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By Tears of the Moon (Reporter)
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Why $700 Silver is not Madness

Sunday, September 23, 2012 4:11

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(Before It's News)

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I was listening to a Radio National discussion today about life in England during the late middle ages. The following story sparked my interest:

Peter Holbrook: (Reading) Link to podcast
‘Agnes Terry’s recollections of her (alleged) extraordinary childhood as the ward of a dishonest guardian; from her petition to Chancery; c. 1450’

She claims that her mother and father arranged that after their deaths she would be left to the guardianship of John Bicombe, parson of Hatford, together with her inheritance of £40, goods worth £20, and rights over various properties, including a house in Farringdon worth £25. She was then ‘of right tender age’.

The mention of a house being worth only 25 pounds caught my attention. I wondered how much silver that represented.

Well in 1450 I belive a pound represented a troy pound of sterling silver.

A Troy Pound contains 12 Troy Ounces.

Therefore a troy pound of sterling silver is:

12 x 0.925 (purity of sterling silver) = 11.1 troy ounces of 999 silver.

So the house was worth:

25 x 11.1 = 277.5 oz of 999 silver.

Well at current (22 Sep 2012) prices that equates to:

277.5 x 21.26 (GBP spot price of silver) = £5,900

So the house was worth only £5,900?

But we know you can’t buy a nice house in a rural town in England for GBP5,900 – such a house would cost at least £125,000

So to upscale the silver value from 1450 to present day we need to recalibrate it to current house prices: