The Sixteenth-Century Price Inflation
This chart gives a good idea of price inflation during the sixteenth century and its impact on a local grain market, in this case Cologne. The chart shows weekly prices in Mark per Malter for rye (in tan) and barley (in green). The red trend-line is a six-month moving average for rye prices; the black trend-line shows the same data for barley. As these data show, prices for basic foodstuffs remained relatively stable through the 1540s, but then entered a period of increased volatility combined with persistently increasing prices.

Data source: Dietrich Ebeling and Franz Irsigler, Getreideumsatz, Getreide- und Brotpreise in Köln, 1368-1797 (Köln, 1976), in Rudolph M. Bell and Martha Howell, eds., MEMDB: The Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank (1 April 2003).

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