[mrec]

And about half a cheap sword, which puts the current top comment ("steel swords and the like were quite valuable") in perspective. Iron and its upstream inputs were expensive, yes, but labour costs kicked in too for fiddly things like chainmail (100s or 1200d, and it definitely doesn't contain 200 times as much iron as the sword, more on the order of 10) and clothing. I'm hoping/assuming Bret will get to pre-industrial textiles in this series; the amount of labour involved was phenomenal even if the physical inputs were cheaper.

[stan_rogers]

And imagine what is was like before the treadle loom (where the operator had to do the weaving for every single weft thread, rather than just throwing a shuttle) and the spinning wheel (instead using a distaff spindle).