When gunpowder became a must have for all the kingdoms that were interested in blowing up their neighbors, a new position of prestige was created: the saltpeterman, often shortened to the peterman. The petermen were people who had been trained to extract saltpeter — an essential and rare component for gunpowder — from the ground. They were given permission from the king to ride around the land digging up any ground that they believed had saltpeter in it. It did not matter if there was a house over the land. The petermen would dig it up anyway. They were even allowed to commandeer carts to transport the saltpeter. As you might imagine, the petermen were not popular among the commoners and were sometimes bribed by farm owners to skip the farm.