Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIV

[Vinyadan]

These are the links, mainly as a bookmark.
In English: payment of a sword teacher in Bologna: https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&sourc...PBrSUF5AUkI_RI


Not in English
Pratica della mercatura
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratica_della_mercatura
Text http://www.medievalacademy.org/resou...evans_0024.htm

Fish&more https://books.google.de/books?id=lRv...triale&f=false

Once I have time, I'll post some translation.

[Galloglaich]

These are the links, mainly as a bookmark.
In English: payment of a sword teacher in Bologna: https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&sourc...PBrSUF5AUkI_RI

Oh yeah cheers, i've seen that one. Amazing stuff. I've done 4 articles for that same journal myself - the only ones I've ever published in a peer reviewed journal. I also helped a few other people fix up their English for some other articles on there. The APD is also where I got the article about stats on wounds by different weapon type, I think from the first or second issue.

Not in English
Pratica della mercatura
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratica_della_mercatura
Text http://www.medievalacademy.org/resou...evans_0024.htm

Fish&more https://books.google.de/books?id=lRv...triale&f=false

Once I have time, I'll post some translation.

Pratica della mercatura is another superb source. Fascinating manuscript. I love that it also has riddles in it.

This is an excerpt I translated from it for my Baltic book, no prices there but some interesting lists of trade goods:

Going to China / Persia etc. down the Silk Road:

wax, tin, copper, cotton, madder, cheese, flax, and oil, honey, saffron, raw amber, amber beads, vair-skins, ermines, foxes, sables, fitches and martens, wolf skins, deerskins, and all cloths of silk or gold, pearls, wheat, Greek wine and all Latin wines “sold by the cask”. Malmsey and wines of Triglia and Candia “sold by the measure”. Caviar “sold by the fusco, and a fusco is the tail-half of the fish's skin, full of fish's roe”. Suet “in jars”, iron “of every kind”, tin, lead, zibibbo “or raisins of every kind, and the mats go as raisins, with no allowance for tare unless they be raisins of Syria. In that case the baskets or hampers are allowed for as tare, and remain with the buyer into the bargain”. Soap of Venice, soap of Ancona, and soap of Apulia “in wooden cases. They make tare of the cases, and then these go to the buyer for nothing. But the soap of Cyprus and of Rhodes is in sacks, and the sacks go as soap with no tare allowance”.

The goods purchased in China are equally interesting:

Raw silk, silk-gauze, dressed silk, ginger, cubebs, lign-aloes, rhubarb; mace, long pepper, ladanum, galangal [an aromatic root], broken camphor; nutmegs; spike (spike lavender? Spikenard?], cardamoms, scam-mony, pounding pearls, manna, borax, gum Arabic, dragon's blood [?], camel's bay, turbit [a drug from the East Indies], sweet-meats, gold wire.

G

[Vinyadan]

Payments for a cuirass maker by the entrepreneur
"corazias ab armigero italianas, corazias franzoxias, corazias spagno-
las, corazias teotonicas ad computum et rationem librarum IV imp. prò qualibet petia
suprascriptarum manerierum armorum; item corsitos franzoxios et teutonicos ***
scarselis et afoldatis de retro et ascarlionatis de antea ad computum et rationem libra-
rum XIV *** dimidia imp. prò quolibet; item corazinas secretas ad computum et
rationem librarum III imp. prò qualibet corazina; item pectora teotonica de qualibet
factione ad computum et rationem soldo rum XVIII imp. prò qualibet pezia; item spalas
teotonicas de qualibet facione ad computum et rationem soldorum XXVIIII imp. prò
qualibe
Payment of the worker if he tests the armour on the client
"item quod si dictus Petrus fecerit aliquam coraziam franzoxiam, teoto-
nicam, italianam, spagnolam, et eas corazias approbaverit ad personas hominum, quod
dictus dominus Petrus Innocenzus teneatur et obligatus sit dare et solvere eidem Petro
soldos decem imp. plus prò qualibet pretio suprascripto".
Milan, end of XV century

[Martin Greywolf]

A compilation of prices from Czech area, mostly based on Prague goods. It's in Czech, so to make it easier for you, the only relevant table is the first one, the rest are Italian prices for comparision. The prices are converted into gros (gr.) or kopa grosu (kop gr). 1 kop gr == 60 gr, though the exact amount varied, and should be equivalent to 253 g of silver. 1 kop gr was at first enough gros to get you 253 gr of silver, or 1 hrivna, but this being the middle ages, there's an ungodly mess there.

