ABSTRACT
The complex relationship between master and apprentice, defined both in law and customary practice, required each participant to contribute skills and receive either service or instruction in exchange. The master was obliged by the indenture to provide for the apprentice “proper” meat, drink, clothes, lodging, washing and “all other things fit”, which might include medical attention. The pauper’s master at the end of the term was to provide “double apparel”, two complete outfits for the apprentice, for work and holiday wear; he was in addition to ensure that the child did not become a charge on the parish. The master of a non-poor apprentice contracted to teach the child a specified trade. A minority of indentures allowed the master to administer due physical correction, but it was an infrequent clause and presumably inserted only for the potentially troublesome child. Thus a master might break any of these undertakings and become a criminal, deliberately or accidentally. No indenture specified how apprentices should be treated, and the master, in loco parentis, might punish a child saving only life and limb. Only when masters exceeded these limits and treated apprentices with extreme cruelty or caused their death was an indenture cancelled and the masters punished, but such cases are extremely rare in court proceedings.
