Treadmill Operator

The Middle Ages was the great era of cathedral building. But in those days there were no mechanical cranes. Instead, treadmills – giant hamster-wheels – were built at the highest point of the cathedral and used to lift massive amounts of stone up to the workers. These treadmills were made of wooden planks, and was turned around by a man walking inside it. This job was very scarey, because the operator was hundreds of feet in the air, with only some creaking wooden planks under his feet stopping him from plunging to his death. It was also very difficult to keep the wheel moving at a steady momentum, so the operator often fell over: and if his hands or feet went through the gaps in the planks, they would be mashed off as they went past the fixed parts of the treadmill outside.