“Of Money, Grains, Wine, Wood, and Grounds”. Rural Teachers’ Wages in Early-Modern North-Eastern Switzerland

Switzerland is a blank space in the ongoing debates about early modern real wages in economic history. Teachers’ wages from two surveys on education from the second half of the eighteenth century may provide a starting point for research, as they shed light on a standardised profession in rural areas. The surveys from 1771/1772 and 1799 give detailed wage information from either the teachers or their supervisors, covering an early proto-industrialising area in the northeastern part of the country. Both surveys clearly indicate that teaching was a predominantly seasonal side occupation, as full-time schooling was primarily provided in the winter months. Weekly fees paid by the pupils may be regarded as “piece rate payment”, though they became less prevalent. Apart from the per capita school fees, the teachers were usually paid from a plurality of public sources nourished by taxation as well as specific church and school funding. They often included in-kind payments of grains and wine, as well as heating material or lodgings. Some of them may even be quantified financially thanks to contemporary average price tables. All in all, Swiss teachers’ wages confirm the complexity of income measurements in early modern Europe.