Events

Abstract: This paper uses building accounts from Exeter Cathedral as a case study to study weekly wage inequality in medieval England. In total, 86 building accounts are analyzed, yielding more than 25,000 weekly wage observations and over 100,000 paid workdays between 1300 and 1514. This material makes it possible to trace changes in the distribution of earnings from week to week, capturing short-run fluctuations in labour utilization and pay within the building site and allowing the reconstruction of more than 3,300 weekly wage distributions. The paper documents long-run patterns in weekly wage inequality and examines its components by decomposing inequality into daily wages and working time. It also explores how wage dispersion varies with construction phases, workforce characteristics, and major historical events. The results
call into question the view that wage dispersion declined between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By linking wage inequality to the organization and timing of building activity, the analysis provides new evidence on how inequality originates
within labour markets and on the role played by building cycles, and their interaction with the Black Death, in shaping the distribution of earnings.

The Oxford Seminar in Economic and Social History series for Hilary Term 2026 is convened by Stephen Broadberry and Victoria Gierok. 

For more information on this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact stephen.broadberry@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.