To piggy back on this awesome question, was it also prevalent in Roman times? The TV show Rome depicted a town crier who would go out and yell the decrees of the Senate, even in the rain with no one really listening. Was this a legal requirement or shown for dramatic effect?
Siena, Italy has a well-recorded medieval history and they still have a town crier.
In Siena, at least as I recall from reading about the place before visiting, the crier was a position one paid to do, and there were a limited number of them or the streets would be chaos with verbal advertisements. They did official duty and commercial. And the commercial paid the bills. My google fu is really doing poorly this evening to back up my memory. Here is a snippet from page 32 of The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 5, C.1198-c.1300 And you can find more searching this book for the phrase "town crier"
I'm not a historian but I can provide insight via German sources.
In the area of modern Germany I find documented cases where the task of a town crier (called "Ausrufer" or "Ausscheller") was done by a civil servant who might have also had other tasks.
Translation from the Hessisches Volksblatt, 1833 (Image):
[Is it just] that the same prison guard is at the same time proxy for the county court bailiff, servant of the major, town crier and member of the police personel?
The Commentar über das Großherzoglich Hessische Strafgesetzbuch (Comment on the criminal code of the Hessian Grandduchy) from 1842 mentions occupations that have duties whose violations weigh more gravely, translated (Image):
Indeed amongst those are also: Notaries, [...], official town criers.
Town criers also had the duty of calling the populace to arms if the need arose as documented in a morning paper for educated readers in 1848. In the article titled "Red Eastern in Freiburg" an independent corps attempted to take over the city and amongst other things demanded cannons to be handed out. After they did not adhere to a deal they agreed to a day before, the major called for arms. (Image)
The militia was called for again; at first only few came until the town crier pleaded again reminding them of their oath and duties as citizen and little by little a larger number stood ready.
In the article "Ein Rheinischer Uz" in Die Maje, 1858 by W. O. von Horn, the author describes his walk along the river Rhine by Bacharach on a Sunday afternoon in August 1809, leading him to the market street where he sees Pelzer's Michel, "the old, good-natured, sturdy town crier and night watch" who is described as 65 years old leaning on a corner.(Image)
^(Emphasis ^always ^mine)
^Writing ^this ^post ^has ^caused ^me ^so ^many ^new ^questions... ^Procrastination ^:S
