Note 160-1 — Chapter III

High rate of Italian wages after the plague in 1348, but also many complaints of the indolence and dissoluteness of workmen. (M. Villani, I, 2 ff., 57 seq. Sismondi, Gesch. der ital. Republiken in Mittelalter, VI, 39.) In England, the same plague increased the wages of threshers from an average of 1.7 d. in 1348, to 3.3 d. in 1349. Mowers received, during the 90 years previous, 1/12 of a quarter of wheat per acre; in 1371-1390, from 1/7 to 1/6. The price of most of their wants was then from 1/8 to 1/12 as high as in A. Young's time, and wages ¼ as high. (Rogers, I, 306, 271, 691.) The great earthquake in Calabria, in 1783, produced similar effects. (Galanti, N. Beschreiburg von Neapel, I, 450.) Compare Jesaias, 13, 12. On the other hand, depopulation caused by unfortunate wars is not very favorable to the rate of wages; instance, Prussia in 1453 ff., after the Polish struggle, and Germany, after the Thirty Years' War.