Sir Thomas Bertram tells Tom that his debts, which necessitated the sale of the right to present the next incumbent to the Mansfield living, mean that Edmund has lost more than half of his expected income (MP 23).  If Edmund’s remaining living at Thornton Lacey is worth £700 (226) and that income is, say, 45% of his expected income (so that he has lost more than half), a back-of-envelope calculation suggests that he was expecting to have both livings worth a total of £1,555.  We are also told that the Norrises’ income when they married was “very little less than a thousand a year” (3).  If we also assume that Mrs. Norris’s portion was the same as her youngest sister Lady Bertram’s at £7,000 and that it earned the usual 5% (equalling £350), the Mansfield living at the time of the Norrises’ marriage was worth “very little less” than £650.  For the Mansfield living to have increased to £855 (to make the combined figure £1,555), inflation must have been at work.  In this article I shall investigate this hypothesis and try to improve on these back-of-envelope figures.

Making inflation adjustments to the main events of the story requires allocating events to a particular year so that we can apply price indices for that year.  The year is typically determined by characters’ ages.  Most commentators date the main action in Mansfield Park to 1808–09, on the basis that the Mansfield Park ball is held on Thursday, 22 December, a date corresponding with the 1808 calendar.  In that case, we could be looking back as far as 1778—although, for reasons that will appear, I shall go back only to 1781, a period during which prices more than doubled.  The Composite Price Index “covers the prices of consumables, drawn from a variety of sources:  until the early nineteenth century, prices are generally based on records from a few local markets, the accounts of colleges and hospitals in the South East of England, and from records of the Navy Victualling service” (O’Donoghue et al. 39).  In 1781 the CPI was 6.6, while in 1809 it was 14, an increase of 112%.1 (The novel’s narrative extends, in fact, for at least a few years more, to the death of Dr. Grant.) 

The first problem facing us is whether we should use 1808–09 for the main events.  This topic has received much attention from commentators.  I do not propose to enter that debate except so far as necessary for my purpose.  I must, however, assign some events to specific years, and I shall explain the reasons for doing so.  The second problem is that even if we know a character’s age in a particular year, we generally do not know whether he or she attained the age in that calendar year or the previous one—although, as we shall see, we have the advantage of more accurate information about Fanny’s age. 

I shall examine the two problems in turn to produce a chronology, after which I shall make the necessary inflation adjustments.  I emphasize that this chronology is merely a means to that end. 

Dates of the main action 

Most commentators place the main action of Mansfield Park in 1808–09, primarily based on the date of the ball as Thursday, 22 December, which fits the 1808 calendar.  But although in Mansfield Park Easter is “particularly late” in the spring following the ball (430), in 1809 Easter fell on April 2.  Easter must fall between March 22 and April 25:  thus, April 2 is relatively early.2 In 1810, however, Easter was in fact “particularly late,” falling on April 22.  So why is the date of the ball apparently in 1808 and the particularly late Easter in 1810?  One hesitates to say that Austen made an error, but if we’re using a specific calendar, either Thursday, 22 December, or the date of Easter must be wrong.  Since the late date of Easter is central to the narrative and would have been fresh in Austen’s mind early in 1811 when she began writing MP,3 the error is likely to be in relation to Thursday since 22 December fits the surrounding events.  It is possible that Austen was thinking in terms of the main action being in 1809–10 to fit in with the late Easter in 1810 and accidentally took the Thursday from 1808 rather than 1809, when that date would be Friday. 

Despite the possibility that 1809 was intended rather than 1808, I shall follow most commentators in setting the main action in 1808–09 to avoid controversy on an issue peripheral to my argument. 

