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8 - Wage-Earners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Mavis E. Mate
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Summary

IN the mid fifteenth century wages — at least for building craftsmen — were higher than they had been before the Black Death, and food prices were generally low. Real wages thus increased significantly. Wives and children were employed more frequently, and their wages swelled the family income. At the same time an active land market allowed the lowest category of villagers — the landless or cottagers with less than an acre — to acquire land or to expand their holdings. Christopher Dyer succinctly summed up current thinking when he wrote, ‘Every change favored the wage earners.’ None the less, the well-being of any particular family depended on a variety of circumstances, such as the form in which the wages were paid, the number of days in a year they were employed, their access to the resources of the wild, and how much land they had, if any. The position of wage-earners, moreover, did not remain unchanged in the next hundred years. During bad harvests, when prices soared, wages did not always keep pace. Industrial developments such as the spread of hopped beer, or the rise and fall of the cloth market, could affect the opportunities for women to earn extra money through brewing and spinning. In the second quarter of the sixteenth century, rising prices and changes in the land market eroded the earlier favorable position for some workers.

Type
Chapter
Information
Trade and Economic Developments, 1450–1550
The Experience of Kent, Surrey and Sussex
, pp. 134 - 168
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2006

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  • Wage-Earners
  • Mavis E. Mate, University of Oregon
  • Book: Trade and Economic Developments, 1450–1550
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
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  • Wage-Earners
  • Mavis E. Mate, University of Oregon
  • Book: Trade and Economic Developments, 1450–1550
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Wage-Earners
  • Mavis E. Mate, University of Oregon
  • Book: Trade and Economic Developments, 1450–1550
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
Available formats
×