The labor historians who study medieval Europe often divide workers into four categories, so similarly to many other areas of medieval life, simple answers about pay are rare.

In the records, you find workers who hold and farm some amount of land but also work for wages, workers who own no land and live solely off wages, master craft workers who receive higher wages than apprentices or unskilled laborers, and workers who are formally in the household service of a lord.

A person could farm their own landholding, but also put in extra days, beyond the mandatory owed service, on the lord’s fields, or on a repair crew for a town’s or city’s walls, or on another construction crew. Such workers could often earn several pence per day to supplement their family’s farm production.

For the portion of the population that lived entirely from wages, finding regular work could be a chancy affair. And for unskilled laborers, wages were low enough that staying alive and staying within the law’s boundaries could be difficult. Many people had to hope for additional food at the back or side door of prosperous houses that fed a certain number of the poor per day. 

For the trades, wages increased through the progression from apprentice, journeyman, and master. According to Christopher Dyer’s research*, a thatcher working from 1291 through 1300 A.D. averaged a daily wage of 2.5 pence per day, while a thatcher’s mate would average 1 pence per day. Some younger assistants or apprentices also received room and board from their trade master.

On a cathedral build in Exeter, a local mason made anywhere from 1 shilling 6.75 pence to 2 shillings 3 pence per week, while a skilled worker might earn 3 pence per day and an unskilled laborer might earn 1-2 pence per day. During that decade, Dyer found that if laborers earned somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds (~240 to 480 pence) per year, they could buy enough grain to feed a small family and would have some coin left over for other necessities.

The wage picture for members of a household is complex. Many positions came with an annual payment, a suit of clothing or the proper livery, and a daily allowance for food and drink from the lord’s kitchen and pantry. Many sources reference pay, but some sources say that the household member received a wage only when serving away from the household. In general, though, becoming a member of a household at any rank offered a chance at a better life.

* In particular, see Chapter 11 in Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages. Pages 226 and 227 have some good comparative data for several trades.