17th century wages, etc.

One photo for this post- a header from the London Carpenters Company Records - I saw it when I was at the Guildhall Library in London in 2004. When I studied furniture history I learned how to use period records, often court records, to get some insights into the day-to-day workings of life in the 17th century. Over the years I have collected lots of these references to tradesmen and household goods. From time to time in this blog I’ll show some of these notes - lumped under the heading “period records.” Tonight’s is mostly about wages for tradesmen, but starts off with a dispute about some joined chests made in Essex County Massachusetts. That’s included because it gives us a price for new joined chests.