In 1412 Henry instructed the Mayor to obtain a return of the land and tenements held in the City and suburbs for purposes of taxation. The return professed to be incomplete, but the details (see Sharpe’s London and the Kingdom) are instructive. The gross rental of London was set down at £4120; that of the Mayor and Corporation at £150: 9: 11. The Bridge Estate was worth £148: 15: 3. Private property in the City showed that Robert Chichele, the Mayor, owned houses returning £42: 19: 2, and Whittington owned houses returning £25. Of course this rental in no way represents the whole property of either. Attempts have been made to use old rentals in order to ascertain the comparative value of money. It is, however, an absolute impossibility to estimate in this, or in any other way, the true value of money at any date. It is almost waste of time to attempt any comparison with the present day unless we know—which we can never learn—the standards of comfort and the way of life in every rank and every class. For instance, as we have seen, a noble lord, who owned hundreds of manors, kept up a great state with a huge following who lived upon him. He neither saved money nor tried to save money; his estates produced an income regular and large; he spent all; what was over was given in charity or to the Church; he emptied his coffers as fast as they were replenished. The merchant, who lived in luxury, had to save because his way of life was precarious. The retailer for the same reason—the uncertainty of trade—was compelled, by the ordinary rules of prudence, to live within his income. The craftsman, on the other hand, was like the noble lord in one respect—that he never saw or felt the necessity of saving money; he was always, as he is still, removed from starvation by one week’s wages. The position, the wages of the craftsman can only, therefore, be understood if we know how he was accustomed to live and how he wished to live, the amount of meat, bread, and beer he consumed.

Then, again, the prices which are quoted are always those of regulation. When provisions began to be dear the Mayor and Aldermen made laws as to the market price. They returned again and again to this method. When, as sometimes happened, the high prices were caused by the greed of traders, or by any kind of combination, this method answered very well. For instance, there were continual complaints of the fishmongers’ exorbitant charges,—perhaps they were not really exorbitant,—but at any rate regulations were passed, accordingly, ordering the price of fish. These regulations answered roughly for a little while, and were then forgotten and disregarded. What was the use of ordering the fishmonger to sell his “best” smelts at a penny the hundred, if the supply were limited and the demand excessive? The right of the Mayor and Aldermen to regulate the price at which anything was to be sold was never questioned; but, like many other mediæval rights, it could never be enforced for lack of a police. In the year 1300, for instance, without any apparent pressure of scarcity, the Mayor issued regulations as to the price of all provisions, but those for birds alone are preserved.

Again, it helps one very little or not at all in the estimate of money and its value, to know the market price of things, unless we know also whether the said commodities were at the time necessaries or luxuries, whether they were abundant or scarce. Thus a pheasant was to be sold at fourpence. Who bought pheasants? Were they scarce or plentiful? Again, the following table drawn up by Dugdale is often quoted to show the purchasing power of money in the year 1300:—

A quarter of Wheat4s.
A quarter of Ground Malt3s.4d.
A quarter of Pease2s.4d.
A Bull7s.6d.
A Cow6s.
A Fat Mutton1s.
An Ewe Sheep0s.8d.
A Capon0s.2d.
A Cock or Hen0s.1½d.

We know that a quarter of wheat costs at the present moment so much, and we may, if we please, compare modern prices with mediæval prices of wheat, but that helps us little, because we all eat wheaten bread now, and formerly the common people did not. The value of money must depend, not on prices alone, but, as I have said, also on the standard of living, on wages, on hours of work, on the cost of things, on plenty and scarcity, on taxation, and on many other considerations.

Thus, in the year 1314, corn being scarce, and provisions dear, the King, with the consent of his Parliament, fixed the price of provisions. Comparing the King’s prices of 1314 with the Lord Mayor’s of 1300, it is plain that scarcity had raised the price considerably. “If any person,” says the Proclamation, “will not sell the saleable things for the price appointed as hereinbefore set forth, then the said saleable thing shall remain forfeited to us. And we will that the aforesaid ordinances from this time be firmly and inviolably observed in our said City.” So that the Parliament of the year 1314 actually believed that they could fix the prices of provisions so that they should remain fixed! That an attempt was made seriously to carry out this law is apparent from a Brief of two years after, in which the King says, referring to the unlucky law of 1314, “Because we have understood that such a Proclamation, which at that time we believed would be to the Profit of the People of our Realm, redounds to their greater damage than profit, we command you that in the said several places ye cause publicly to be proclaimed that Oxen, Cows, Sheep, Hogs, Geese, Capons, Hens, Chickens, Young Pigeons and Eggs, be sold for a reasonable price as was accustomed to be done before the said former Proclamation.”

The knowledge of what was commonly paid for rent is some help towards understanding the value of money, but not much. There must be left over and above the rent, for the tenant, enough for him and his family to live upon. We are also helped by the endowments of Chantries. A Chantry priest was expected to live upon an endowment varying generally from £5 to £7 a year. The priest was an able-bodied man, raised above the lowest class—to which he often belonged by birth—and he looked for a certain standard of comfort. He had to live, say, on six pounds a year, which is about 2s. 4d. a week, or 4d. a day. It may also be noted that a young woman of the better sort was supposed to cost 8d. a week for her board. Comparing this allowance with the prices ordered by the Mayor at any time within two hundred years, it will be found that a man could live very well on 4d. a day. This would go a long way when a whole sheep cost a shilling, and a quarter of wheat 4s. If we suppose that a craftsman lived at two-thirds the cost of a priest, and that he had a wife and four children, we obtain the following estimate:—

The craftsman per annum£400
His wife200
His four children400
£1000

He would, therefore, want a wage of four shillings a week or 8d. a day. Now the wages given to the workmen at St. Stephen’s Chapel in 1358 are preserved in the Account Rolls of Edward III. Some of them, enough for our purpose, are extracted in Britton and Bayley’s History of Westminster Palace (p. 174). The wages varied. Eighteenpence a day was paid to Master Edmund Canon, stone-cutter, one shilling a day to Hugh the painter, 10d. a day to C. Pokerick, 8d. a day to W. Lincoln and W. Somervile, 6d. a day to W. Heston, 4½d., and even 4d., a day to J. York and W. Cambridge.

The craftsman, therefore, who had a family to keep was paid from 4d. to 8d. a day. His standard of living must have been considerably lower than that of the priest, who obtained the same allowance in money, but had no family to bring up.