Voices en Español

Next time you want to gripe about the current cost of living, consider that it took more than a day’s salary to buy a chicken 500 years ago. Yeah, I know, you’ve got more pressing matters to think about but it is kind of cool to get new insight on the present by considering the past.

A Spanish history magazine called La Aventura de la Historia did a piece last month about the construction of El Escorial. It was a very interesting article because not only did it talk about the architecture and design of this monumental monastery but also about its costs. There was a fascinating sidebar where the magazine listed items and what their costs were in 16th-century Spain and provided their present-day equivalents.

Unfortunately, the article isn’t available online (Very bizarre. When will magazines realize that they lose readership by not making their content widely available?), so here are some of the key points from the cost of living chart:

Photo by Patrick Lentz. Used with permission.

Back in the 1600s in Spain, there were three units of money: maravedíes, reales and ducados, with ducados being the largest denomination. A subsistence wage back in those days was 30 maravedíes a day, which becomes meaningful once you see how much food cost back then.

Here’s a 16th-century grocery shopping list with the ancient prices listed in maravedíes and what the same item costs today in euros in Spain.

A loaf of bread, 4 maravedíes (2€)

A dozen eggs, 40 maravedíes (1,50€)

A jug of wine, 4 maravedíes (1,20€)

A chicken, 102 maravedíes (5€)

A pig, 1,312 maravedíes (300€)

The cost of living chart also listed salaries for skilled laborers in the construction industry. It gives stark proof of the great gaping chasm that existed between the rich and the poor who worked in a trade. For example, a viceroy’s annual salary was 32,000 ducados (or 12 million maravedíes). At the bottom of the ladder were apprentices with an annual wage of 25 ducados or 9,375 maravedíes. Of course, there were many people below that salary scale. The chart doesn’t mention the household income of farmers, bakers and cobblers.