Wood knife (profession)

Wooden knives appeared with the advent of fixed prices for a certain amount of wood towards the end of the 18th century. Only then did it become common practice to measure firewood as well as timber. The wood cut and processed by woodcutters was checked by the forest officials and then put into fathoms . The so-called fathom was the most common measure for firewood at that time and originally a measure of length that denoted the range that a man could reach with outstretched arms. It was determined with a measuring stick (fathom measure) (approx. 1.9 meters side length and height 0.6 to 0.9 meters wide). This activity practiced in Frankfurt a. M. originally women, whereby in 1623 it was determined that "the women who will be entered at the wood fairs in the future should be led into the madhouse".

literature

• Rudi Palla: The lexicon of the lost professions . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-8289-4152-4 .