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

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 ...