Prices, Food and Wages in Scotland, 1550–1780

This 1994 book is a major work in early modern and pre-industrial economic and social history.

A. J. S. Gibson (Author), T. C. Smout (Author)

9780521346566, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 December 1994

416 pages, 40 b/w illus. 110 tables
24.4 x 17 x 2.4 cm, 0.86 kg

'… an excellent statistical survey … represents a major advance in our understanding of early modern and eighteenth century Scotland.' Economic History Review

This 1994 book is a study of Scottish price history and a major contribution to the economic and social history of early modern and pre-industrial Britain. Using the remarkable series of 'fiars' prices for grains and other contemporary sources, Gibson and Smout focus, in particular, on the prices of grain, meal and animal products, and assess how Scots artisans and labourers could survive in an economy that could pay only very low money wages. The authors show how the Scottish people experienced fluctuations in welfare both in the longer term from generation to generation, and within a given life-cycle. The Scottish records on prices and wages are a unique historical resource, to which Gibson and Smout have applied both traditional and quantitative historical techniques. In so doing they produced a powerful contribution to the perennial debate on the standard of living of ordinary people prior to the onset of industrialization.

List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
A note on Scottish and English money
Map of Scottish counties and principal burghs
1. Introduction
2. The system of burgh price regulation
3. The system of county fiars
4. Press reports of monthly market prices
5. Trends and fluctuations in grain price movements
6. The price of animals and animal products
7. Food
8. Wages in money and kind
9. Real wages
Appendix I: Scottish weights and measures, 1580–1780
Appendix II: accessing the data
Bibliography
Person index
Place index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]