Some highlights:

550 liters of beer, varies due to place and quality = 25 - 42 gr.
36 liters of wheat, bought from farmer directly = 8 - 10 gr
helmet = 30 gr
good cow = 46 gr
helmet with visor = 48 gr
rent for 1 0,173 square kilometer of land = cca 60 gr
stallion = 6 kop gr
warhorse = 20 kop gr
property needed to serve as witness = 10 -12 kop gr
2-story ordinary house in a city = 17 - 22 kop gr
cuirass = 4 kop gr
Milanese cuirass = 8 kop gr
top of the line armor = 75 kop gr
price of a minor noble's (zeman) holdings = 50 - 60 kop gr
sword = 20 kop gr and higher

If we assume that Czechs drank as much beer back then as today (cca 140 liters per capita) - which we probably can, these being Czechs - then one person spent 6.4 - 10.7 gr on beer alone per year, and assuming 2 EUR per liter (for beer in somewhat higher end pubs), we get 1 gr = 28 EUR.

Helmet then costs 840 EUR (my kettle hat cost about 300, but really good helmets are about this expensive today), sword goes from 33 000 upwards (top of the line modern replica goes for about 1 000+ for a simple sword), 2-story city house goes for 28 000 EUR (HA! I wish), and top of the line armor sets you back a steep 63 000 EUR.

Keep in mind that, when smaller goods are concerned, these are prices for brand new items made by licensed craftsmen (they were taken from a city's guild records for the most part), you could and did find many of these made by not so great craftsmen or re-sold on second-hand market for much, much lower price.

[gkathellar]

@ Galloglaich - I believe "dragon's blood" may refer to bright red plant resins, which were mostly used as dyes.

[snowblizz]

yes that was part of the general economic shift back toward serfdom too in many places, and part of a generalized inflation which I assume had a lot to do with Peruvian Silver and Canadian furs and Caribbean sugar and indigo, Virginia tobacco and so on. But I'll admit the complexity of the economics of this period are still a bit beyond me. i have tried a few times to figure out accurate comparisons of wages and prices from the 16th Century and came out of it more confused than i started.

The economics of any period is complex and terribly confusing. To economist as well.

I am however very interested in them (I'm an economocis major after all and have a deep interest in history) and some of my most enjoyable readings have been economic history, too bad it was only a minor subject at my university.

With no hard data, infinite variables, only vaguely reliable records and loads of guesswork (and that's just modern economics!) it will be hard to ay anything except in general terms. Or sometimes for some things very specifically.

One of my favourite things was reading a textbook debunking "mercantilism" as a specific constructed system as it is often tauthing I'vght to be. It's more accurate to say it's a result of a process of cause and effect of a number of players playing a zero-sum game.

You are probably on to something with the discovery of Peruvian silver, every time large new deposits of precious metal has been found it has had significant impact on trade patterns. I read some nice examples of new deposits in europe in a book about medieaval trade I still can't remember. I may need to go and find it agian in the library.



Briefly about breechloaders and artisans. If I understood it correctly the earlier non-corned powder was more slowly energetic? Which would mean earlier breechloaders would suffer less stresses I'd think. And as one moves to corned powder as more reliable overall but more explosively energetic one has to "simplify" the weapons since metallurgy and craftmanship, high as it may be, simply cannot match what centuries of developemnt leads to. I think this is in part why breechloaders were "forgotten" sort of for a long period. That and they had bellmakers making cannons, if they had asked watchmakers we'd have a Maxim in 1500 ;P.

