage of roaming (being on the
Walz as it is known) is that the journeyman gains experience in many different workshops, with many different Masters and can also pass on ideas and techniques.
Crafts where this tradition flourished included roofing, metalworking, goldsmithing, woodcarving, millinery, musical instrument making, organ building, as well as painters (e.g. Albrecht Dürer) and mason-architects. One of the commonest trades for journeymen was carpentry and joinery. I'm not sure a spirit level is the most important tool for a carpenter, so perhaps the Series 17 figure is a journeyman builder or mason?
So as not to be mistaken for hobos, tramps or vagabonds, journeymen carried special papers, employed secret handshakes and wore certain clothing. In Germany today, many journeymen have adopted the carpenter’s uniform (
Kluft)- whatever their actual trade- as it is easily recognised everywhere. This uniform is typically (according to Wikipedia text and photographs) a broad-brimmed black hat or top hat, bell-bottom trousers, a jacket and waistcoat with parallel rows of white buttons, a white shirt and a black tie. Journeymen may carry a traditional hiking pole (
Stenz) and wrap their belongings in a cloth or
Charlie, named after Charlottenburg where, along with other towns in medieval times, backpacks were banned because they harboured fleas.
So the Figure closely follows the
Kluft worn by modern
Gesellen, with his
Stenz and
Charlie. His trousers have two lateral zips, but Wikipedia did not explain those.
.
Itinerants (swagmen) in Australia carried a backpack called a Matilda when they were ‘on the Walz,’ remembered in that Aussie ballad ‘Waltzing Matilda’.
Gustav Mahler wrote ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’ a cycle of four songs about a lovelorn travelling journeyman, written at a time (1884-5) when Mahler himself was essentially a journeyman composer and, yes, lovelorn too.
