Precious metal values in Middle Ages...

[Johnny1A.2]

In the real Middle Ages, what sort of monetary value did the precious metals have (as opposed to various RPG and fantasy conventions)?

That is, suppose I had an ounce (in today's American standard measure) of gold, silver, copper, etc in, say, 1250? What sort of buying power did that ounce of metal have? How did it vary across Europe?

[Anaraxes]

A couple of past threads with links to historical prices:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=22939
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=32778

And a link to many, many links I haven't yet followed:
http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies...t/howmuch.html

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Johnny1a

In the real Middle Ages, what sort of monetary value did the precious metals have (as opposed to various RPG and fantasy conventions)?

That is, suppose I had an ounce (in today's American standard measure) of gold, silver, copper, etc in, say, 1250? What sort of buying power did that ounce of metal have? How did it vary across Europe?

I don't know about gold, but I've seen the figure that a pound of silver was around 240 days' wages for a farmhand or laborer, or 80 for a journeyman in a guild. Going with the GURPS $ figure of $300 as a month's cost of living for a Struggling character with Status -1, or $3600 a year, and figuring 300 working days in a year, I get $12 a day, or $2880 for a pound of silver. This is rather higher than the GURPS Basic Set value of $1000 for a pound, but historically precious metals were scarce in the Middle Ages; most exchange was barter rather than currency-based.

Bill Stoddard

[Christian]

here a price list in german. http://www.mittelalter-server.de/Mit...er_Preise.html

For those poor souls unable to read german, here a shortened list:

10 chicken, 1 gramm silver
1 kg grain, 3 gramm silver
1 knife, 3 gramm silver
1 pig, 30 gramm silver
1 cow/ox, 100-137 gramm silver
1 sword, 300-500 gramm silver
1 horse, 800 gramm silver
1 battle horse, 5000-8000 gramm silver
1 gramm gold, 20 gramm silver

453 gramm are one american lbs

In th early middle age a "pfennig/penny/denarii" was ~ 2 gramm silver, this later came down to 1 gramm silver per pfennig.

So a horse was almost 2 lbs of silver (or in later time 3-4 lbs of coins, due to less silver in the coins), or 1 1/3 ounces of gold.

[Christian]

Oh, and 1 "denarii", one silverpenny was in the early middle ages what a farmhand earned a day. And the Karlspfund (charles pound, ~430 gramm/0.95 lbs) was the equialent to 240 pennies. Later this changed, when the coins became less pure. But for smplicities sake you can assume:

2 gramm silver = 1 days wage for simple labour

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Christian

...But for smplicities sake you can assume:

2 gramm silver = 1 days wage for simple labour

Frightening to think that one could snort a week's wage... literally.

[Christian]

The used coins where extremely thin, and in the early age where even "hacked" into halfpence or quarterpence.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Christian

For those poor souls unable to read german, here a shortened list:

453 gramm are one american lbs

So a horse was almost 2 lbs of silver (or in later time 3-4 lbs of coins, due to less silver in the coins), or 1 1/3 ounces of gold.

The only problem I have with this is that even in the US today we don't use standard measures for precious metals, we use the Troy measurements.

So while 453 grams = 1 US standard pound (16 ounces), 1 troy pound (12 troy ounces) weighs in at only about 369-370 grams.

So, at least here in the US, when you hear about 1 oz. of silver or gold being worth x amount, they're talking about (roughly) 31 (30.8) gram troy ounces as opposed to the roughly 28 (28.3) gram US standard ounces.

For game purposes that may not mean much, but, to use your example of the simple laborer, at the end of a month using the US standard weight system Mr. Peon has been cheated out of roughly three days wages.

[Christian]

Well, I did calculate the ounce with 30 gramm, soo ... ok I did cheat as well ^^.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Christian

Well, I did calculate the ounce with 30 gramm, soo ... ok I did cheat as well ^^.

Fair enough. (Not sure how many letters/words long this needs to be to get through the minimum limit filter.)