Labour Turnover and Wage Rates on the Demesnes of Durham Priory, 1370–1410

The study of employment in medieval agriculture tends to operate with questions concerning numbers employed, wage levels and, on occasion, labour productivity, rather than the work experience of the labour force. This is for the simple reason that most manorial accounts do not sufficiently distinguish between individual employees. Usually accounts merely report how many farm workers were hired in each category and what their total remuneration amounted to. It is impossible from such data to discuss continuity of employment, length of service, levels of individual remuneration, or even the gender of employees. Piece-rate workers are similarly underspecified. The manorial accounts to be discussed here have several distinct points of interest, but the one of present concern is that they frequently include the names of those farm servants, the famuli, who were employed and paid for a year or half year rather than casually at daily or piece rates (for famuli, see in particular Postan 1954; Farmer 1996; Farmer (pp. 228–9) comments on the restrictions imposed by the absence of names in most manorial accounts). This is not a lot to work on, but it allows an examination of some aspects of their work experience not otherwise recoverable.1