Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/360

 348 history or the German people to statistics, wages were never before so high, and the large number of people who had to live by hard labour were never, before or since, so well situated as during the period from the end of the fifteenth century through the first decade of the sixteenth. In order to rightly estimate the wages of the day- labourer and servant in those times it is necessary to consider the cost at that time of the necessaries of life. We must begin by comparing the statistics of different countries at the same time, and if the facts collected coincide we may draw a just conception of the matter considered. For Northern Germany let us first consider the reports gathered in Saxony. From the years 1455 to 1480 the average price of a pair of common shoes was from two to three groschen ; for a domestic fowl, half a groschen ; for a pike, one groschen ; for a sheep, four groschen ; for twenty- five stock-fish, four groschen ; for a cord of wood, delivered, five groschen ; for a yard of best native cloth, five groschen ; for a bushel of rye, six groschen. At the same date a day-labourer earned weekly from six to eight groschen, or, we might say, the price of a sheep and a pair of shoes ; with the earnings of twenty-four days he could purchase at least one bushel of rye, twenty-five stock-fish, a cord of fire- wood, and two to three yards of cloth. Clothing was particularly cheap. We find a chorister in Leipsic pay- ing seven groschen for the making of a coat, trousers, hat, and jacket. The Duke of Saxony wore a hat which cost three groschen and a half. They were good times for the Saxon labourer when wages were high and the price of necessaries low. We can understand the complaints of the workman