General Information
The Crafthalls make up one of the three legs which support Pern. The holds provide food and other products to supply halls and Weyrs; the Weyrs provide protection for all from Thread; and the halls provide knowledge, tools and entertainment for the holds, and the Weyrs, and each other.
By the terms of the original Charter which still governs Pern (in spite of the fact that no copies of the document exist to the present day), the crafts are entirely autonomous, even though their halls are located on hold territory which technically belongs to the Lord Holder. A Lord Holder agrees to allow a Hall to be located on his hold, and gives up his traditional control over that particular area, under a fairly standardized Hold-Hall agreement. This agreement provides that the craft will pay a tithe to the Lord Holder for the use of the land. The amount of that tithe will be determined between the Craftmaster and the Lord Holder at the time the Hall is set up, and the same applies whether it is the main Crafthall or a smaller Hall.
Craft Economics
So where do the crafts get the money to pay the tithes? As is common in Pernese society, most things are paid for in barter rather than with marks. A craft will typically pay its tithe to the Lord Holder in goods and services. However, the Lord would have the right to demand payment in marks if he preferred to go to another Hall for the products (for whatever reason). The crafts earn money from several sources:
When they post a journeyman, the person benefiting from the journeyman's services usually pays him with room and board, and also pays a tithe to the Hall for his services. The journeyman himself gets to keep a portion of that tithe; the Hall keeps the rest (similar to income tax).
The sale of goods and services made by Hall residents during a gather. (Again, the crafter himself would get to keep a portion of the profit; and would pay a portion to the Hall, similar to income tax.)
In some cases, some crafthalls take in paying students who might not necessarily be good enough to be apprentices. This is most frequently the case in the harpercraft. Note: although the crafthalls are essentially the centers for higher learning in Pern, there are no tuition fees required to become an apprentice. In accepting a person into an apprenticeship, the Hall recognizes that it is acquiring a future asset; someone whose training and skills will benefit the Hall long after the apprenticeship is finished. This is all the more reason why any crafthall would be reluctant to allow a journeyman to be Searched; they have invested a lot into the training of this individual and to lose him to the Weyr is to lose all of the return on their investment. This does not mean that some journeymen are not Searched, there is simply a reluctance to do so.
Craft Skills vs. Hold Skills
It is not necessary for a person to be a crafter to possess some of the skills of that craft. But, where a holder is a jack-of-all-trades, a crafter is an expert in one specific area. There are two types of these crafts, the so-called "hold crafts," and "occupational crafts."
First comes the hold crafts, which are engaged in by all of the populace. These include farmer, herder, fisher, woodsmith, weaver, baker, and potter. Every holder is either farmer, fisher, or herder by necessity, but obviously does not belong to one of the crafthalls. Also, everyone may be a baker, potter, woodsmith, or weaver at need without being a member of one of these crafts. The crafthalls are archives of existing knowledge and organizations of research into new methods and new knowledge. To become an apprentice, journeyman, or craftmaster in these crafts requires a higher than normal aptitude and interest in study, plus some genuine furthering of the body of knowledge in some way by the individual.
Then there are the occupational crafts, which are mainly practiced only by the members of the crafts. These include dolphineer, harper, healer, miner, seacraft, smith, starcraft, tanner, vintner, and weaver. Anyone on Pern should be able to sharpen a knife or stop bleeding from an injury, but forging a blade or treating an illness would be for a craft member. These crafthalls are schools, archives, and research facilities. To become an apprentice, journeyman, or master in these crafts requires aptitude, interest, commitment, and ability.
You may have noticed that the weavers are in both categories. There is a reason for this. It's a hold craft because just about anyone in a Hold can sew. There is also some weaving and tailoring done in the holds, by non-craft trained people. However, for those "special jobs" in making garments, only a craft-trained person will do. The weaving of fine fabrics is also left up to the crafters. A fabric woven by a holder with no training in the craft is obvious to even the untrained eye.
You may also have noticed that the fishers are listed asa hold craft while the seacraft is an occupational craft; yetthe fishercraft and the seacraft are one and the same. Thereasoning here is that any hold located on the seacoast willprobably maintain fishing boats and have many expert fishermen; yet they are all still holders and tend to know only about sailing their particular waters and catching the types of fish that live there. The Seacraft, on the other hand, deals with deep-sea fishing, long-range trading, and shipbuilding (together with the smithcraft.) In that sense the craft is also an occupational craft.
Note that the great majority of Pernese people are not crafters. They are ordinary holders with perhaps a few extra skills.
There are three degrees of rank: Apprentice, journeyman (or journeywoman), and master. Apprentices begin their education as early as eight or nine years of age and are instructed by one or more master craftsmen on a regular basis. An apprenticeship generally last 5-6 Turns during which a child learns the fundamentals of their craft and gains some experience. Journeymen (or women) continue to receive instruction, but may go without instruction for indefinite periods of time to practice their craft in outlying settlements. The majority of a craft's members will be journeymen and journeywomen; many will never advance beyond this point. The highest regular rank is master which denotes the ability, right, and responsibility to pass the ways of the Craft on to apprentices and journeymen.
Crafts are divided into separate halls. These Halls are both places of work and a social structure. A Crafthall may range from a humble Fisher's shack on a rocky coast to great craft complexes. Generally, one or more crafthalls are recognized as being the center of learning for their craft are generally identified as Major Crafthalls, the rest being considered Minor Crafthalls. Each crafthall selects a leader from among their masters, and the convocation of all Masters of a craft elect their head, their Craft's Craftmaster. The Craftmaster has the right to speak for all members of his Craft, planet-wide.
