One thing is for sure: your average late medieval or early modern town crier would have needed a lot of cardio endurance, a lot of water, and a whole stash of throat lozenges. Because people didn't go to the crier--the crier went to the people.

There are certainly cases where a crier would make staged announcements in a marketplace. And in Christian Europe, Church porches and pulpits were also important settings for oral pronouncements of the newest decrees. But in general, town criers paraded through the streets making their announcements--over and over and over.

It makes sense, really. Things like the day's wine prices in different taverns were relevant to far more of, say, 13th century Paris's population than could fit around a church porch. (Although according to the Livre des métiers by a 13th century provost they were not allowed to announce this information if a member of the royal family had just died.)

The people in 19th century Istanbul interested in a particular new housing option on the rental market probably lived in the same neighborhood. And people's work schedules did not coincide with everyone showing up in the marketplace at the same time.

In some cases, town criers worked "shifts." 15th century Nuremberg's "quarter" system (there were actually five quarters...roll with it) organized its watchmen by neighborhood, who served as criers in cases of fire or other emergency. Criers also had occasional but expected responsibilities. It was common for a crier to accompany the procession of a condemned prisoner to the site of execution, shouting out the crime; or to parade at the front of the party carrying a fresh exile--often being driven by whips--to the city gates.

Other times, criers were gig workers hired for specific purposes. In 14th century Paris, according to Rene de Lespinasse and François Bonnardot, criers hired by taverns for advertising purposes were also hired to announce...funerals...giving them the title "criers of bodies and wine." Put that on your resume!

In early modern Italy, it was especially common for rulers to hire one-shot criers to announce new laws. And lest you think, "I know how bureaucracy works; there is no way there were enough laws for that"...well. The late medieval and early modern world around the Mediterranean (elsewhere, too, but I have a focus here!) had these things called "sumptuary laws"--think "consumption."

They regulated things like what social classes of people could wear what clothing. And we are talking, down to sleeve length. (And that's before we get down to the teeny tiny shades of difference among "social classes." We are not in a "those who pray, those who fight, those who work" world. At all.)

Announcements were certainly posted, materially and textually, in "bulletin board" type places. The posting of Martin Luther's 95 theses on church doors throughout Wittenberg (the most likely What Actually Happened scenario, at this point) is the most famous example. And our understanding of "reading" in the late Middle Ages indicates that literate people would indeed have read them aloud to their friends or even strangers standing next to them. And there would be criers at big events, like executions.

But like today, most people in medieval and early modern cities got their newspaper delivered right to their front doorstep--or the day's trending threads posted right to their front page.

How did the system work in South Asia?