I'm doing a research project on medieval horses, and as part of it I was collecting some price and income data as comparatives, which lead to an intersting sidetrack.

A couple of the things I'd chosen as comparators were the pay of an archer, and the minimum income of a knight.

Now, mounted archers are paid 6d per day pretty much throughout the hundred years's war and the wars of the roses. It's a figure that turns up in numerous sources, so we can be pretty sure of it. 6d/day x 365 gives us just less than ten pounds a year.

However, Pollard ("History of late medieval england") quotes the college of Heralds as saying that the minimum income for a knight is £10. I haven't been able to track down the source he uses, but it fits reasonably with other data.

For example, Edward III tries to impose knighthood on anyone with an income of £20 per year, while of 7 knights retained by the Duke of Buckingham in the 1400s, one recieved £40/year, two recieved £20/year and the remainder recieved £10 a year.

This means that unless there's something badly wrong with my maths, a professional archer, retained full time, is only just short of the minimum income required for a knight. While I was figuring on them being well-paid professionals, I hadn't figured on them earning at a level that came so close to putting them with the knightly classes.

My first thought was "OK, but are archers only getting paid during the campaigning season, say 100 days @ 6d, rather than 365?"

While this is probably the case for a lot of them, there also turn out to be plenty of indentures for garrison service which specify a term of a year or a year and a day, and the one source I was able to find for the annuity for a retained archer was £10 a year (plus two doublets and a cottage!)

Incidentally, a skilled peasant such as a ploughman is earning about £2-3 per year in this period, so we're looking at a much bigger gap between peasants and retained archers than between retained archers and the lower reaches of knights.

Thanks for the comments.

I wasn't trying to imply that price comparisons were simple. I know only to well that they aren't, and that there are problems with the examples I quote. For example, they are not all from the same place or time.

I was merely pointing out that in trying to work out some very approximate price comparisons, I had noticed something tangential to what I was trying to achieve, but interesting nonetheless.

I actually don't think the minimum income the college of heralds specify is necessarily "landed income". It may be, but until I can find the original reference Pollard uses for his statement(and I am trying to...) I can't be sure.

As far as I'm aware, neither the household knights nor the retained archer would normally recieve a daily wage in addition to their annuities - effectively, the annuity replaces their entire year's "wages". However, I also know that there were sometimes cases where composite remuneration (annuity plus wages plus other payments) were recieved.

I certainly wasn't attempting to imply that if an archer got paid a little bit more, he became a knight. There are clear differences of social status, and obligations, between the two.

I do think however that it was worth noting that in terms of cash income (not necessarily in terms of total wealth, let alone socially etc), a retained archer is much closer to the lowest level of knighthood than I would have expected.

By the 15th century, £10 is the minimum sum considered for the gentry, and to qualify, the money must not come from labour, but prefferably from rents. It isn't just how much you have, but how you get it that counts for those in the second estate.

The Pastons struggle throughout the 1450's and 60's to be recognised as 'gentlemen', hinged on a totaly fictitious claim to an ancient ancestor of the conquest. More tellingly was the generation before aquiring a manor through purchase, that included the right to a manoral court - one of the defining characteristics of the gentry.

That said, the 6d a day was for 'foriegn' service (and a mounted archer - foot archers got half the sum). Customarily, the few troops in garrison kept by the crown (barring the Calais garrison) were paid on the order of 4d a day, their food being provided to an extent.

That said, some members of the gentry in Cheshire seem to have customarily served as exceedingly well equipped mounted archers. Household retainers would be amongst the cream of the crop - I believe there is a surviving contract for one in the Neville household where the fellow was provided with £10 annualy, plus a house, plus robes of a certain value. Such a man would have been very well equipped, and would have in addition recieved gifts several times a year. This would make him a man of means, but not a man of station - money does not equate to status automaticaly in the later Middle Ages - a foriegn concept to our modern minds.

Keep in mind that pay was often in arrears. In the Burgundian Army, pay was quarterly, and often intentionaly kept several months in arrears to discourage desertion.

You need to check out "War in the Middle Ages", by Contamine, and "Medieval Warfare - the English Experience", who's author escapes me, and is not to hand so I can't be more informative. It is still in print - I saw a copy in Boarders last week.

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Thanks for the clarification that the minimum income must a certain kind of income, not any income. Would you mind if I asked what the original source for that was, if you have it? I was trying to find it myself, without success.

I think I'd expressly said that my 6d a day was for a mounted archer. The fact that it was for foreign service only, rather than generally, was my error however.

For social attitudes regarding status try

"English Society in the Later Middle Ages 1348 - 1500"_ by Maurice Keene (I believe still in print as a Penguine Classic), and

"Fifteenth Cebtury Attitudes - perceptions of society in late medieval England" - edited by Rosmary Horrox. Cambridge University press, 1994. Of specific interest chpts 3&4

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