Also about artisanry. There's a curious thing I've noticed where the general skill of something seems to increase over time, regardless of the people doing it. Let me see if I can explain it. In the 1970s-80s when miniature wargaming was "developed" out of RPGs the miniatues being made were fairly crude. Now the people learning their craft then with decades of experience now create much much more sophisticated miniature models. The funny thing is, people not born when the Old Guard took their first sculpting steps can today match those masters with a fraction of that experience (using techniques and sometimes tools the master invented). And clearly they aren't magically better people, it's barely a generation ago. By examples it seems the standard for miniature sculpting has moved up. What was production quality 30 years ago would be considered an amateurs work today.
This seems to some degree be true in other fields, say drawing and art IMO. An artstudent today with the same tools as a medieval illustrator master could probably equal or better their work and the artstudent doesn't have better hand eye coordination and stuff due to evolution in that short a time. To me it seems some kind of intangiable setting the bar higher by example often happening. The early modern painters e.g. did much better naturalistic work than just one generation earlier. For some reason they decided to push the envelope. I watched a documentary once that argued it was using a camera obscura for scetching IIRC, but I don't quite buy that explanation. But whatever it was, enough people started doing it and there was no going back.

I guess what I'm saying that besides technical limitations, of which there definitely were some (like lacking modern highprecision tools). Especially in massproducing to high tolerance tiny margin specs. It may be a case that there weren't enough good examples of high enough quality to lift general quality. Even if the medieval craftman could have, and they certianly did sometimes, really push the levels of craftmanship.

[Vinyadan]

The values from the Latin texts I posted earlier

Note: 1 lira = 20 soldi, 1 soldo = 12 denari

French, Italian, Spanish or German cuirasses: 4 lire each

French and German corsets with pockets for soldiers (?) (Lots of strange words): 14,5 lire each (corset means in general upper body clothing, among which armour, but this is a part full of words I don't know: it looks like it was to have bags on the back, and maybe some sort of scales on the front).

Secret small cuirasses: 3 lire each

German breastpieces: 18 soldi each

German shoulders: 29 soldi each

Testing the armour on someone: 10 soldi for each armour.

[gkathellar]

You are probably on to something with the discovery of Peruvian silver, every time large new deposits of precious metal has been found it has had significant impact on trade patterns

Not just discovery, either. I'd be hard-pressed to source this, but I believe the collapse of new world silver supply was a major culprit in the fall of the Ming dynasty. European traders found the silver-to-gold exchange rate in China favorable, which spurred them to import large quantities, which fueled rapid economic growth. Conversely, when the silver dried up, the boom economy collapsed.

[Galloglaich]

A compilation of prices from Czech area, mostly based on Prague goods. It's in Czech, so to make it easier for you, the only relevant table is the first one, the rest are Italian prices for comparision. The prices are converted into gros (gr.) or kopa grosu (kop gr). 1 kop gr == 60 gr, though the exact amount varied, and should be equivalent to 253 g of silver. 1 kop gr was at first enough gros to get you 253 gr of silver, or 1 hrivna, but this being the middle ages, there's an ungodly mess there.

Some highlights:

550 liters of beer, varies due to place and quality = 25 - 42 gr.
36 liters of wheat, bought from farmer directly = 8 - 10 gr
helmet = 30 gr
good cow = 46 gr
helmet with visor = 48 gr
rent for 1 0,173 square kilometer of land = cca 60 gr
stallion = 6 kop gr
warhorse = 20 kop gr
property needed to serve as witness = 10 -12 kop gr
2-story ordinary house in a city = 17 - 22 kop gr
cuirass = 4 kop gr
Milanese cuirass = 8 kop gr
top of the line armor = 75 kop gr
price of a minor noble's (zeman) holdings = 50 - 60 kop gr
sword = 20 kop gr and higher

If we assume that Czechs drank as much beer back then as today (cca 140 liters per capita) - which we probably can, these being Czechs - then one person spent 6.4 - 10.7 gr on beer alone per year, and assuming 2 EUR per liter (for beer in somewhat higher end pubs), we get 1 gr = 28 EUR.