The ages of the main characters 

It is obvious that if a person attains a particular age in year 1, he will be that age for the remainder of year 1 and for the part of year 2 until his next birthday.  When a character’s age is stated, we do not know whether we are in year 1 or 2.  Normally it will not matter, but in a few cases it is important to know the year in which the character attains a particular age.  Some implications are the ability to enter into binding contracts and incur debts at the age of twenty-one; the requirement of parental consent for marriage under the age of twenty-one;4 the minimum age for ordination as a priest as twenty-four (twenty-three for a deacon).5  All of these are relevant in Mansfield Park:  Tom must have incurred his debts after he attained twenty-one (although this does not preclude the possibility of earlier debts not being enforceable in law but paid as a matter of family honor); Julia must have eloped with Yates before the age of twenty-one, after which her parents’ consent would no longer be required;6 and Edmund cannot have become rector of Thornton Lacey until he was twenty-four. 

We are more fortunate in relation to Fanny’s age because we are told that she was “just ten years old” when she arrived at Mansfield Park (12) and that in July of the year of the ball she “had just reached her eighteenth year” (40), the use of “just” indicating that we are in the year in which she attained those ages.  The difference in wording of these two should not be taken to indicate a difference in meaning, as one might today strictly read the latter wording to refer to the start of her eighteenth year—i.e., that she was seventeen, which I believe was not how it was understood in Austen’s time.  In contrast to these two specific ages there is the vague “about fifteen” (23) at the time of Mr. Norris’s death, which could refer to either year 1 or 2 or even just before she attained 15, and “a girl of fifteen” (28) when Mrs. Norris is arguing that Fanny should not come and live with her. 

Using the information above and taking the date of the start of the main action in Mansfield Park as 1808, Fanny must have arrived at Mansfield Park in late 1800, after she had attained ten, for her to be just eighteen in July 1808.  We are told that when she arrived in late 1800, Tom was seventeen, Edmund sixteen, Maria thirteen, and Julia twelve, but we do not know if they attained those ages in 1800 or 1799; 1800 is more likely, as we are looking at their ages near the end of 1800, so if they had attained those ages in 1799, it can only have been near the end of that year.  Tom would have attained twenty-one and been able to incur legally enforceable debts probably in 1804 but possibly 1803.  As a matter of law of long standing,7 the right of next presentation to a living cannot be sold when it is vacant, as John Dashwood correctly observed of the Delaford living (“‘Now indeed it would be too late to sell it’” Sense and Sensibility [295]).  The order of events must have been that the Mansfield living was sold to raise money to pay Tom’s debts before Mr. Norris’s death, which occurred when Fanny was “about fifteen”; she would have been just fifteen by July 1805.  If Tom incurred his debts in 1804, the rest of these events would be in 1805, the year in which Fanny attained fifteen. 

Julia, who was twelve in late 1800, would be twenty-one in late 1809 and could then marry Yates without her parents’ consent and without eloping to Scotland.  She elopes in May 1809.  This date suggests that she had only just attained twelve in late 1800, which would allow for a longer gap between her and Maria’s birthdays (Maria was thirteen in late 1800).  Julia would not therefore have been twenty-one in May 1809, although the elopement likely occurred only a few months before her twenty-first birthday. 

As Edmund was sixteen in late 1800, he would be twenty-four in late 1808 and capable of being ordained priest, regardless of when he attained that age.  Mary Crawford tells Edmund that she understands that he has “‘a very good living kept for you’” (109) (referring to Thornton Lacey, as the next presentation of the Mansfield living has previously been sold), a conversation that Ellen Moody dates to August that year.  This conversation might suggest that Edmund was not then twenty-four, although the explanation is more likely to be that he could not be appointed until Sir Thomas returned from Antigua because, as holder of the advowson, he had to take the necessary legal steps.  During the Sotherton visit we learn that Edmund plans to take orders soon after his father’s return at Christmas.  In December that year Dr. Grant instructs Edmund about the living, which he will assume when he takes orders in a few weeks.  Edmund must be ordained as a deacon first and could not be presented to a living until he was a priest, but it was possible for these ceremonies to be administered on the Sunday following consecutive Ember days roughly a quarter apart—though it seems that such rules were not strictly observed at the time.8  Henry Austen, for example, seems not to have complied when he was ordained:  he was ordained deacon in Salisbury on 20 December 1816, a Friday rather than a Sunday, and he was ordained as priest on 2 March 1817, which seems to be the Sunday before, not following, Ember week.9  Edmund departs on 23 December to stay with a friend in the same situation at Lessingby near Peterborough to be ordained in Christmas week, which probably does not comply either.10  He would certainly therefore have been twenty-four when he was ordained and presented to the Thornton Lacey living.  In fact, he may by then have been twenty-five and was therefore about to be seventeen in late 1800 when Fanny arrived.  This might account for Henry Crawford’s comment that Edmund would have £700 per annum (from the living at Thornton Lacey) “‘[b]y the time he is four or five-and-twenty’” (226)11  

