How much did a good sword cost in Medieval Western Europe?
Upvote:-2
Using the above comment's source, and assuming a thatcher circa 1340 would earn 3 pence daily for 365 days a year, I believe that calculates to approx. 71 British pounds or 103 USD today. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Upvote:5
A sword might be the most expensive item that a man owned. The one sword whose value is given in the sagas (given by King Hákon to Höskuldur in chapter 13 of Laxdæla saga) was said to be worth a half mark of gold. In saga-age Iceland, that represented the value of sixteen milk-cows, a very substantial sum so these days it would be like the price of a new car or your years wage.
That was the price of a good sword, for the Norse.
Source
Upvote:6
Lifting from this site, I found a "cheap sword (peasant's)", England ~1340, listed at 6 pence. The same site lists the daily wage of a thatcher (in the same time period) as 3 pence.
The source is given as "Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer, Cambridge University Press, 1989". Probably a good source to look into.
This does not exactly match your requirements, but is the best I could find, ad hoc, and at least is in the same ballpark. A high-quality sword, as you describe, would probably cost a multiple of the quoted value (quality work tended to be much more expensive).
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