ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 359 



6 17*., of iron and iron- work 11 izs. nd. The cost of car- 

 rying the stone from Teynton and Headington is ^14 9*. io^/. 

 The charge for labour is, for masons ^46 is. 6\d. y for quarry- 

 men ^12, 13*. 2^.5 for labourers ^9 95-. io</., and for carpenters 

 and wood \ 14^. 6d. The total charge of the whole structure 

 is ^141 191. ^\d. 



The labourers are well paid. The chief mason, besides an 

 annual pension of twenty shillings, receives, whenever he is 

 at work, 8d. a day. It appears that he resided in Oxford, for 

 the College purchases straw and hay of his wife. The other 

 masons get a fraction under yd. a day for the greater part of the 

 year, and from $\d. to nearly 6d. in the three winter months. 

 The carpenters, who are merely engaged in rough work, are 

 paid 4^. a day, as are also the labourers, who seem to wait 

 on the masons. The quarry men are paid from 4^. to ^\d. 

 These wages may, if we estimate them in modern money, be 

 still reckoned by the multiple of 12, and fully bear out that 

 which has been often stated, that the condition of labourers 

 relatively to the price of the necessaries of life was high, 

 not only in the period before us, but, as in this case, fifty years 

 afterwards ; for the price of wheat during the first half of the 

 fifteenth century was actually below the general average of the 

 fourteenth 11 . 



It cannot, I think, be doubted that labour was for certain 

 reasons more effective in the fifteenth century, and by implica- 

 tion in the thirteenth and fourteenth, when it was not so 

 highly paid, than it is now. Multiplied again by twelve, the 

 bell-tower cost, in modern money, ^1703 135-. 6d. ; and it must 

 be remembered that not a few of the items in the bill repre- 



b The amount of labour actually hired by days is as follows: masons l( 

 quarrymen 476 days ; besides which two payments for stone are made by the piece 

 amounting to l 135. and 3 135. 4^?. If these payments be taken at 40?. a day, the 

 quarryman's ordinary wages, they will represent 319 more days. Carpenters are em- 

 ployed for 71^ days, and lastly, certain labourers, chiefly masons and masons' labourers, 

 are hired and fed for 771 days. Reckoning the keep of each man at 3^. a day, the 

 additional charge will be 9 I2s. 9^., that is, taking the multiple of 12, 115 13$. 

 But the sale of old materials employed for the building must have more than covered 

 the cost of these men's keep. 



