Wages in the Middle Ages
While historians have long appreciated that information on wages and standards of living are among the best evidence to explore the dynamics of preindustrial economies, recent scholarship has pushed wages to the very centre of these debates. Wage evidence has become the fulcrum upon which several grand theories, like the Little and Great Divergences and the Malthusian nature of pre-modern economies, now pivot. Yet, there remains a degree of arbitrariness surrounding both the data and the assumptions that form the basis of the available wage series. For the medieval period, the utility of current series is compromised by small data samples, a narrow focus on certain types of work and workers, and, even where relatively large samples have been used, by inconsistencies in the ways in which the available wage levels have been calculated.
Current controversies concerning wages, earnings, living standards and economic growth are not the product of a lack of source material. Indeed, a main strength of English economic history is the survival of extensive primary evidence. To date, however, these data remain under-utilised and there is an over-reliance upon data gathered more than 50 years ago in a pre-electronic and digital age. By harnessing state-of-the art database technology to traditional skills of Latin and palaeography, this project will gather, analyse and make available the wealth of untapped wage information relating to the employment of men, women and children contained in the many thousands of manorial accounts pertaining to the home farms of manorial lords.