Earliest events 

To adjust for inflation calculated from earlier dates, we need to work back from Fanny’s arrival at Mansfield Park in late 1800.  Mrs. Price writes to Lady Bertram while “preparing for her ninth lying-in,” when William is ten (5), which could be early in 1799 (William was therefore born in 1789).  “[W]ithin a twelvemonth” (5) Mrs. Norris plans for Fanny to come to Mansfield Park, when Fanny is nine; she arrives in 1800, when she is just ten.  The eleven-year estrangement would therefore begin in 1788.  The timing is confirmed by Mrs. Norris’s statement in 1809 that she has not seen her “poor dear sister Price for more than twenty years” (372), when both the Norrises and the Prices married.  These marriages come “at the end of half a dozen years” (3) after the marriage of the Bertrams, a dating that puts their marriage in 1781 if one allows a full six-year gap—or twenty-seven years from the start of the main action in 1808, which qualifies as “[a]bout thirty years ago” (3). 

Chronology 

Accordingly, I shall use the dates in the following table when calculating inflation adjustments.  As a guide to the inflation, a column showing the Composite Price Index (CPI) is included (O’Donoghue et al. 43), although I shall not be using this index in the calculations of the value of the livings, for reasons I shall explain.  It will be seen that from 1783 to 1793 there was little inflation, but it increased from then onward, with a particularly large spike around the turn of the century, as seen in the chart below. 

The dates in the table above follow Vladimir Nabokov’s dating of the novel with one exception:  he puts the Prices’ marriage in 1787 rather than 1788 while keeping William’s birth in 1789 (not a significant difference) (61).  I have chosen 1788 so that William’s birth is in the year immediately after the marriage, which seems more probable, particularly since Mrs. Price was expecting her ninth child when she wrote to Lady Bertram.  I differ from Moody only in relation to the earlier years, but I have benefited considerably from her detailed analysis of the events of the novel.  She puts Fanny’s arrival at Mansfield Park in 1799 rather than 1800; estimates a longer gap after Mrs. Price’s writing to Lady Bertram, which she puts in 1796 rather than my 1799, before Fanny’s arrival; and puts the Prices’ marriage in 1784–86 and the Bertrams’ in 1779–81 (29 to 27 years before 1808).  These differences are not particularly significant, but to apply inflation calculations I needed to have a single year rather than a range for each of the marriages, and I think a shorter gap between Mrs. Price’s writing and Fanny’s arrival fits the narrative better.  Other commentators have suggested different dates, but I won’t enter that debate since I am making this chronology solely to calculate the effects of inflation. 

Application of inflation adjustments 

As shown in the table above, I shall be using the following dates to adjust for inflation:  the Bertrams’ marriage in 1781, the Norrises’ marriage and Mr. Norris’s being presented to the Mansfield living in 1788, his death in 1805, the Crawfords’ arrival in 1808, and Dr. Grant’s death in 1812.  Since the income from the advowson is the tithes, a tenth of the produce of the parish, the best inflation adjustment would be based on the prices of the crop on which the tithes are calculated.  By this time the tithes were most often an agreed figure roughly based on the value of the crop and adjusted periodically.  We do not know what crop was growing in Northamptonshire at the time, and I suspect that Austen did not know either, since she asked Cassandra if she could find out whether Northamptonshire was a “Country of Hedgerows” (29 January 1813).  To value the tithes and hence the living, I shall use the method later adopted by Parliament in 183612 when all tithes were commuted for a monetary payment (or corn rent). 

