I am most interested in the medieval period from about 1066 A.D. through about 1453 A.D. I read a lot about those years because of personal interest. But I also am seeking a coherent understanding of what was happening so that I can realistically portray a medievalist society in my fantasy fiction and I can simulate specific economic and military events for possible game designs.

One structural transition steadily unfolding during those centuries is a slow but steady move away from mandatory service to a cash wages system for unfree and free tenants. Especially after the Black Death, the historians find evidence that many peasants were able to replace service obligations with paid work.

From about 1250 A.D. through to about 1450 A.D., the powerful attempted to control both prices and wages, and with one caveat, you can see long periods of approximate stability. Due to a long period of favorable climate, average grain yields were trending up from the average levels in earlier centuries. But the Black Death, the global pandemic of bubonic plague that hit England and Europe in 1348–49, caused a widespread labor shortage that triggered significant increases in wages.

According to Penn and Dyer, “At least one-third of the population of late medieval England gained all or a part of their livelihood by earning wages,” and “daily wages in cash of skilled building workers in southern England increased by 66 per cent between the 1340s and the 1390s . . . and those of the unskilled almost doubled. . . . Real daily wages of craftsmen were 45 per cent higher in the 1390s than they had been 50 years earlier, and those received by unskilled workers rose by a larger margin” (356).

Short-term contracts were common and allowed workers to seek higher wages from specific employers and to do different types of work throughout a year. Year-long (or longer) servant contracts typically with a food and drink allowance (as well as a place to sleep, some clothing or livery, and other amenities) but often balanced continuous employment with a lower daily wage. Independent short-term contracting was the most popular choice because it signaled a possible climb in status, as free tenants rather than unfree villeins (Penn and Dyer 366). So many servants would be quite young, and perhaps a son or daughter of another household worker or manor official.

When trying to calculate annual wages, remember that, as Penn and Dyer put it, “There was an element of enforced idleness because of the church’s insistence that about 40 days of holiday should be observed each year, in addition to Sundays” (366). Remember also that some wage earners had their own land to farm (i.e., their work was the medieval version of a side hustle).

In my research, I’m looking for wage, price, rent, and services numbers from 1350 through 1453, and if or when I have to do estimating, I will use those percentages to adjust a number from, say, the year 1215 or 1235.*

In any given year, the customary price of grains would spike significantly after bad harvests and during famines. Other commodities, such as wool, also showed significant increases after disruptions or over time.

I’m building a list in the lore compendium focused on the most common types of expenditures in a few key areas. The list is a work in progress, and a lot of work remains. I’m basically going deep enough to build realism into some parts of my fictional world. But in many cases, I’m finding prices for a particular year that falls outside of my desired timeframe. I’m working steadily on compiling relevant numbers that fall within my desired range of decades. I’ll append a few lines of the list so that you can see what I’m trying to compile.

“Normal” Wages for Skilled/Unskilled Labor**

[Based on Penn, Dyer, Singman, McLean, and others]

Hired Workers (standard work day=~8 hours (morning+afternoon)

[“pressing the pace”=extra wages for longer hours]

Craftworker (master)                           6d/day                                                                        

Craftworker (skilled)                           5p/day                       [Before BD: 3p/day]

Laborer (unskilled)                              3-4p/day                   [Before BD: 1.5p/day]

Mason                                                 5 ½-6p/day

Quarryman                                          [3-4p/day?]

Carpenter                                             4 1/2p/day

Thatcher                                              4p/day [or 3p+food/day]

Thatcher’s Assistant                            2 1/4p/day

Ploughman (short-term)         6-8p/day (harvest)[~15-20s/year (369)]

3p to 4p/day (haymaking)

Ploughman (long-term), 2p/day? [~10s+5 quarters grain/year (369)]

                               [1 or 2 shillings of other gifts; clothing or cloth, typically]

* Once governments or parliaments started to try to legislate a return to earlier price levels, the records of court cases and contracts show numerous examples of workers sometimes negotiating contracts that included daily food or wages two to four times the new average level. Use whatever terminology you like, but the struggle between have-nots (for more wages, more free time, higher yields, more food, more rights) and haves (more profits, lower or stable costs, more land, more variety, more luxury, more prestige) unfolded daily everywhere.

** Penn and Dyer estimate that by ~1400 A.D., “a labourer’s household” (husband, wife, maybe a child or two able to earn some coin in some type of work) could earn annual income “in excess of £4 [pounds], at a time when a family’s supplies of wheat bread, with some ale, could have cost as little as £2 [pounds]” (373).

*** A price in brackets represents a number or a range that I’ve seen in sources, but cannot yet confirm that the price is after 1350.

Key Sources

Simon A.C. Penn and Christopher Dyer, “Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws”

Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages, c. 1200–1520

Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain, 850–1520

Jeffrey L. Singman and Will McLean, Daily Life in Chaucer’s England