At various points in this study it has been necessary to refer to time-series data for economic trends over the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus Chapter 2 presents data for land farms (cash rents per acre of arable land let to tenants for terms of years) and for grain prices (sale price per quarter – eight bushels – of wheat and barley). Chapter 10 presents similar series for per-diem cash wages of carpenters and labourers. The purpose of this appendix is to discuss further the sources for these data and the conventions that have been adopted for their selection and compilation.

These data come from the account rolls of various manors within the north-central district of Essex. Manorial accounts have long served as the most important source for price, wage and rent data from medieval England, and a substantial literature is available on the subject. These accounts recorded, among many other things, sales of grain raised on the manorial lord's own ‘demesne’ land, wages paid to workers of many different varieties who were hired by the lord's officials for agricultural or other work, and rent or lease payments (often itemised) for land and other types of property that tenants held. The strengths of these sources are well known. They are a relatively abundant and accessible source for economic data compiled on an annual basis over a very long period, from the later thirteenth century to (in some cases, at least) the end of the middle ages.

The drawbacks inherent in these data are also familiar to students of medieval English agrarian history.