Builders’ wages in southern England and the southern Low Countries, 1346 -1500: a comparative study of trends in and levels of real incomes

Munro, John H. (2004): Builders’ wages in southern England and the southern Low Countries, 1346 -1500: a comparative study of trends in and levels of real incomes. Published in: L’Edilizia prima della rivoluzione industriale, secc. XIII-XVIII, Atti delle “Settimana di Studi” e altri convegni, Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica F. Datini , Vol. 36, No. 1 (May 2005): pp. 1013-1076.

Abstract

The traditional and almost universal method of expressing real wages is by index numbers, according to the formula: RWI = NWI/CPI: i.e., the real wage is the quotient of the nominal (money) wage index divided by the consumer price index, all employing a common base period (here: 1451-75 = 100). This method is very useful in comparing long-term trends, and in ascertaining whether changes in nominal (money) wages or changes in the price level were paramount in determining changes in real wages. But it does not permit us to make any judgements about the levels of real wages and thus does not permit us to make comparisons of real wages amongst different regions. This paper presents a new method of presenting and comparing real wages, and one that may also be independent of any common base period. This particular paper compares the actual changing levels of real wages for building craftsmen and their journeymen-labourers in southern England, Flanders, and Brabant, in the late medieval era (1346-1500): and the real wage is expressed here as the number of very similar ‘baskets of consumables’ that a craftsmen and his journeyman could each purchase with his annual money wage income, based on 210 days of employment each year. Using the working papers for Phelps Brown & Hopkins’ very famous price and real-wage indexes for England (1264-1954), which were presented only in disembodied index numbers, I was able to compute the annual values of all commodities in their ‘basket of consumables’ and thus the total value in pence sterling. Herman Van der Wee had constructed a price-index for the Antwerp region (1400-1700), with annual values in pence groot Brabant (but still converted into index numbers); and I have produced a similar price index for Flanders (1348-1500), with annual values in pence groot Flemish. All three baskets have very similar contents. All wages and prices are expressed in terms of quinquennial (five-year) harmonic means The results of this comparative analysis are best expressed in the nine graphs that accompany this paper. But some brief conclusions may be stated here. First (as I had contended in two recent articles) the Black Death did not usher in a ‘golden age of the labourer’ in either England or Flanders, but was instead followed by a quarter century of falling real wages, because rampant inflation erased and countered the gains in nominal (money) wages. Real wages rose in the very late 14th and early 15th century because of a combination of institutional wage-stickiness and deflation. In the Low Countries, beset with war-induced and very inflationary coinage debasements, real wages again fell until the late 1430s, rising thereafter only with monetary stability, deflation, and ‘wage-stickiness; but then falling once more from the 1460s, because of warfare and debasement-induced inflations (to the 1490s). This evidence refutes the almost universally accepted axiom that the real wage is determined entirely by the marginal revenue product of labour. I do not, however, completely rule out the role of changes in productivity, though I offer the hypothesis that regional differences in Total Factor Productivity (and some degree of factor immobility) must be called upon to explain marked differences in real wages. The most striking difference is that, at the time of the Black Death, real wages for master building craftsmen in southern England were only a third of those enjoyed by master craftsmen in Bruges; but by the 1480s, when inflation was far more serious in Flanders than in England, that gap had narrowed to just about 80 percent of that for the Bruges craftsmen, still the best paid in north-west Europe. In Bruges, the craftsmen’s journeymen did not fare as well, however, earning only half the master’s wage, while the English journeymen came to earn two-thirds of their masters’ wage by the 15th century – and sometimes, during periods of severe debasement-induced inflations in Flanders, the English journeyman’s real wage was slightly higher than that for his Bruges counterpart. In general, English building craftsmen fared better than their counterparts in Antwerp, earning somewhat less in the early 15th century, but more in the last third of the century, when inflations from severe coinage debasements again reduced real wages in the Low Countries.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: England; Flanders; Brabant; Bruges; Ghent; Antwerp; Oxford; Cambridge; building craftsmen; master masons; journeymen; nominal wages; real wages; consumer price indexes; inflation; deflation; coinage debasements; wage-stickiness; total factor productivity; the Black Death
• Subjects: N - Economic History > N6 - Manufacturing and Construction > N63 - Europe: Pre-1913; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N13 - Europe: Pre-1913; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J30 - General; F - International Economics > F4 - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance > F40 - General; N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy > N33 - Europe: Pre-1913; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J10 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J4 - Particular Labor Markets > J44 - Professional Labor Markets ; Occupational Licensing; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining > J50 - General; N - Economic History > N4 - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation > N43 - Europe: Pre-1913

References

Archival Sources:

Algemeen Rijksarchief, Rekenkamer, Rolrekening nos. 827-31 (Ghent mint accounts, 1410-19);

Algemeen Rijksarchief, Acquits de Lille, liasses no. 936-37 (Ghent mint accounts, 1419-1447).