Helmet then costs 840 EUR (my kettle hat cost about 300, but really good helmets are about this expensive today), sword goes from 33 000 upwards (top of the line modern replica goes for about 1 000+ for a simple sword), 2-story city house goes for 28 000 EUR (HA! I wish), and top of the line armor sets you back a steep 63 000 EUR.

Keep in mind that, when smaller goods are concerned, these are prices for brand new items made by licensed craftsmen (they were taken from a city's guild records for the most part), you could and did find many of these made by not so great craftsmen or re-sold on second-hand market for much, much lower price.

Fascinating, very useful, thanks for posting.

I think something is off with the price of a sword there though. You have a sword costing as much as a warhorse and two and a half times as much as a Milanese curiass. Looking at the link I notice it says 'meč' for 'from 2 kop up' which sounds a bit closer to the numbers I've got from Poland and German speaking areas (still about 4 times as much because I usually show a sword at about half a mark, though clearly it varies pretty widely by quality and embellishments.)

Another entry said meč a nůž (Sword and knife?) for 21 'soldi' which I think is roughly 1 mark based on my (admittedly confusing) currency notes. 1 Soldo = 12 dinari or 1/20 of a mark

Thoughts?

G

[LughSpear]

Everyone knows that mounted archery was really awesome, the speed of the horse would add to the force of the arrow.

Would the same happen with an archer in a motorcycle?

[Galloglaich]

You are probably on to something with the discovery of Peruvian silver, every time large new deposits of precious metal has been found it has had significant impact on trade patterns. I read some nice examples of new deposits in europe in a book about medieaval trade I still can't remember. I may need to go and find it agian in the library.

New sources of precious metals did cause disruptions, as did major mines running out. This happened several times causing major currency crises, and leading, interestingly, to a host of new inventions each time in chemistry and mining tech which re-opened the mines.

But I was referring to more broadly the immense quantity of wealth which came to the Atlantic facing Monarchies thanks to their conquest of the New World, establishment of slave colonies overseas and capture of spice islands and so forth. This had a huge destabilizing effect on Europe in general which lasted for generations.

Briefly about breechloaders and artisans. If I understood it correctly the earlier non-corned powder was more slowly energetic? Which would mean earlier breechloaders would suffer less stresses I'd think. And as one moves to corned powder as more reliable overall but more explosively energetic one has to "simplify" the weapons since metallurgy and craftmanship, high as it may be, simply cannot match what centuries of developemnt leads to. I think this is in part why breechloaders were "forgotten" sort of for a long period. That and they had bellmakers making cannons, if they had asked watchmakers we'd have a Maxim in 1500 ;P.

Interesting theory but there is a problem with it- the various innnovations of powder you refer to, crumbled then corned powder etc. go back to the early 15th Century and are basically complete by the mid 15th. Two generations before 1500 in other words. By the mid-15th Century black powder was being produced with different grades and grains for primer, for small and large firearms, small, medium and large cannon, for grenades, and for different types of fireworks which were already in routine use for celebrations and so on as they are today.

It's unclear (at least to me) that breechloaders were ever forgotten, at least not breechloading cannon.

As for the Maxim, well they did have stuff like this (fast forward to 02:46 to see what I mean):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mKVdMNcG48

I guess what I'm saying that besides technical limitations, of which there definitely were some (like lacking modern highprecision tools). Especially in massproducing to high tolerance tiny margin specs. It may be a case that there weren't enough good examples of high enough quality to lift general quality. Even if the medieval craftman could have, and they certianly did sometimes, really push the levels of craftmanship.