This method of valuation takes the average price of wheat, barley, and oats during the seven previous years, with each contributing equal weight to the value.  There are indices for these prices, and I shall adjust the known figures in accordance with the seven-year average of the indices.  The prices of these crops change broadly in line with each other, although with quite wide variations in some years, as shown in the chart below.  Using the average over the previous seven years depresses the value when prices are rising (it was the reverse when Parliament adopted it in 1836, when prices had been falling), so the values are conservative.  The price increases for the period covered by the chart with the seven-year average are CPI 86%, wheat 87%, barley 81%, and oats 70%; if no averaging had been used, the equivalent figures would have been 112%, 156%, 189%, and 171%.  The difference is mainly because the indices were increasing rapidly towards the end of the period to the highest level in the century in 1812 (or 1813 for the CPI);13 the averaging lowers this high level by including lower earlier years in the calculation and effectively spreading the highest percentage increase into later years.14  For similar reasons the average at the start of the period is also lower.  The agreed figure for tithes would be unlikely to change rapidly, so the averaging gives a more realistic result.  It is interesting that, as shown on the chart, the percentage increases for all these indices (except for oats) converged in 1812.  (I considered using a three-year instead of seven-year average, which was the income tax rule for valuing tithes paid in kind after 1806,15 but as this method tended to give more fluctuating results, particularly when looking at differences over a short period, the seven-year average seemed preferable.  The difference was particularly significant when changing the income from the Thornton Lacey living from the known £700 figure in 1808 to that in 1805. 

Chart of the percentage changes in the 7-year average of indices since 1788 

Source.  Author’s calculations from the CPI and the indices in
Clark’s “Price History” (Appendix, Table 1) 
(Click here to see a larger version.)

There is another possible index that could be used, that of agricultural rents in the Midlands (Clark, “Rental Values” Table 8).  That index ends up in line with the others (158% with no averaging), rents having been higher for most of the period, although it usefully avoids the spike in 1801 when inflation was particularly serious.16  It is most unlikely that tithes would have taken this spike in inflation into account.  There seems no advantage in using the agricultural rent index. 

The other variable I need to include in the calculation is Mrs. Norris’s investment income from her portion, presumably the same £7,000 as Lady Bertram’s.  But we do not know when it was paid.  It was common for portions to be paid to females at twenty-one or on marriage (if earlier).  If we assume that Lady Bertram (a younger sister) received hers at the time of her marriage in 1781 when she was, say, eighteen, and that Mrs. Norris, the eldest sister, was three years older, Mrs. Norris’s portion might have been paid when she was twenty-one in 1781, at about the same time as Lady Bertram’s.  The average yield on 3% Consols in 1781 was 5.2%, close to the 5% that Austen generally uses, with the year before being slightly lower and the year after slightly higher.  It is unlikely that Mrs. Norris’s portion was paid on her marriage, by which time she was about twenty-seven.  We shall therefore assume that Mrs. Norris’s investment income, which became her husband’s, was £350.  We know that when she married, the couple’s income was “very little less than a thousand a year” (3), say £975, so that the income from the Mansfield Park living must then have been about £625. 

Values in 1805 

I therefore adjust £625 for inflation by reference to the indices for each of the crops in the seven previous years to give the value in 1805.  Unfortunately, the seven years before 1805 span the spike in inflation at the turn of the century, affecting the result; nevertheless, I shall use it for consistency.

The average of these three crops gives £1,008 for the income from the Mansfield living in 1805.  In other words, the income of the living had risen by 61% between these dates.  As a comparison, using the Composite Price Index for those years would result in £1,092 (75% increase), which is higher; if similarly averaged, it would be £1,088 (74% increase).  These and all other figures should be taken as an order of magnitude only.  I am not rounding them because I am using them in subsequent calculations; rounding them each time would result in cumulative errors. 