Algemeen Rijksarchief, Rekenkamer, registers nos. 32,461-564 (Bruges town accounts, 1406-1502).

Archives of the British Library of Political and Economic Science (Robbins Library), the Phelps Brown Papers Collection: in Boxes Ia.324 and J.IV.2a..

Archives of the British Library of Political and Economic Science (Robbins Library), the Beveridge Price and Wage History Collection: Southwark (Bishop of Winchester), 1406-1454 (Box A.34).

Corporation of London Record Office: Bridge Master’s Account Rolls, 1381-1398; Bridge Master’s Accounts: Weekly Payment Series, 1404- 1510 (Vols. I - III)

London Guildhall Manuscripts Library: Armourers’ Company Accounts (1499-1557): MS 12.065, vol. I; Bakers’ Audit Books (1505-1547), MS 5174, vol. 1; Brewers’ Guild, Warden’s Accounts (1424-1562): MS 5440; Carpenters’ Guild, Warden’s Accounts (1456-1573): MS 4326, vols. I and II; Cutlers’s Guild Accounts (1442-1497): MS 7146, roll 1; Grocers’ Guild, Warden’s Accounts (1452-1578): MS 11,570-571, vols. I - VI: Ironmongers’ Guild Accounts (1455-1561): MS 11,698: Vols. I - II; Pewterers’ Company Accounts (1474-1500): MS 7086, Vol. I.

Stadsarchief Brugge, Stadsrekeningen 1360-61 to 1484-85.

Stadsarchief Gent, Stadsrekeningen 1359/50-1499/1500, Reeks 400: nos. 7 - 35: town accounts

Published Sources: primary and secondary

Abel, Wilhelm, Agrarkrisen und Agrarkonjunktur, 3rd edn. (Berlin, 1978; 1st edn. 1966): translated by Olive Ordish as Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (London, 1980).

Aerts, Erik, Het bier van Lier: de economische ontwikkeling van de bierindustrie in een middelgroote Brabantse stad, einde 14de - begin 19de eeuw (Brussels, 1996),

Allen, Robert, ‘The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War’, Explorations in Economic History, 38:4 (October 2001), 411 - 47.

Bernocchi, Mario, Le monete della repubblica Fiorentina, 3 vols. (Florence, 1976).

Beveridge, William, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Centuries, vol. I: Price Tables: Mercantile Era (London, 1939; republished London, 1965).

Blockmans, Wim, ‘The Low Countries’, in Peter N. Stearns, ed., Encyclopedia of European Social History from 1350 to 2000, 5 vols. (New York, 2001), vol. I, pp. 299-300.

Chaudhuri, Kurti, ‘Treasure and Trade Balances: the East India Company's Export Trade, 1660-1720', Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 21 (Dec. 1968), 497-98.

Clark, Gregory, ‘Work, Wages, and Living Conditions: Building Workers in England from the Magna Carta to Tony Blair’, in Simonetta Caviococchi, ed., L’Edilizia prima della rivoluzione industriale, secc. XIII-XVIII, Atti delle “Settimana di Studi” e altri convegni, no. 36, Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “Francesco Datini” (Florence, 2004), pp.

De Vries, Jan, ‘An Inquiry into the Behaviour of Wages in the Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands, 1580-1800,’ Acta Historia Neerlandicae, 10 (1978), 79-97; reprinted in Maurice Aymard, ed., Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism (Amsterdam, 1982), pp. 37-62.

De Vries, Jan, ‘An Employer's Guide to Wages and Working Conditions in the Netherlands, 1450-1850,’ in Carol S. Leonard and Boris N. Mironov, eds., Hours of Work and Means of Payment: The Evolution of Conventions in Pre-Industrial Europe, Proceedings of the Eleventh International Economic History Congress, Milan, September 1994, Session B3b (Milan, 1994), pp. 47-63.

Duby, Georges, Économie rural et la vie des campagnes dans l'occident mediéval, translated by Cynthia Postan, as Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West (Philadelphia, 1968).

Gourvish, T.R., and Richard G. Wilson, The British Brewing Industry, 1830 - 1980 (Cambridge and New York, 1994).

