Jonathan3628 t1_ir2b1a9 wrote on October 4, 2022 at 8:27 PM

Does anyone know of some good sources that discuss the relative prices and levels of consumption of different fuels (especially wood, charcoal, and coal) in England over time?

The article provides a citation (to a Wikipedia article, which is better than nothing) for the claim that by [the year] 1000, only 15% percent of England was forested. Then it claims "Consequently wood as a heat fuel was scarce and so beginning in the 16th century we see a marked shift over to coal as a heating fuel for things like cooking and home heating."

This seems very plausible, but it would be great if someone knows of a source that verifies this claim. [In the 16th century, people in England started shifting to using coal more than wood for heating. This shift occurred because wood was scarce (and thus more expensive than coal).]

War_Hymn t1_ir3wdlt wrote on October 5, 2022 at 3:35 AM

I recall a source stating that after rent, wood fuel was one of the biggest reoccurring expenses for a late medieval/early modern English household in the cities. I'll have to look it up again.

It should be noted that the coal mines in England were also conveniently located at the coast, so they could be shipped to the urban settlements of the country in bulk through sea transport.

EDIT: Found something in one of the volumes of History of Agriculture and Prices in England - there's a chapter on Fuel that states that a hundred faggots (a tied bundle of wood sticks, about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide) was sold wholesale at Cambridge for 6 shillings 8 pences in 1512. Compare this to an average of 2 shillings and 8 pences between 1260-1400 for a hundred faggots. So there was definitely a steady increase during and after the 15th century for wood.

The price of "sea" coal varied in price, depending how close of an access a market had to the coastal coal mines. At York in 1402-1404, a chaldron of coal (36 bushels by volume, equivalent to 1.5 tonnes of coal) could be bought wholesale at 5 shillings, dropping to 4 shillings by 1419. At the coastal Sunderland area, the price of coal was about half as much.