Since we want to compare this figure with the income from the Thornton Lacey living at the same date, which we know was £700 in 1808, we need to deflate the Thornton Lacey figure to 1805. 

The average of these three crops gives £681 for the Thornton Lacey living in 1805. 

Sir Thomas tells Tom that his debts have resulted in Edmund’s losing more than half his expected income.  On the basis that Edmund has been expecting to hold both livings but would have had to pay a curate, say, £5017 for Thornton Lacey (since Sir Thomas would not allow Edmund to be an absentee rector when Thornton Lacey was his only living), his prospective income in 1805 of £681 from Thornton Lacey would be about 43% of the combined total in 1805 if the Mansfield living had not been sold (700/[1008+681-50]=43%.).  Thus Edmund would have lost 57%, which is more than half, confirming Sir Thomas’s statement.  The figures also demonstrate that Edmund cannot have been expecting to hold the Mansfield living alone, assuming it had not been sold, because on that basis he would have lost only 32% of his prospective income (681/1008=68%.). 

If the sale price in 1805 (but earlier in that year than Mr. Norris’s death) was the conventional five times the income, with virtually no discount for his lifetime as he was in bad health, Tom’s debts might be on the order of £5,000. 

Values in 1808 

Next, I repeat the same calculation for 1808 when the main action starts so that all the figures are in pounds of that year. 

The average of these is £1,037, to which we add £700 for the Thornton Lacey living, which is already in 1808 pounds, making the total £1,737. 

We can restate all the figures in Mansfield Park into 1808 pounds, converting the items other than these figures for the tithes in accordance with the Composite Price Index:  Lady Bertram’s portion about £13,575; the Norrises’ initial income about £1,665; Mary Crawford’s portion £20,000, which is about one-and-a-half times Lady Bertram’s (not the apparent three times if inflation is ignored); the Thornton Lacey living £700; and the Mansfield living about £1,037. 

Values in 1812 

Finally, I repeat the same calculation but now extend it to the end of the narrative, which I have assumed to be 1812. 

And we do the same for Thornton Lacey from 1808 when it yielded £700 to 1812.

The averages of each of these in 1812 are £1,128 and £762, totaling £1,890 for the income from both livings in 1812 (ignoring the fact that Edmund will have to pay a curate for Thornton Lacey when he moves back to Mansfield Park).  If the similarly averaged Composite Price Index had been used instead, the average figures would have been £1,165 and £750, totaling £1,915, which gives a slightly higher figure caused by the seven-year average depressing the price rise of the crops.

I repeat that these results should be taken as an order of magnitude only, particularly because of the uncertainty of both the starting and ending years, and the use of the seven-year average.  The figures are assisted by ending in 1812, when the indices of the price of the crops converged after having greater differences earlier. 

The conclusion is that inflation cannot be ignored, particularly when considering figures up to thirty years apart, but changes can also be significant for shorter periods in times when inflation was high.  The question may be asked whether Austen was fully conversant with the effects of inflation.  My view is that, as she and her original readers lived through the record inflation of 1800–01, both she and they must have been fully conscious of it even though she may not have been fully aware of the differences from thirty years earlier (as might be the case if we ourselves looked back thirty years).  Austen’s original readers in 1814, when Mansfield Park was published, would find that prices were 48% higher at the end of 1813 compared with ten years earlier, after the end of the spike at the turn of the century, so they could not have been unaware of inflation.  (For comparison, inflation in the U.K. in the last ten years has been lower, at 34%.)  Austen demonstrates that she was aware of the effects of inflation by providing figures from which the value of the Mansfield living can be easily deduced at the time of the Norrises’ marriage, as well as for the Thornton Lacey living in 1808, which initially appears to be larger than the Mansfield one, although it is clearly the secondary living.  Austen expected her readers to be able to deduce that because of inflation the Mansfield living must have been much larger than Thornton Lacey, as is confirmed by Sir Thomas’s telling Tom that his debts had caused Edmund to lose more than half his expected income. 

