Submitted by Magister_Xehanort t3_xunphx in history
War_Hymn t1_ir3wdlt wrote
Reply to comment by Jonathan3628 in Why No Roman Industrial Revolution? by Magister_Xehanort
I recall a source stating that after rent, wood fuel was one of the biggest reoccurring expenses for a late medieval/early modern English household in the cities. I'll have to look it up again.
It should be noted that the coal mines in England were also conveniently located at the coast, so they could be shipped to the urban settlements of the country in bulk through sea transport.
EDIT: Found something in one of the volumes of History of Agriculture and Prices in England - there's a chapter on Fuel that states that a hundred faggots (a tied bundle of wood sticks, about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide) was sold wholesale at Cambridge for 6 shillings 8 pences in 1512. Compare this to an average of 2 shillings and 8 pences between 1260-1400 for a hundred faggots. So there was definitely a steady increase during and after the 15th century for wood.
The price of "sea" coal varied in price, depending how close of an access a market had to the coastal coal mines. At York in 1402-1404, a chaldron of coal (36 bushels by volume, equivalent to 1.5 tonnes of coal) could be bought wholesale at 5 shillings, dropping to 4 shillings by 1419. At the coastal Sunderland area, the price of coal was about half as much.
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