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Old 07-17-2009, 12:18 AM   #11
Lord Carnifex
 
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Default Re: Medieval Horse Types and Traits

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
Cost is relative. If by the standards of the time, the average unskilled laborer earned a silver penny a day, or perhaps between 1 and 2 silver pennies per day (a Thatcher earned about 2d or 2 silver pennies per day) - then a 14 pound warhorse would run roughly 4.6 year's income for the common laborer. If $100,000 is about 4.6 year's labor, then it makes sense - otherwise, it is a bit out of whack :(
As usual, I'd like to point out that the development and adoption of the horse collar between the 10th and 12th centuries (exactly when depended on where), almost exactly in the middle of the Mideaval period. Previous to the horse collar, horses in Europe were tools and toys of the wealthy, pretty much only good for warfare and personal transportation for those who didn't feel like walking. After the horse collar, horses become much more useful, dragging plows, carts, and wagons more efficiently than oxen. Horses become desirable farm equipment, essentially.

As horses become useful for more things, the number of people willing to pay for a useful horse goes up. More people start breeding and raising them, and the relative price starts to go down.

So horse prices can vary wildly over the European Middle Ages, depending on factors like the horse collar, whether or not there's been war or famine recently, and so on. I wouldn't be shocked to see either really high numbers or really low ones.
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