It always took a while for a new technology to get fully established, especially something really new. There were always some artists and artisans who were a generation or three ahead of their time. You can actually see very similar innovations with other things like clocks and watches around this same time period, some of which slowed down a great deal in development in the Early Modern period. Others, like the printing press, took off with incredible rapidity.

It may be that the economic and political changes of the 16th Century simply swept over the craft industries before this kind of thing could be developed enough to set up 'Folwark' or factory type systems where they could have unskilled labor making them, as happened in so many other industries in the Early Modern period.

G

[Wartex1]

Everyone knows that mounted archery was really awesome, the speed of the horse would add to the force of the arrow.

Would the same happen with an archer in a motorcycle?

One of the advantages of a horse is that the horse can "drive" itself. Using a bow on a motorcycle (unless someone else is driving) would be largely ineffective due to the inability to steer while using the bow, drastically increasing the likelihood of a crash. If someone else is driving, I'd imagine it'd be decently effective, but still less so due to the lack of an elevated position and the added obstacle of another person being present on the motorcycle.

[Galloglaich]

One of the advantages of a horse is that the horse can "drive" itself. Using a bow on a motorcycle (unless someone else is driving) would be largely ineffective due to the inability to steer while using the bow, drastically increasing the likelihood of a crash. If someone else is driving, I'd imagine it'd be decently effective, but still less so due to the lack of an elevated position and the added obstacle of another person being present on the motorcycle.

hence the extensive use of the crossbow in the best movie ever made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdr-f3MZgqo

[Mike_G]

Everyone knows that mounted archery was really awesome, the speed of the horse would add to the force of the arrow.

Would the same happen with an archer in a motorcycle?

Mythbusters did this with a truck, if I recall correctly. The speed added some force to the arrow.

That's not the great thing about mounted archery, though. If you want more power, you can build a more powerful bow and shoot from a nice solid stance on foot. The advantage of mounted archers is the ability for them to ride into range, shoot and then ride away. It's hard to counter archers you can't catch unless you have a lot of missile armed troops of you own.

[Wartex1]

hence the extensive use of the crossbow in the best movie ever made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdr-f3MZgqo

To be fair, once you have access to modern firearms, crossbows become largely pointless unless resources are limited (as in Mad Max), since crossbows are much easier to build without manufacturing tools and ammunition is basically infinitely easier to create as well (sharpened stick vs very specifically made slugs).

[Vinyadan]

About prices: https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.redd...ons_and_armor/ contains some info and bibliography (in English)

[Galloglaich]

Some prices - (these first ones are all from Poland or Prussian towns from 1420-1460

sword 1/2 mark or about 40 groschen - source Uzbrojenie w Polsce średniowiecznej 1350-1450, “Armaments in Medieval Poland 1350-1450”, Andrzej Nadolski, Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii Kultury Materialnej, (1990), page 471

A sheep, 56 dinari
Bushel of flour (1423) 6 kreuzer (144 dinari)
Side of bacon, 1 Mark (40 kreuzer)
Cubit of fine linen (30 kreuzer)
Pair of shoes (16 kreuzer)
Bushel of wheat 84 dinari
Sword 20 kreuzer
3 Tons of beer, 1 mark (1377, Hanseatic League law)
Crossbow (not sure what specific type) 1 mark / 40 kreuzer
Coat of plates (platendienst) 12 kreuzer
Cuirass with pauldrons, 39 kreuzer
Mail Haubergeon 2-7 marks or 10 marks for a ‘special’ Haubergeon (possibly tempered or fine links)
Half-Armor ‘of proof’ 90 kreuzer
Milanese harness 4 florins
Milanese harness ‘of Proof’ 7 florins, 4 kreuzer

Equipment for a mounted crossbowman, 11 florins, equipment ‘for a lancer’ 30 florins

Payment to a master tailor in Strasbourg 1460 for 1 week’s (6 out of 7 days) work: 144 pfennig. Outlay for apprentices, hired workers and worker meals, 29.5 pfennig. Net pay 115.5 pfennig or 26 Kreuzer, 104 Kreuzer per month.

