3 ms·

I don't think you have an appreciation for how difficult it was to clothe yourself in those times. A piece of clothing was double-digit percentages of your annu

I don't think you have an appreciation for how difficult it was to clothe yourself in those times. A piece of clothing was double-digit percentages of your annual income.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
If you're thinking of that article a while back about how it takes hundreds of hours of work to make a medieval shirt, I believe it was semi-debunked: they were describing the process for making an extremely high-quality garment, fit for a nobleman. Peasant clothing was still very labor-intensive, but not quite as bad as they made it sound.
Spooky23 9y ago
Remember that income didn’t mean what it did now. My neighbor had a 1600s era farm in upstate NY. The original taxes were denominated in pigs, chickens and wheat. Cash was rare for normal people until recently.
- Tuna-Fish 9y ago
  This depends greatly on when and where. The Roman economy was extensively monetized -- normal people did typically get most of their income as cash.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Not everyone. A large minority of the population were slaves.