Minor crafthalls vs. the Mastercrafthall
There are minor crafthalls for each craft (except the Starctaft) scattered across the Southern Continent, in places where the resources or Hold population make a minor crafthall economically feasible. Likewise, each craft will have a large number of general practitioners of their craft scattered throughout a territory on an individual basis -- serving either at a minor hold or cothold with a large enough population to warrant a posting, or as a circuit rider who serves a number of smaller communities within a single region. Often a minor hold will have both its own posted journeyman and one or more circuit riders, who use the minor hold as a base of operations but whom is constantly on the road, riding between several smaller cotholds within that geographic region. A Mastercrafthall is the seat of the Mastercrafter, and is the teaching college where standards of quality in journeymen are maintained -- and where craftmasters pursue research in their specialties. Mastercrafthalls are the center of learning and improvement within a craft (or, likewise, the center of stagnation that can limit the growth of a craft) and is where the seat of ultimate authority in crafthall decisions rests.
Apprenticeship in a craft (Begins at ages of 8-9 turns old)
A prospective apprentice would enter craft at between 8 and 9 turns of age. Apprentices for most "hold crafts" (farmer, herder, baker, etc.) start training at 8 Turns of age. For the occupational crafts (healer, harper, smith, etc), the beginning age is 9 Turns, though the smiths often do take talented children earlier because of the length of apprenticeship in that craft. Apprenticeships generally last
about five to six Turns, and not all apprentices "walk the tables" to journeyman. Apprentices are children who either show a lot of skill and interest in a craft's field, or may also be a child of some rank who is "surplus" (such as a third or fourth son of a Lord Holder) and who is being apprenticed for social/political reasons (mainly, to get them out of the way of the Heirs/out of competition for limited land inheritance; to bring the family honor in a craft, much like second or third sons in the medieval ages were expected to either have a military career or join the Church).
Once apprenticed, the student is assigned general studies to give him a firm foundation in all of that craft's knowledge. After several Turns of general studies, the apprentice graduates to a senior apprenticeship, where the individual takes on some craft duties as well as more specialized training; this generally takes place 3 Turns after an individual first apprentices. Being a senior apprentice is not a formal title, and holds no recognition outside of the craft -- for all purposes of rank, an apprentice is an apprentice. "Senior apprentice" is not a form of address, but of description: in use, this means that "Yes, he is a senior apprentice," is appropriate, but "Would you agree, senior apprentice?" is not.
Many apprentices don't travel to the main crafthall to begin their apprenticeship until they are senior apprentices; the majority begin their careers studying with the journeyman assigned to their hold or hall, working with their journeyman until the journeyman can train them no farther in the craft. Senior apprentices may find they have several more Turns of study to go before their earn their journeyman knots, or they may be assessed by the craftmasters at the Hall to be already graduate level and ready to walk the tables for their promotion to journeyman.
Journeymen in a craft (Begins at age of 13-14 turns old)
The majority of journeymen are general practitioners of their craft; in Real World terms, these are the young people who have graduated from college or trade school with their degrees in hand and who are ready to practice in their field of expertise. Some journeymen, however, may show exceptional talents and interest in a specific field of study. These individuals are usually singled out even before walking the tables and are set to study directly under an expert in (or even the craftmaster of) that specialty.
Posting requests from holds, Weyrs, and other crafthalls would be received by the Mastercraftsman of a craft, who would then review the needs of the community requesting a posting and match up the community needs with the skills, talents, and temperaments of his available journeymen. A posting assignment can be of short-term nature, or can turn into a life-long residency-- again, depending on the needs of both the community and of the individual journeyman. The financial details of the jouneyman's support are arranged at the time of posting, and almost always involve the hold contracting to support the craftsman in exchange for the products of his labor.
The majority of journeymen don't have any need to earn a craftmaster's knots. Journeymen are respected professionals in their field, who are able to recruit and train apprentices. At times a journeyman may decide to specialize in a particular field of study. In this case, the journeyman then travels to study with a craftmaster of that speciality. Most often this means returning to the Mastercrafthall -- but could mean traveling to another minor crafthall where a craftmaster in that field resides and works. Such individuals are generally the only ones within a craft to achieve the rank of craftmaster
Craftmasters
Craftmasters are primarily the professors and researchers of a craft. These are individuals who have been journeymen for between 20 to 25 years minimum before attaining a mastery of their particular specialization. For most crafts, there is limited demand for craftmasters outside of a mastercrafthall, and craftmasters are therefore rare. The more technical crafts such as the smiths and miners tend to have more craftmasters, since there is more demand for advanced skills outside the teaching environment of the mastercrafthall. The seacraft also has more craftmasters than usual; usually the captain of every major ship is a craftmaster.
The Mastercraftsman
The Mastercraftsman is very seldom an individual who has specialized in a single field -- instead, this is an exceptional individual who has studied all of the specialties and has an understanding of the unique needs of each, even if he may not be an expert at those individual specialties. This is someone with very strong administration skills, and someone who has earned the respect of the rest of his craftmasters. Never ignore the realities of politics in the selection of the Mastercraftsmen -- the Mastercraftsman is going to be a man or woman who reflects the general opinions of his crafthall peers. It is rare for reformers to win a Mastercraftsman rank, since such individuals are often idealistic, creative souls who clash with the status quo.
