Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly
There was recently a discussion on another forum regarding the economics of medieval european settings, and their representation in the game 'Lion and Dragon'. The issue in that case was that swords were very cheap - seemingly insanely less expensive than a normal wooden shield. The author defended the position using data for prices of various items in late medieval and renaissance records. These data are hard to parse because of the large variance in value of currency with time and location. But it seems pretty clear that a common sword was a relatively inexpensive item - many, many times less expensive than even simple armor and not dissimilar in cost from farm implements.
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My exposure to such things is somewhat limited, but I can say two things of relevance here, both based on a very small slice of medieval life (vikings in 700-1000AD).
My instructor has said a few things about swords, one of which is that a sword and a shield cost about the same in found price lists of the time. He also said that anyone who could get a sword would have one. This likely represents both status and a "fairly good at almost everything" function for the sword.
Secondly, I make shields. My recent ones are bordering on historically authentic in a sorta-kinda way. They are quite labor intensive even with modern tools and materials. In the old days, you'd cut down an old growth tree (linden was mandated; no linden shields have been found. Recovered shield bits have been european pine, aspen, poplar, and other lightweight woods) with an axe, and "rive" it also with an axe. This is the process of using wedges and the axe to split it radially, along the grain.
that would be made into planks of remarkable durability (figure the old-growth woods of the time were 3x the tree ring density of our modern new-growth and speed-growth woods), and they'd be left green, or even treated with bee's wax and linseed oil. Keeping them green improved the sponginess when a blade it hit.
The planks were butted together, secured with hide glue, and then there might be 1 oz (1mm) goat-hide parchment (or thicker parchment scraped down to transparently thin) used as a facing or edging, again bound to the planks with hide glue (this sets in a remarkably short time, though modern liquid hide glues extend that remarkably). Finally, the edging was stitched with a spacing of 0.25 to 1 inch, with thick linen thread. The handles were ash or oak, from what I understand.
As you can see, all of this is very labor intensive, so I believe it when the price lists show the equivalence between shields and swords.
Finally, no Google in 850 AD, so one might be hard pressed to have a standard price for something. Anything, really.
Medieval pricing isn't my area of expertise, but the shield sword thing is something I've run into before, so I thought I'd share.