Pieces of eight, pieces of eight

Seamen's Earnings and the Venture Economy of Early Modern Seafaring

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4352999
AutoresRichard J Blakemore (0000-0002-0281-6826, University of Reading, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume70
Fascículo4
Páginas1153-1184
Data de publicação2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/ehr.12428
OpenAlexW2589211972
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas70

Historians have generally argued that between the medieval period and the eighteenth century seafarers transformed from collaborative adventurers with a share in their vessel to the first international wage-earning proletariat. This interpretation has drawn upon relatively limited statistical analysis of mariners' wages, and underestimates the variety of seafarers' remuneration and economic activities besides wages themselves. This article undertakes a more sustained analysis of seventeenth-century wage data drawn from the papers of the English High Court of Admiralty, and uses the same evidence to examine other forms of income, both customary payments as part of shipping, and small-scale trade. Seafarers of all ranks carried their own commodities on all shipping routes, offering an opportunity to increase their income considerably. This evidence confirms that the maritime labour market was hierarchical, and that very often seafarers were poor labourers facing economic insecurity of many kinds. However, it refines the previous interpretation by emphasizing the presence of skilled workers even among the lower levels of this labour market, and by introducing a new dimension to mariners' economic agency: they were not simply wage-workers, but also independent participants in a venture economy

Adventure · Agency (philosophy) · Business · Earnings · Economics · Economy · Interpretation (philosophy) · Labour economics · Political science · Proletariat · Remuneration · Sociology · Wage · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Finance · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law