Textile Production, Wages, and Prices (Munro)
Contains annual data on textile-related trade, textile production, textile prices, price indices, and wages in the medieval Low Countries and England extracted from the annual civic treasurers' accounts that have been placed in the Rekenkamer or Chambre des Comptes in the Belgian National and in the town archives of Bruges, Ghent, Leuven, and Mechelen; from the National Archives (Public Record Office) and from the Archives of the British Library of Political and Economic Science.
The annual data on textile-related trade, textile production, textile prices, price indices, and wages in the medieval Low Countries and England provided in the following spreadsheets have been extracted, over the course of many years, by Prof. John H. Munro (Toronto) from the annual civic treasurers' accounts that have been placed in: the Rekenkamer or Chambre des Comptes in the Belgian National Archives (Algemeen Rijksarchief/Archives G.N Rales du Royaume) and in the town archives of Bruges, Ghent, Leuven, and Mechelen; and from the National Archives (Public Record Office) and the Archives of the British Library of Political and Economic Science, and and certain published documentary sources for both countries.
Some of these data have been published in quinquennial or decennial means, along with other textile data in: John Munro, "Medieval Woollens: Textiles, Textile Technology, and Industrial Organisation, c. 800 - 1500", and "Medieval Woollens: The Western European Woollen Industries and their Struggles for International Markets, c.1000 - 1500", both in David Jenkins, ed., "The Cambridge History of Western Textiles", 2 vols. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Vol. I, chapter 4, pp. 181-227; and Vol. I, chapter 5, pp. 228-324, 378-86 (bibliography).
Some data have also been reproduced in similar fashions (but not in annual indices) in various other publications of Professor Munro, whose bibliographic citations are available online at: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/Publications.pdf
The data sets below are listed in alphabetical order by "Place" as worded in Munro's original files.
| Place | Product | Wages | Explanation | FIle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antwerp; Brabant; England | foodstuffs | carpenters; masons | Twelve spreadsheets provide wage and price index data for master building craftsmen, for 1496 and for the first half of the sixteenth century. | wages.xls |
| Antwerp; Bruges; Flanders; Ghent | cloths; woollens | craftsmen; master craftsmen; commodity basket | Six spreadsheets provide price data annually and in quinquennial averages for the years 1330-1571; prices include dickedinnen cloths and other woolens. Some spreadsheets provide data on wages and commodity baskets. | ghent_wool.xls |
| Antwerp; England; Flanders; Four Imperial Electors; France; Hapsburg Netherlands; Italy | coinage; gold; silver | Not provided | Seven spreadsheets on silver and gold coinages and their values, late fifteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries. | coinage.xls |
| Bergues-St. Winoc; Brabant; England; Essex; Flanders | cloths; drapery; foodstuffs; woollens | Not provided | Three spreadsheets providing information on textile production, including dimensions and composition as well as export figures, sixteenth century. | textile_prod.xls |
| Brabant | foodstuffs; textiles | building craftsmen; police; commodity basket | Twelve spreadsheets providing data from Herman Van der Wee, with occasional corrections by John Munro; used 1451-75 as index base; covers the period 1400 - 1718. | vanderwee.xls |
| Brabant; Flanders; Low Countries | beef; butter; candles; eggs; herrings; peas; says; sugar; wheat; woollens | craftsmen; master craftsmen; commodity basket | Fifty-eight spreadsheets including Van der Wee data and newly calculated prices in various coinages and wages; opening sheets for each commodity concentrate on 1496 while sheets 2-5 in each set provide annual and quinquennial data for the first half of the sixteenth century. These are followed by overall index data. | brabant_comm.xls |
| Bruges | woollens | Not provided | Three spreadsheets provide quantity and price data annually and in quinquennial averages for the years 1390-1500; also includes prices for fine white woollens. | bruges_wool.xls |
| Bruges, Cambridge, England, Ghent, Kortriyk, Leiden, Leuven, Mechelen, Neuve-Eglise, Wervik, Ypres | cloths; woollens | Phelps-Brown Price Index; Flemish Price Index | Three spreadsheets provide prices on Flanders cloth production, 1400-1519, with some English data as a basis for comparison. | ghent_wool1.xls |
| Bruges; Flanders | foodstuffs; textiles | building craftsmen; police; commodity basket | Five spreadsheets developed by John Munro based on Van der Wee and Phelps-Brown models, now revised to use 1451-1475 as the index base; covers the period 1350 - 1500. | flanders_basket.xls |
