One thing that has consistently astonished me throughout these readings is the annual income of households and cities. For example: Herlihy states that Florence's yearly income circa 1240 was 780,000 pounds. Also, consider the household incomes Woolgar discusses in the Great Household - "Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, [had a yearly income of] about 6,000 pounds" (Woolgar, p.4). Woolgar mentions him as one of those who earned more than the others. These seem like such small amounts if we compare them to what people earn today in our (the US) society. Perhaps, half a millennium from now, our descendants will think differently of the figures that we currently regard as substantial.
Another thing that caught my attention was the diversity of households. It was easy to fall into a simplistic and inchoate way of thinking of households - parents, children (and others who live with them: servants etc.) On page 12, Herlihy gives insight into the difficulty of "assigning certain types of persons to the proper household" under the law of the Catasto. These types of persons include widows with grown children and orphans. This got me to thinking about the various types of households/families that we have today. How accommodating are policies (regarding marriage, parenthood and family life) to non-traditional households here in the U.S. and in other parts of the world? What patterns of family structure are evolving ? Are these changes lasting or are they transient?
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