Many might consider a discussion of minimum wages and unemployment rates in the Middle Ages as hopelessly anachronistic. Certainly medieval people would probably have had considerable trouble in understanding what either of these concepts meant. Unemployment rates — the percentage of the total available workforce who are not employed — would certainly puzzle them. In their minds, everyone, even the habitually lazy, would be put to work for family and community, especially at busy times like the harvest. Minimum wages in the way we think of them today would likely have been no easier for them to understand. Certainly, when state attempts to regulate wages were made in the Middle Ages, as after the advent of the Black Death, it was to set a ceiling on wages, not to bring them up to a certain level.

Yet medieval authorities undoubtedly did have a sense at any particular moment of what might comprise a basal or lowest level wage for both skilled and unskilled labour and would also have a sense, although certainly a more vague one, of the current availability of that labour. As a surrogate for these almost instinctively held notions, then, it might be useful, despite the dangers of anachronism, to apply modern concepts such as minimum wages and unemployment rates as conceptual aids for achieving a better understanding of waged labour in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, most of the work done on medieval wages, from Thorold Rogers onwards, has tended to be unhelpful for establishing such things as basal wages, either because of the focus on average wages, as discussed below, or because of a greater emphasis on elite workers, such as craftsmen.

In a recent book, Hugh Thomas has examined the process of ‘assimilation’ between the Normans and the English during the century and a half following the Norman Conquest. We certainly agree with Thomas's long-term description of the assimilation process, but disagree with his assessment of the initial base from which this assimilation took place. Indeed, as Thomas put it:

Although, as is well known, there was much violence associated with the Norman Conquest, especially with the famous ‘Harrying of the North’ in 1069–70, we feel that the emphasis on such warlike incidents tends to convey a one-dimensional view of Norman policy in the years following the battle of Hastings and certainly gives short shrift to more peaceful approaches to reconciling local people to Norman rule. In fact, William the Conqueror himself adopted a very conciliatory tack in the early phase of the Conquest, as indicated by two quotations from Orderic Vitalis, writing from the vantage point of a couple of generations after the conquest in 1066. Orderic went to some pains to show how hard William tried to soothe English worries almost immediately after the battle of Hastings, as in the following passage:

Introduction

With the exception of mumps, salivary gland disease is relatively uncommon in childhood. However, the range of conditions that can occur are the same as in the adult population, although the relative incidence is very different.

Careful history-taking and detailed examination are critical. Details of onset, duration, periodicity, size, and location of any swelling and the character of any salivary secretions must be recorded. The child must be examined both intraorally and extraorally. Deep lobe parotid tumors may present with swelling in the tonsillar fossa and no external swelling. Swellings of the tail of the parotid or of the submandibular glands are easily confused with cervical lymphadenopathy.

In the majority of salivary diseases in children, imaging of the affected gland is an essential supplement to the history and examination. Bearing in mind that patient compliance cannot be relied upon, and that radiation exposure should be reduced as far as possible, ultrasonography (US) is the method of choice for the initial imaging of most conditions, including inflammatory diseases, obstruction due to calculi, and masses within the glands. Although sialography is the preferred technique for the evaluation of chronic or recurrent inflammation, it is difficult to undertake in the young child. Computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are essential in the evaluation of neoplastic disease, although the child may require sedation or even general anesthesia in order to obtain good images.