| Cambridge; Oxford | woollens | Not provided | One spreadsheet provides data on prices of woollen cloths purchased at Oxford and Cambridge from 1400 to 1519. | oxford_cloth.xls |
| England | foodstuffs; textiles | Phelps-Brown Price Index | Nine spreadsheets concerning the content and calculation of the Phelps Brown and Hopkins Price Indices, end of fifteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries. | pbh_index.xls |
| England | candles; cod; herrings; linen; paper; peas; sugar; wheat; wine; woollens | craftsmen; master craftsmen; commodity basket | Fifty-nine spreadsheets providing detailed price data by wages and commodity basket estimates, 1496 and then through mid-sixteenth century. | eng_comm.xls |
| England | foodstuffs | Commodity Basket | Munro's Revisions of the Phelps Brown and Hopkins 'basket of consumables' commodity price series and craftsmen's wage series, 1264-1700. Note: An Excel spreadsheet, with annual data and quinquennial means, based on their working papers in the British Library of Political and Economic Science (LSE). Their index numbers have been converted into values in pence sterling, with the annual money-of-account value of the 'basket of consumables'. |
EngBasketPrices.xls |
| England, Brabrant | foodstuffs | Commodity Basket | Prices and Wages in Southern England and the Antwerp Region, 1400-1700. Note: PDF file, with quinquennial means only: prepared by John H. Munro. See the related Working Paper https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/index.php/index/research/workingPaperDetails/225 on this subject. See also the color graphs https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/MasonsWagesAntwerpEng.doc of these wages and prices, in an MS-Word file. | WagesPricesAntwerpEngl.pdf |
| England; Ghent | cloths; drapery; woollens | Not provided | Three spreadsheets provide indices relevant to Flanders cloth production, 1335-1399, with English exports as a basis for comparison. | fland_drape.xls |
| England; Ghent | cloths; drapery; woollens | Not provided | One spreadsheet, including regression analysis, with data in quinquennial averages for the years 1335-1504. | ghent_cloth.xls |
| England; Ghent; Leuven; Mechelen; Ypres | cloths; drapery; woollens | Not provided | Indices of English and Flemish Cloth Production, quinquennial averages from 1350-4 to 1510-4, based upon exports of English Woolsacks and Broadcloths, Sales of Drapery Tax Farms at Ghent, Ypres, and Mechelen and Annual Rentals of Drapery Stalls in the Ypres Lakenhalle. | ghent_drape.xls |
| England; Leiden | woollens | Not provided | Six spreadsheets provide data on production of woollens for the period 1413-1566 in yearly figures and decennial averages. | leiden_wool.xls |
| England; Ypres | cloths; drapery; woollens | Not provided | One spreadsheet providing results of eleven regression analyses for data on Ypres drapery tax farms and stalls against English woolens and cloths with data variously entered as raw, deflated, lagged, and annual. | ypres_stats.xls |
| England; Ypres | cloths; drapery | Flemish Price Index | Regression Analyses: English Wool and Cloth Exports and the Ypres Drapery | ypres_stats1.xls |
| Europe | coinage | masons | One spreadsheet showing the values of Erasmus' receipts and incomes, 1526-27. | erasmus_income.xls |
| Ghent | drapery | Not provided | Four spreadsheets provide data about drapery tax farms annually and in quinquennial averages for the years 1315-1520. | ghent_drape1.xls |
| Ghent; Leuven; Mechelen; Ypres | drapery | Not provided | One spreadsheet with decennial averages, 1400-1519, for data on drapery stalls and drapery tax farms. | ypres_drape.xls |
| Hondschoote; Kortrijk; Ypres | cloths; linens; silks; woollens | Not provided | Non-Woollen Textile Production in the Low Countries based on Auctions of Tax Farms for the Hondschoote Sayetterie, Kortrijk Linens, and Rentals of Stalls for woollen and non-woollen textiles in the Ypres Lakenhalle; Quinquennial Means, 1400-04 to 1505-09. | kortrijk_linen.xls |
| Mechelen | woollens | Not provided | Five spreadsheets provide price data annually and in quinquennial averages for the years 1316-1520; prices are separated for Easter and Christmas, and given in several currencies for fine woollens. | mech_wool.xls |
| Ypres | drapery | Not provided | Five spreadsheets provide data on cloth production in Ypres, based on drapery tax farms and rental stalls; annual and quinquennial data, 1406-1500. | ypres_farm.xls |
| Ypres | drapery | Not provided | Three spreadsheets provide data on cloth production in Ypres, based on drapery rental stalls; annual and quinquennial data, 1406-1500. | ypres_stall.xls |
| Ypres | woollens | Not provided | Nine spreadsheets provide price data annually and in quinquennial averages for the years 1396-1500; prices include fine dyed woolens in various colors and scarlets; in some spreadsheets prices are separate for purchases by town officials and dignitaries and by the government of the Brugse Vrij (Franc de Bruges). | ypres_wool.xls |