Weekly earnings in Silesia, second half of 15th century:

24 Prague groschen – carpenter (roughly ½ mark, 18 Kreuzer)
18-35 Prague gr - master mason* (roughly 13-26 Kreuzer, 104 Kr per month)
8.5 gr Prague gr – non-guild worker
3.7 Prague gr- carter
* A master mason will often receive 2 or 3 times his normal pay because he will receive wages at his own rate for each apprentice or journeyman in his employ.

Mercenaries pay Hungarian Black Army:
Light Cavalry 2 Florin per month (120 kreuzer per month)
Gunner 3 Florin per month (180 kreuzer per month)
Halberdier 3 Florin per month (180 kreuzer per month)
Leutzule (guide) 2 Florin per month (120 kreuzer per month)
Lancer* 10 Florin per month (600 kreuzer per month)
Knight (‘Lance’)*20 Florin per month (1200 kreuzer per month)




A good primary source for all this stuff is the Balthasar Behem Codex, aka the Codex Picturatus. It's a survey of craft guilds in Krakow in 1505, it has prices and all sorts of regulations, though you need to be able to read (or painstakingly translate, as some friends and i did) medieval Latin. It also has tons of really cool paintings of each type of craft workshop. You can find scans of the whole thing online.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthasar_Behem_Codex

[Tobtor]

Side of bacon, 1 Mark (40 kreuzer)

3 Tons of beer, 1 mark (1377, Hanseatic League law)

Crossbow (not sure what specific type) 1 mark / 40 kreuzer

What is meant with "tons" in this regard? It seem there must be some issue here, or is a side of bacon really priced the same as 3000kg litres of beer (or 2700 using US tons)?

I know the listed price of beer is earlier, but it sounds like a crazy inflation rate (above what I would expect).

I think something is off with the price of a sword there though. You have a sword costing as much as a warhorse and two and a half times as much as a Milanese curiass. Looking at the link I notice it says 'meč' for 'from 2 kop up' which sounds a bit closer to the numbers I've got from Poland and German speaking areas (still about 4 times as much because I usually show a sword at about half a mark, though clearly it varies pretty widely by quality and embellishments.)

As you say there is a great variance in quality in swords. The listed price is roughly a quarter of "top of the line armor". While the armour is of course much more steel and various pieces, it also is simpler to mass produce. So I don't think the price is off for a top-line nobleman's sword. Could you get a working messer for much less? Sure. Its like comparing what a car cost today.

I have seen quite a bit of late medieval swords, and some of them are very good, but there are also many very "crude" (however these are rarely displayed in the fancy public armouries/museums - giving a false impression). I think the ones costing half a mark must be very cheap (perhaps used?), or from an earlier source (inflation again?).

I think generally a good sword cost more than a crossbow (as opposed to this where its half of the crossbow).

[Galloglaich]

What is meant with "tons" in this regard? It seem there must be some issue here, or is a side of bacon really priced the same as 3000kg litres of beer (or 2700 using US tons)?

I know the listed price of beer is earlier, but it sounds like a crazy inflation rate (above what I would expect).

I'm not sure but I think it just means a barrel, I don't know how much. The source was "The Hansa, History and Culture Johannes Schildhauer, Dorset Press, (1988), ISBN 0-88029-182-6

As you say there is a great variance in quality in swords. The listed price is roughly a quarter of "top of the line armor". While the armour is of course much more steel and various pieces, it also is simpler to mass produce. So I don't think the price is off for a top-line nobleman's sword. Could you get a working messer for much less? Sure. Its like comparing what a car cost today.

I have seen quite a bit of late medieval swords, and some of them are very good, but there are also many very "crude" (however these are rarely displayed in the fancy public armouries/museums - giving a false impression). I think the ones costing half a mark must be very cheap (perhaps used?), or from an earlier source (inflation again?).

I think generally a good sword cost more than a crossbow (as opposed to this where its half of the crossbow).

