The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

by Ian Mortimer

Lordly status loosely correlates with income. In theory each earl should receive at least £1,000 from his estates. Most have between £700 and £3,000. The richest is Thomas of Lancaster, who has five earldoms and an income of about £11,000 in 1311. This is exceeded by only two people over the whole century. Second on the fourteenth-century “Rich List” is Queen Isabella, who allocates to herself 20,000 marks (£13,333) per year in 1327-30. First place goes to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, whose gross income from his English and Welsh estates in 1394-95 is in the region of £12,000, in addition to a pension from Castile of about £6,600.10 Most barons have an income of between £300 and £700, but in a few exceptional cases—Lord Berkeley, for instance—a baron may receive as much as £1,300 per year.