Like many of the more mundane objects listed in household inventories, ladders of all kinds appear throughout the DALME corpus. These objects for climbing, which might be considered furniture, tools, or even parts of the buildings in which they were located, generally attract little attention. Even so, they can tell us much about the lives of the medieval people who owned them.
At times, ladders appear in expected places, where one can easily conclude how they were used. For example, one of the two ladders confiscated from Hans Hasler, a carpenter living in Basel in 1477, was described simply as "long" (ein lange leiter), while the other was identified as a "winladder," perhaps meaning that it was extensible and could be folded for storage. Naturally, these ladders served as tools of the owner's carpentry trade. Similarly, the 1416 inventory of Moncalieri castle in Lombardy includes a rope ladder, used specifically "for climbing" (scalam unam corde pro scalamento). Mention of the rope ladder was found alongside other items deployed in warfare, such as a "turreted crossbow" and "two iron chains," meaning that this portable model was probably used to scale a wall or position oneself to defend the castle from oncoming attackers. Other interesting examples include a small ladder used explicitly "to climb up above the vat" (una parva scala ad assendendum supra tinam, in the Inventory of Berengarius de Bulbono) or a three-step wooden ladder found in the 1434 inventory of the estate of Ramon de Sant Martí, of Mallorca, that was "suitable for hauling up wheat in barns" (una scala de fust de tres scalons abt e per muntar blat als graners).
In other instances, a ladder's function was harder to decipher, but more information about it can still be gleaned, such as where it was located, what it was made of, and how large it was. Several ladders were found among Tomaso di Firenze's belongings in 1390, placed outside of his shop (fuori 1 scala), in the nearby courtyard (1 scala braccia 5), and in a room under the dovecote (1 scala per la colombaia). Other Florentine families, like Deo di Vanni's, kept ladders inside the house in the upstairs or downstairs bedrooms. The many references to ladders in Florentine interiors reminds readers that medieval urban homes were often more vertical than horizontal, and also more elevated than those of their rural counterparts. In 1496, for example, John Snelle of Great Gransden, Huntingdonshire, England, owned three ladders valued at between three and four pennies apiece; one was kept in his kitchen and two were found out in the yard, suggesting a more expansive living style than that of the city-dwellers of the time.
In terms of how ladders were constructed, aside from those made from rope, many were described as "made of wood," (una scala fuste) as in the inventory of Guillelmus Egidii from Marseille, whereas the ladder found in the inventory of Iacobus de Consule from Messina was actually "two ladders made into one, with its iron chain" (scalas duas facta[s] ad una, cum eius cathena de ferro). The measure of a ladder's size was expressed by the number of steps or rungs it held, or by its length, calculated according to a particular unit of measure. In 1381, for example, Francesc Giner, a plasterer and resident of Valencia, owned a short, four-step ladder (una scala de IIII scalons), whereasBeatrix Ruffe of Marseille, widow of the carpenter Arnulphus Ruffi, owned several ladders, one twenty-four hand-lengths, another two cane-lengths, and a third twelve hand-lengths in size (unam scalam longitudinis vigintiquatuor palmorum. Item unam aliam scalam longitudinis duarum cannarum et unam aliam longitudinis duodecim palmorum).
Like many household items, ladders were so common that they may appear unimportant. Yet ladders facilitated many activities, ways of living, and ways of making a living for their medieval owners.