Recalibrating Wealth

Edward I was a busy warrior. As a result, he needed armies. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the rich are able to find reasons why they should not shoot and be shot at, and armies are peopled by the not-rich. Not so in the 13th century.

In 1277 Ingram de Boynton was drafted to serve on the basis of "service due from Walterus de Faucumberge."

1277 Bovynton, Ingram de, (Ingramus de Bovynton) Knight, proffers the service due from Walterus de Faucumberge, and performs the same on his behalf. -- Muster at Worcester, in Eight Days of St. John the Baptist, 1 July 5 Ed. I (Palgrave, p. 489).

Ingram owed Walter and Walter owed Edward. So Ingram went to war.

Knight's fee is what they called it, and it traced its source to William the conqueror. William showed up in England and claimed it all. He had friends who had helped him do the conquering, and he rewarded them with what he had -- land. They held land from him; it was his land, but they got to use it. In return they owed him money and knightly duty -- warring. Two hundred years later, Walter de Faucumberg held land from the king -- not because he could trace its roots back to 1066, but by a continuing series of negotiations between kings and supporters. But the land he held from the king was too much to manage alone so he gave some to Ingram de Boynton to take care of. In return Ingram owed him money and knightly duty -- warring. And in 1277 duty caught up with Ingram.

Another decade and another war. In 1300 Robert de Boynton was drafted "as holding lands . . . to the amount of l40 yearly value and upwards."

1300 Boyton, Robert de, (D'n's Robertus de Boyton) returned from the Wapentake of Dickering, in the County of York, as holding lands, either in Capite or otherwise, to the amount of l40 yearly value and upwards, and as such summoned under the general writ to perform Military Service against the Scots. -- Muster at Carlisle, on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 24 June. 28 Ed. I (Palgrave, p. 480).

Instead of forensic service/knightly fee Robert was drafted because he had land yielding 40 pounds [or more] yearly.

What happened to knightly fee?

This was a transition point in calibrating wealth. It happened, in part, because of Edward's impatience with knightly fees as a technique for amassing armies.

For Edward there were a number of problems with 'knightly fee.' One was knightly fee as the lowest denominator in calibrating wealth. A knightly fee was supposed to be sufficient for a knight to support himself and family. As king or noble, you were giving away wealth in very big chunks when you gave a knight's fee to someone. What if the person only did a small service? Did you give them a whole knightly fee? The service would no longer be "small." It would be a service of great value -- enough for a knight and family to live on. Kings and nobles figured this out pretty quickly, and they began awarding fractions of a knightly fee. Within a hundred years Walter de Boynton, for example, was already engaged in land transactions that involved small fractions of knight's fees.

Gift: for 30s.: Anketin son of Hervei of Rottese to Walter de Bouinton: - - bovate in Bentona which Henry son of Ketell held - - : Doing forinsec service for 1 bovate where 9 carucates make a knight's fee. (Hull document, late 12th century.)

Bovates and carucates were calibrations of land, and in Bentona it took [some number of bovates to make a carucate and] 9 carucates to make a knight's fee.

Why was that a problem for Edward? Well, it is difficult to perform a fraction of knightly duty--warring. Does a knight send a tenth of himself to the front while the other ninety percent stays home? Edward looked out on his land and could only find fractions of duty to go to war. You cannot build an army out of fractions of knights. Something else had to become the basis of recruiting. So he said, if your land yields an annual income of forty pounds you are a knight and as a knight you are responsible for the defense of the realm.

Robert de Boynton, you are drafted.

Forty pounds -- some say a dollar ain't what it used to be -- but if forty pounds was enough to make you a knight [of which there are only a few thousand in the country] then a pound ain't what it used to be.

Correct -- a pound was not then what a pound is today.

Here is one way to understand an important difference. The farthing is the smallest denominator in the English money system. There are 4 farthings in a penny, twelve pennys in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound. If you do the multiplication the result is almost 39,000 farthings in 40 pounds. Divide 39,000 farthings into 40 pounds to determine the proportion of wealth a farthing was of a family that just made knighthood. It is a very convenient number -- .001. A farthing is .001 of the income of a knight. If you do a comparable calculation for U.S. families of four in 1998 you find: the median income was $56,000, and .001 of $56,000 is $56. A farthing was to a knight's income as $56 is to the median family income of the U.S. family. $56 is the contemporary value of the farthing of 1300.

You would not buy many cups of coffee if each one cost $56 -- because a farthing was the smallest coin you had. And you would not run down to the store to get a loaf of bread if it cost you $56. How about a stick of gum?

Something is wrong here, and what is wrong is treating Robert's l40 as comparable to the median family income. Today economic relations are exchanges and money is the medium of the exchange. $56,000 is the money the family makes in its money raising exchanges. $56,000 [more or less] is the money the family has to spend in money giving away exchanges. If you want a loaf of bread you buy it from a store that bought it from a distributor that bought it from a bakery that bought it from a . . .

Economic relations during feudalism were largely not calibrated in money. Economic relations were relations of mutual responsibility. The lord of the manor had responsibilities to the people who tilled the soil he held from the king, and they had the responsibility of baking the bread. No "money" was involved in this relationship. The lord of the manor had responsibilities to the noble from whom he held the land that were only partially monetary; there was forensic service, as well. And the king had responsibilities to his nobles that were largely non-monetary; he was responsible for the good of the realm.

And that is how you can get l40 pounds of income as a calibration of wealth that is not parallel to contemporary income. The l40 pounds was the frosting on the cake of Robert's wealth; most of his income was embedded in relations of mutual responsibility, which was taken for granted by the king in deciding who should shoot and be shot at.

...

Hull document: REFERENCE :DDWB/3/1 DATES: late 12th century

Palgrave, Francis (1827) The Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons, volume the first, p. 489.