o the individual circumstances of each purchase. Land
in France sold at rates ranging from $8 to $240 the acre. Luther
bought a little farm in the country for $340, and a piece of property
in Wittenberg for $500. After his death, in 1564, the house he lived
in, a large and handsome building formerly the Augustinian Cloister,
fetched $2072. The house can be seen today[1] and would certainly, one
would think, now bring fifteen times as much.

[Sidenote: Books]

Books were comparatively cheap. The Greek Testament sold for 48 cents,
a Latin Testament for half that amount, a Latin folio Bible published
in 1532 for $4, Luther's first New Testament at 84 cents. One might
get a copy of the Pandects for $1.60, of Vergil for 10 cents, a Greek
grammar for 8 cents, Demosthenes and Aeschines in one volume at 20
cents, one of Luther's more important tracts for 30 cents and the
condemnation of him by the universities in a small pamphlet at 6 cents.
One of the things that has gone down most in price since that day is
postage. Duerer while in the Netherlands paid a messenger 17 cents to
deliver a {469} letter (or several letters?), presumably sent to his
home in Nuremberg.

[Sidenote: Wages]

In accordance with the general rule that wages follow the trend of
prices sluggishly, whether upwards or downwards, there is less change
to be observed in them throughout the sixteenth century than there is
in the prices of commodities. Subject to government regulation, the
remuneration of all kinds of labor remained nearly stationary while the
cost of living was rising. Startling is the difference in the rewards
of the various classes, that of the manual laborers being cruelly low,
that of professional men somewhat less in proportion to the cost of
living than it is today, and that of government officers being very
high. No one except court officials got a salary over $5000 a year,
and some of them got much more. In 1553 a French chamberlain was paid
$51,000 per annum.

A French navvy received 8 cents a day in 1550, a carpenter as much as
26 cents. A male domestic was given $7 to $12 a year in addition to
his keep and a woman $5 to $6. As the number of working days in
Catholic countries was only about 250 a year, workmen made from $65 to
as low as $20. If anything, labor was worse paid in Germany than it
was in France. Agricultural labor in England was paid in two scales,
one for summer and one for winter. It varied from 3 ce