Re:List of prices of medieval items (2009)
by pc86 on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @01:27PM
(#11622606)
Your account is seven hours old and has only commented on this thread.
0. Medieval laborers were middle class so it's important we compare medieval laborers to the modern middle class, not to modern laborers.
1. A property cost 2.5x gross yearly income for a laborer. They could obviously not afford to buy it in 2.5 years. Furthermore, I don't know what the access to financing was like in the 14th-16th centuries, but I'm willing to bet it's better today.
2. The definition of "good" property is pretty subjective, can we assume that means median? Google tells me[0] that the median price seems to be approximately a quarter million pounds. Raw salary data for York[1] (again just a single result from a single Google search) gives us £24,323.76. So £25k give or take. This is just for York proper obviously. If England is anything like the US including the outlying areas will increase median income by quite a bit.
So a "good" property in York is about 10x the gross yearly salary of the middle class. On it's face that's obviously terrible! It's 4x harder for the middle class to own their home now than in the middle ages!
That is, unless you want to look at all the things the middle class has access to that medieval laborer does not. All these things cost money, whether you like it or not. Even if you want to exclude the things that were a technological impossibility in the 14th century, you've still got access to representation in government and access to healthcare just to name two things that dramatically increase quality of life.
0. Medieval laborers were middle class so it's important we compare medieval laborers to the modern middle class, not to modern laborers.
1. A property cost 2.5x gross yearly income for a laborer. They could obviously not afford to buy it in 2.5 years. Furthermore, I don't know what the access to financing was like in the 14th-16th centuries, but I'm willing to bet it's better today.
2. The definition of "good" property is pretty subjective, can we assume that means median? Google tells me[0] that the median price seems to be approximately a quarter million pounds. Raw salary data for York[1] (again just a single result from a single Google search) gives us £24,323.76. So £25k give or take. This is just for York proper obviously. If England is anything like the US including the outlying areas will increase median income by quite a bit.
So a "good" property in York is about 10x the gross yearly salary of the middle class. On it's face that's obviously terrible! It's 4x harder for the middle class to own their home now than in the middle ages!
That is, unless you want to look at all the things the middle class has access to that medieval laborer does not. All these things cost money, whether you like it or not. Even if you want to exclude the things that were a technological impossibility in the 14th century, you've still got access to representation in government and access to healthcare just to name two things that dramatically increase quality of life.
[0] http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property/York.html
[1] http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Location=York-England%3a...