List of prices of medieval items

Courtesy of Kenneth Hodges (hodges@jif.berkeley.edu)

The list of medieval prices which follows is by no means complete or thoroughly researched; I merely extracted references from some of the books I have, and I thought others might like to inspect it. The sources I used are listed at the end. If an item is listed several times, it is because I had several references I wished to record.

Money goes as follows:
 1 pound (L) = 20 shillings (s)
 1 crown = 5 shillings
 1 shilling = 12 pence (d)
 1 penny = 4 farthings
 1 mark = 13s 4d

The French Livre, sou, and denier are equivalent to the pound, shilling and penny (Latin liber, solidus, and denarius, I believe, which is where the weird English abbreviations come from).

For ease, I've divided this list into the following sections: tools, horses, food and livestock, books and education, buildings, cloth and clothing, armor, weapons, marriage, funerals, travel, miscellaneous goods, and wages.

Of course, a price list is a misleading guide to a feudal economy, because so many goods were either produced within a household, or supplied by a lord. Retainers could get money, but they would also get food, lodging, weapons (sometimes), and cloth. Knights Templar were provided with clothes, horses, and armor.

           





                           
Note: Horse prices varied dramatically; for instance, they doubled 
between 1210 and 1310.  ([3], p. 37).                               





Related note: around 1380, these are the average costs per day of feeding 
people on an estate ([3], p. 65): lord, 7d; esquire, 4d; yeoman, 3d; and 
groom, 1d.




* Source says 2s/day.  This is not only insanely high, but the text also 
claims that the board was the same as at Oxford--i.e., 2s/week or 
104s/year.

** A pecia is 16 columns of 62 lines of 32 letters, i.e., 31 744 letters, 
or about 7 500 - 8 000 words.  Rental period is not specified, but I 
would guess a year; books were rented to be copied, and copying the Bible 
took 15 months.  See [9], p. 172.





note: tithes were often calculated at 1d a week for every 20s of annual 
rent paid (4, p. 208).
  
The following are the estimates of raw materials and labor that went into 
the tower of Langeais, a rectangular, tapering stone tower built in 992-
994.  The source is [6], pp. 47ff.  The dimensions at the base were 17.5 
meters by 10 meters; the height was 16m (3 floors); the walls were 1.5m 
thick, made of two shells filled with loose rock. 






Note: loose tunics take 2.25-2.5 yards.  In the late 14th century, 
shorter doubled (lined) tunics, known as doublets, became fashionable, 
requiring 4 yards ([3], pp 175,176). 

Note: Sorry, folks, that's all I found. It was mandatory in England for all freemen to own certain types of weapons and armor. (In 1181 every freeman having goods worth 10 marks (1 mark = 13s 4d) had to have a mail shirt, a helmet, and a spear. All other freemen should have helmet, spear, and gambeson (quilted armor) [4], p. 39.) Later, the government stored arms and armour in churches for use; in the 13th century anyone with an income of L2-L5 (wealthy peasants) had to have bows; archery practice became compulsory on Sundays and holidays. You may know that the extreme range of the longbow was 400 yards, but did you know that a statute of Henry VIII no one over 24 could practice at a range of less than 220 yards? (See [4], p. 95 and elsewhere). Note: for guessing prices, see the section on tools (an axe for 5d). An armorer might make 24s a month; say a week to make a decent sword, and you might get a price that way. See the section on books and education for fencing instruction.

Note: these costs will be wildly varying depending on circumstance.





Note: Christopher Dyer gives as a rough rule of thumb 1 year's income for 
a funeral ([3], p. 85)





Note: [1], pp 126-129, gives the following prices at an inn in 1331.  For 
one day, 3 men with 4 servants spent: Bread, 4d; beer, 2d; wine 1.25d; 
meat,  5.5d; potage, .25d; candles, .25d; fuel, 2d; beds, 2d; fodder for 
horses, 10d.  The four servants staying alone sleep 2 nights for 1d.  
Generally, all 7 spend 2d a night on beds; in London, it is 1d per head.
 




Note: most of these come from inventories of peasants' belongings.  The 
fine goods would be more expensive.

Note about lighting: great houses could use 100 lb of wax and tallow in a 
single winter night ([3], p. 74).  Others, not as rich, would go to sleep 
earlier.




Note: sheriffs of London paid 300L per year, hoping to make a profit from 
the fines they collected.

Note: 30 adult sheep could produce about 20s of wool per year in 1299 
([3], p. 114).

Note: To get a VERY ROUGH sense of money, I reproduce the following chart 
from Dyer ([3], p. 206).  These are averages of daily wages in pence.




[1] English Wayfaring Life in the XIVth Century, J. J. Jusserand, trans 
     Lucy Smith, Putnam's Sons, New York,1931 (Orig. 1889).

[2] London in the Age of Chaucer, A. R. Myers, University of Oklahoma 
     Press, Norman, 1972

[3] Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer, 
     Cambridge University Press, 1989

[4] English Weapons & Warfare, 449-1660, A. V. B. Norman and Don 
     Pottinger, Barnes & Noble, 1992 (orig. 1966)

[5] The Armourer and his Craft from the XIth to the XVIth Century, 
     Charles ffoulkes, Dover, 1988 (orig. 1912)

[6] "The Cost of Castle Building: The Case of the Tower at Langeais," 
     Bernard Bachrach, in The Medieval Castle: Romance and Reality, ed. 
     Kathryn Reyerson and Faye Powe, Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, Iowa, 1984

[7] The Knight in History, Frances Gies, Harper & Row, New York, 1984

[8] Methods and Practice of Elizabethan Swordplay, Craig Turner and 
     Tony Soper, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1990

[9] Life in a Medieval City, Joseph and Frances Gies, Harper & Row, 
     New York, 1969







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