Harding, Vanessa, ‘Employment and Opportunity: the Building Trades in London, 1450-1600', in Simonetta Caviococchi, ed., L’Edilizia prima della rivoluzione industriale, secc. XIII-XVIII, Atti delle “Settimana di Studi” e altri convegni, no. 36, Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “Francesco Datini” (Florence, 2004), pp.

Herlihy, David, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: The Social History of an Italian Town, 1200 -1430 (New Haven, 1967).

Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (London, 1936).

Knoop, Douglas, and G.P. Jones, The Mediaeval Mason: An Economic History of English Stone Building in the Later Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, 3rd edn. (Manchester, 1967).

Lindert, Peter, ‘English Population, Wages, and Prices: 1541-1913’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 15 (Spring 1985), 618-26.

Luiten van Zanden, Jan, ‘Wages and the Standard of Living in Europe, 1500 - 1800', European Review of Economic History, 3:2 (August 1999), 175-97.

Meuvret, Jean, ‘Histoire des prix des céréales en France dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle: sources et publication’, Mélanges d’histoire sociale, 5 (1944), 27-45.

Mills, F.C., Introduction to Statistics (New York, 1956).

Mitchell, B.R., and Phyllis Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962).

Munro, John, Wool, Cloth, and Gold: The Struggle for Bullion in Anglo-Burgundian Trade, ca. 1340-1478 (Brussels and Toronto, 1973).

Munro, John, ‘Mint Policies, Ratios, and Outputs in England and the Low Countries, 1335-1420: Some Reflections on New Data,’ The Numismatic Chronicle, 141 (1981), 71-116.

Munro, John, ‘Mint Outputs, Money, and Prices in Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries,’ in Eddy Van Cauwenberghe and Franz Irsigler, eds., Münzprägung, Geldumlauf und Wechselkurse/ Minting, Monetary Circulation and Exchange Rates, Trierer Historische Forschungen, 7: Akten des 8th International Economic History Congress, Section C-7, Budapest 1982 (Trier, 1984), pp. 31-122

Munro, John, ‘Deflation and the Petty Coinage Problem in the Late-Medieval Economy: The Case of Flanders, 1334 - 1484,’ Explorations in Economic History, 25 (October 1988), 387-423.

Munro, John, Bullion Flows and Monetary Policies in England and the Low Countries, 1350 - 1500, Variorum Collected Studies series (Aldershot, Hampshire; and Brookfield, Vermont, 1992).

Munro, John, Textiles, Towns, and Trade: Essays in the Economic History of Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries, Variorum Collected Studies series CS 442 (Aldershot, Hampshire; and Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1994).

Munro, John, ‘Urban Wage Structures in Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries: Work-Time and Seasonal Wages’, in Ian Blanchard, ed., Labour and Leisure in Historical Perspective, Thirteenth to Twentieth Centuries, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Beiheft series no. 116 (Stuttgart, 1994), pp. 65-78.

Munro, John, ‘Gold, Guilds, and Government: The Impact of Monetary and Labour Policies on the Flemish Cloth Industry, 1390-1435’, Jaarboek voor middeleeuwsche geschiedenis, 5 (2002), 153 - 205.

Munro, John, ‘The Monetary Origins of the “Price Revolution:” South German Silver Mining, Merchant-Banking, and Venetian Commerce, 1470-1540’, in Dennis Flynn, Arturo Giráldez, and Richard von Glahn, eds., Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470 - 1800 (Aldershot and Brookfield, Vt: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), pp. 1-34.

Munro, John, ‘Industrial Energy from Water-Mills in the European Economy, 5th to 18th Centuries: the Limitations of Power’, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi, ed., Economia ed energia, seccoli XIII - XVIII, Atti delle ‘Settimane di Studi’ e altrie Convegni, Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica, ‘Francesco Datini da Prato’, vol. 34 (Florence, 2003), pp. 223-69.

Munro, John, ‘Wage Stickiness, Monetary Changes, and Real Incomes in Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries, 1300 - 1500: Did Money Matter?’ Research in Economic History, 21 (2003), 185 - 297.

Munro, John, ‘Medieval Woollens: The Western European Woollen Industries and their Struggles for International Markets, c.1000 - 1500’, in David Jenkins, ed., The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 2 vols. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Vol. I, chapter 5, pp. 228-324, 378-86 (bibliography).

Munro, John, ‘Money, Wages, and Real Incomes in the Age of Erasmus: The Purchasing Power of Coins and of Building Craftsmen’s Wages in England and the Southern Low Countries, 1500 - 1540’, in Alexander Dalzell and Charles G. Nauert, Jr., eds., The Correspondence of Erasmus, Vol. 12: Letters 1658 - 1801, January 1526- March 1527 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), pp. 551-69.

