What factors played the largest role in determining the level and pattern of wages in an early modern economy?z his seemingly simple question is the most difficult for historians of T labour markets. To establish the level of wages paid to labourers and building craftsmen is relatively easy, although our knowledge of the rates paid to other varieties of labour remains extremely thin.3 Wage-rate movements in different parts of the country conformed to the pattern established for the south of England. Nominal rates remained unchanged for years, often for decades, before rising to new levels, and they moved downwards on only a few occasions. The overall picture was thus one of substantial stability in nominal rates punctuated by short periods of turbulence when they edged upward^.^ During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the most marked periods of change occurred in the middle two decades of each century and, to a lesser degree, in the later 1590s and early 1600s.~ The timing and degree of change varied from place to place and from one class of labour to another. No doubt local influences, often hidden from the historian, combined to shape the particular wage profiles of different places, but the broad similarity of movements indicates that larger forces were at work.In the north two further broad changes may be observed. During the early decades of the sixteenth century rates of pay were broadly similar in most of the towns of northern England, but by the end of the seventeenth century two clearly differentiated groups had emerged. In terms of the rates paid to building craftsmen, relatively high wage economies operated in Beverley, Hull, Newcastle, and York, and relatively low wage economiesThe research on which this article is based was supported generously by a grant from the E.S.R.C. and a book to be entitled Men at work: lobourers and building craftsmen in the towns of northern England, 1450-1750 is in progress. Much of what follows is based on that research. The article is conventionally footnoted, except that references are not given for wage rate movements in northern England: the range of sources is enormous and will be laid out fully in the forthcoming book. I am deeply indebted to my colleague David Richardson who commented on earlier drafts, and have also benefited from discussions with Prof. K. R. Andrews and my colleagues Eric Evans, Robin Pearson, and Michael Turner. It was also very helpful to be able to air some of these views at various seminars during 1990-2: at the seminar run by Brian Outhwaite and Keith Wrightson in Cambridge; at that run by Vanessa Harding, Negley Harte, and Peter Earle in London; at the Universities of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and Hull. De Vries, 'Behaviour of wages', p. 87.In the course of six years' work on the accounts of northern England only a handful of references to the earnings of other types of labour has been found. Concentration on labourers and building craftsmen is unavoidable.Phelps Brown and Hopkins, Perspective of wages and prices. Ibid., pp. 9-11...
