Ancient Web: Kenneth Hodges Listed the Price of Medieval Everyday Life

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

How much did a medieval person pay for a goose, a book, or the tools of an armorer? Kenneth Hodges took a stack of historical books and began copying useful numbers into a webpage.

Visit the Medieval Price List.

The surviving University of California, Davis page credits Hodges and begins with a disarming admission: the compilation is neither complete nor thoroughly researched. Its value is practical comparison, with entries grouped into tools, horses, food, education, buildings, clothing, arms, marriage, funerals, travel, and wages.

It starts by explaining the relationships among pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings, making the figures readable without an introductory lecture. Dates and numbered bibliographic references accompany individual costs instead of pretending one price held for every town or century.

An economy beyond the castle walls

In the tools section, a fifteenth-century spade and shovel are listed at three pence, while a complete armorer's tool set is far more expensive. In food, it records separate ale prices for different grades, dates, and locations. Under education, students encounter tuition and board, rental of books for copying, and a warning about a contradictory boarding figure in one printed source.

The buildings section unexpectedly becomes a miniature construction study. It reproduces material quantities and estimates of work days for the tower at Langeais, including stone, timber, mortar, nails, and transportation. Clothing entries distinguish shoes, peasant garments, and high-status fabrics.

Hodges specifically warns that cash prices can mislead readers about feudal economies: food, accommodation, cloth, or equipment might be provided by households or lords rather than bought in a market. Later notes point out that regional prices varied substantially.

This is one of the best habits of older scholarly websites. The author left the caveats close to the data instead of stripping them away for an attractive chart.

The article is a bibliography-backed working list, not a current scholarly consensus or a converter from medieval pence to today's money. Its university URL does not by itself establish a publication date, so the artifact should be described as a surviving old-style research page rather than confidently assigned to a particular year.

Explore the complete historical price tables.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.