Oshinksky, Doreathea, ed., Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).

Phelps Brown, E.H., and Sheila V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of Building Wages,’ Economica, 22:87 (August 1955), 195-206; reprinted in E.M. Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History, 3 vols. (London, 1954-62), vol. II, 168-78, and in E.H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins, A Perspective of Wages and Prices (London, 1981), pp. 1-12.

Phelps Brown, E.H., and Sheila V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, Compared with Builders’ Wage Rates’, Economica, 23:92 (November 1956), 296-314; reprinted in E.M. Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History, 3 vols. (London, 1954-62), vol. II, pp. 179-96, and in E.H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins, A Perspective of Wages and Prices (London, 1981), pp. 13-59.

Phelps Brown, E.H.. and Sheila V. Hopkins, A Perspective of Wages and Prices (London, 1981).

Postan, Michael,‘Some Economic Evidence of Declining Population in the Later Middle Ages,’ Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 2 (1950), 130-67, reprinted in his Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 186 - 213 (with the revised title of ‘Some Agrarian Evidence of Declining Population in the Later Middle Ages’).

Postan, Michael,‘Medieval Agrarian Society: England,’ in M. M. Postan, ed., Cambridge Economic History, Vol. I: The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages, (2nd rev. edn. 1966), pp. 560-70.

Postan, Michael, The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain, 1100-1500 (Cambridge, 1972).

Rappaport, Steven, Worlds Within Worlds : The Structures of Life in Sixteenth-century London (Cambridge and New York, 1989).

Rogers, James E. Thorold, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, from the year after the Oxford Parliament (1259) to the Commencement of the Continental War (1793): Compiled Entirely from Original and Contemporaneous Records, 7 vols. (Oxford, 1866-1902):

Rogers, James E. Thorold, Six Centuries of Work and Wages: the History of English Labour (London, 1903).

Ross, Alan, ‘The Assize of Bread’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 92 (1956), 332-42.

Scholliers, E., Loonarbeid en honger: de levenstandaard in de XVe en XVIe eeuw te Antwerpen, Interuniversitair centrum voor de geschiedenis van prizen en lonen in België (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1960).

Smith, Adam, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), ed. with introduction and notes by Edwin Cannan (New York: Modern Library, 1937).

Spufford, Peter, Monetary Problems and Policies in the Burgundian Netherlands, 1433-1496 (Leiden, 1970).

Steffen, Gustav, Studien zur Geschichte der englischen Lohnarbeiter mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Veränderungen ihrer Lebenshaltungen, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1901-05).

Unger, Richard, A History of Brewing in Holland, 900 - 1900: Economy, Technology, and the State (Leiden, 2001).

Van der Wee, Herman, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, 14th - 16th Centuries, 3 vols. (The Hague, 1963)

Van der Wee, Herman, ‘Voeding en Dieet in het Ancien Régime’, Spiegel Historiael, 1 (1966), 94-101, republished in translation: as ‘Nutrition and Diet in the Ancien Régime’, in Herman Van der Wee, The Low Countries in the Early Modern World , trans. by Lizabeth Fackelman (Cambridge and New York, 1993), pp. 279-87.

Van der Wee, Herman, ‘Prijzen en lonen als ontwikkelingsvariabelen: Een vergelijkend onderzoek tussen Engeland en de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1400-1700,’ in Album aangeboden aan Charles Verlinden ter gelegenheid van zijn dertig jaar professoraat (Gent, 1975), pp. 413-47; reissued in English translation (without the tables) as ‘Prices and Wages as Development Variables: A Comparison Between England and the Southern Netherlands, 1400-1700,’ Acta Historiae Neerlandicae, 10 (1978), 58-78; republished in Herman Van der Wee, The Low Countries in the Early Modern World , trans. by Lizabeth Fackelman (Cambridge and New York, 1993), pp. 223-41.

Uytven, Raymond Van, Stadsfinanciën en stadsekonomie te Leuven van de XIIde tot het einde der XVIde eeuw ( Brussels, 1961).

Verlinden, Charles, and E. Scholliers, et al, eds., Documents pour l'histoire des prix et des salaires en Flandre et en Brabant/Dokumenten voor de geschiedenis van prijzen en lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant, 4 vols. (Bruges, 1959 - 65).

Wood-Legh, K.L., A Small Household of the Fifteenth Century (Manchester, 1956).