The site he linked to as a source

http://www.myschwerk.webzdarma.cz/cenik.html

... does not seem to indicate a sword costing 20 marks. Unless I am missing something there I think he made a mistake. It shows one for 2 marks "and up" and one (with a knife) from Italian sources for 21 solidi or just over 1 mark. Unless I'm translating that wrong (using google)

The cost of both sword and crossbow at about 1/2 and 1 mark respectively seems to be very common from German sources for the 15th Century, (as does the crossbow costing more though I think that depends a great deal on the type of crossbow, not always indicated) and I believe those are cutlers guild prices for the swords. Swords were also 'mass produced' by guilds so to speak with a system of subcontractors - iron mongers, heat-treaters, sharpeners, hilt makers, and polishers, as well as the cutler himself who was kind of the overall contractor and designer. In Late Medieval Europe they built swords on a vast scale.

I have seen prices for swords from the 15th Century ranging from very low (10 dinari etc.) probably for the kind of junk you are referring to, to as much as 3 or 4 marks, to once 10 marks but that was for a gilded sword. I'd be very surprised to see data on a sword costing 20 marks, but I would assume that would be gilded with gold etc.

I found another price list, I think for England not precisely sure what date, only lists one sword (a 'cheap' peasant sword for 6D which is no doubt a very low price) but does show some interesting prices for armor and other things

http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html

His armor prices roughly match the ones i've seen:

Ready-made Milanese armor £8 6s 8d in 1441

Cuirass of proof with pauldrons: (date not given)
plates: 5s 6d
finishing, rivets, and straps: 7s 6d
selling price 26s

Lance[r] armor:
plates 14s 5d
finishing, et cetera 40s
selling price 80s

G

[Storm Bringer]

What is meant with "tons" in this regard? It seem there must be some issue here, or is a side of bacon really priced the same as 3000kg litres of beer (or 2700 using US tons)?

I know the listed price of beer is earlier, but it sounds like a crazy inflation rate (above what I would expect).

I quick check on wiki shows that wine was shipped in massive. 954 litre casks, called tuns, which weighed about 1,000kg we believe are where the origin of both the ton of weight, and the use of tonnage for ships volume.

[Haighus]

Excellent, thanks everyone! This is exactly the stuff I was looking for. I do vaguely remember someone posting the typical income for a more well off peasant (boor?) awhile back? I think it compared favourably to the cost of swords.

It looks like in general, anyone who had a standard, reasonable wage could at least get a cheap sword.

Regarding the most expensive swords, Henry V apparently paid £2000 each(!) for 5 Toledo swords, which must've been festooned in gold and precious gems, considering a small castle could be built for that kind of price. Apparently the most old, battered, cheap swords could be as little as 1d as well (second hand in Coroners rolls evaluations). This was from Matt Easton.

The one mark side of bacon seems somewhat excessive. When it says a side, I'm assuming it means more like half a pig, than a single rasher. Interesting that is costs more than a sword in the price list it was mentioned in.

[Mr Beer]

If we assume that Czechs drank as much beer back then as today (cca 140 liters per capita) - which we probably can, these being Czechs - then one person spent 6.4 - 10.7 gr on beer alone per year, and assuming 2 EUR per liter (for beer in somewhat higher end pubs), we get 1 gr = 28 EUR.

Helmet then costs 840 EUR (my kettle hat cost about 300, but really good helmets are about this expensive today), sword goes from 33 000 upwards (top of the line modern replica goes for about 1 000+ for a simple sword), 2-story city house goes for 28 000 EUR (HA! I wish), and top of the line armor sets you back a steep 63 000 EUR.

I find it very pleasing that we're using the Beer Standard to convert to modern equivalent prices...facetious aside it's probably as good as any other yardstick given it's stability as a staple good over the period.

[Storm Bringer]

I find it very pleasing that we're using the Beer Standard to convert to modern equivalent prices...facetious aside it's probably as good as any other yardstick given it's stability as a staple good over the period.

well, with a username like that, you would say that.....

jokes aside the big mac index is a real thing, and as useful as many other comparative price measures. relative purchasing power is one of those ideas that seems like it should be simple, but as soon as you look into the details, it get horribly complex real fast.

[Xuc Xac]

The one mark side of bacon seems somewhat excessive. When it says a side, I'm assuming it means more like half a pig, than a single rasher.

That's exactly what it means. A side of beef or pork is the entire left or right half of the animal. A side of bacon is a side of pork that's been salted and cured.

It's the side of the animal, not a portion on the side of your plate as an appetizer to a main dish.

[snowblizz]

Everyone knows that mounted archery was really awesome, the speed of the horse would add to the force of the arrow.

Would the same happen with an archer in a motorcycle?

Yes.

Also works with crossbows and pick-ups. (The Mythbusters test)

[Tobtor]

That's exactly what it means. A side of beef or pork is the entire left or right half of the animal. A side of bacon is a side of pork that's been salted and cured.

It's the side of the animal, not a portion on the side of your plate as an appetizer to a main dish.

I know that (though you could argue that normally the legs etc is not counted in the "side of bacon"). I still think it is a very strange price.

3.000 of litres is a lot of beer (at least its more than what I drink in a year). A moden day pig weight around 100kg when alive, Slaughter weights is around 80kg (whith some bones still attached). A medieval pig (even a late medieval one) is much smaller. So maybe we are dealing with something like 25kg of meat costing the same as 3.000litres of beer. That is more than 100 times as much pr. kg!

Pigs where relatively easy to breed, eats trash, leftovers and roots/fruits from the forest, and is Thus usually cheaper than cattle. So it is "cheap" meat.

[wolflance]

Knowledge

Lots of knowledge

Moar Knowledge

EVEN Moar knowledge

Thank's a lots guys. I learned quite a lot from your answers, and that clears up most of my confusions. In fact, I learned a lot more than what I asked for. Most of the stuffs I don't even know I don't know！

So, in continuation of my last question: In a military context/On a battlefield in Europe, am I right to expect all of these to present?

1) Non-noble, non-knight troops that nevertheless armed themselves with the best equipment of the time, and fought in a typical "knightly" manner - as armored heavy lancer/dismounted heavy infantry (the "men-at-arms")
2) Nobility class troops that fought in a "knightly" manner as armored cavalry/dismounted infantry, but were not knighted and thus wouldn't be considered knight from a social sense (the "gendarmes").
3) Proper knights that nevertheless did not fight with a knight's capacity (i.e. a knighted person that fought as a musketeer).

EDIT
One extra question: Did something like "full plate musketeer" existed at any point in the history?

[Kiero]

In a semi-related topic, who could expect to be ransomed, if they surrendered to an enemy? Only the nobility, or could mercenaries expect the same treatment from mercs on the other side?

Did mercs go out of their way to capture (not kill) enemy nobles, since there was a payday at the end of it?

[DerKommissar]

Not just discovery, either. I'd be hard-pressed to source this, but I believe the collapse of new world silver supply was a major culprit in the fall of the Ming dynasty. European traders found the silver-to-gold exchange rate in China favorable, which spurred them to import large quantities, which fueled rapid economic growth. Conversely, when the silver dried up, the boom economy collapsed.

Do you remember where you got that information? This sounds very interesting for a friend of mine, so if you have a lead, he might be able to dig smth up...

[PhoenixPhyre]

A question (that got lost earlier)--

How big would a frontier garrison be under

a) the post-Marius roman system

b) mid-medieval continental europe?

I'm envisioning the far side being mostly wilderness, not a patrolled border of another power. More migratory tribes. Even rough numbers for a sense of scale would be nice. Thanks!


On a side note, I've learned a lot from this thread. I was at a show and a vendor (selling obviously pot-metal replicas of various bladed and crushing weapons) said "I'm amazed that they could walk around with all that weight (of armor and weapons)." Because of this thread I knew better. I didn't buy from him