Inflation adjustments may also throw further light on Edmund’s income at various times, a topic recently examined in Persuasions (see Hussain).  More important, adjusting these figures, which cover more than a thirty-year period, for inflation helps us to understand the economics of Mansfield Park in a way that original readers would have done, having lived through the serious inflation of that time themselves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

I am grateful to Professors Peter Sabor, Jan Fergus, and Janine Barchas and to Azar Hussain for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

NOTES 

1The increase would have been almost exactly 100% if we had gone back to 1778. 

2Easter Sunday is on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_full_moon), which is the first full moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_moon) (or strictly the fourteenth day of the lunar month, and not the actual full moon) falling on or after 21 March. 

3Cassandra Austen recorded that Mansfield Park was begun “somewhere about Feb 1811” (Minor Works page facing 242). 

4In Austen’s time, with parental consent the minimum age for marriage in England was fourteen for men and twelve for women; no consent was required in Scotland.

5See the Clergy Ordination Act 1804 (44 Geo 3 c 43).  The minimum age for ordination as a deacon was twenty-three.  The Act was probably intended to clarify rather than to make a change as there had been problems in Ireland.  One of the recitals said, “And whereas, in that Part of the United Kingdom called Ireland, the aforesaid Rule respecting the Ages of Persons desiring to be admitted into Holy Orders has been sometimes disregarded and rendered of no Effect, to the great Scandal and Detriment of the Church, and to the Prejudice of Religion.”  The Austen family were not good at complying either.  George Austen was born 1 May 1731 and ordained deacon 10 March 1754 (about two months early); James Austen was born 13 February 1765 and ordained deacon 10 December 1787 (also about two months early) (https://theclergydatabase.org.uk/).  They both served as deacons for more than a year.  These minimum ages were contained in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer demonstrating that they were not changed by the 1804 Act. 

6The Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 introduced the requirement for the reading of banns on three Sundays at parish churches in England, and by section 11 parental consent was required for any party under the age of twenty-one; otherwise, the marriage was void. 

7Fox v. The Bishop of Chester, 3 June 1829 (Bingham’s Common Pleas 6: 1; English Reports 130: 1180). 

8I am grateful to the Rev. Kenneth Padley, Canon Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral, for confirming that not following the rules was common at the time.  Bishops tended to do whatever they wanted. 

9The ordination was not 28 February 1817 as most sources (including Le Faye, Chronology) state but the date of the letters dimissory (testimonial).  Easter 1817 was on 6 April.  I make the first Sunday in Lent 2 March and the Ember days 5, 7 and 8 March, so the next Sunday would be 9 March.  These dates illustrate that rules were not being followed strictly. 

10This seems too late to be the Sunday after the Ember days (Branton 156).  For information relating to clerics in Austen’s family, see Jarvis. 

11Although this estimate comes from Henry Crawford, I accept the figure of £700 on the basis that he is probably reliable—at least on financial matters. 

12Tithe Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will. 4 c 71) s 57. 

13To give an example of the rapid increases, the 1811 and 1812 indices respectively were wheat 11.73 and 14.38 (23% increase); barley 5.12 and 8.09 (58% increase); oats 3.34 and 5.39 (61% increase).  These all show large increases immediately before 1812 that are smoothed out by the averaging. 

14For example, the year of the highest level of the index and (in brackets) of the highest percentage increase in the seven-year average percentage since 1788 were CPI 1813 (1815); wheat 1812 (1815); barley 1812 (1814); oats 1812 (1814). 

15See (1806) 46 Geo 3 c 65, Sch A No III:  assessment of tithes paid in kind based on the average of the income of the three preceding years.  But if compounded for a fixed amount, the assessment was based on the previous year’s income.  There were slightly different rules from 1803 to 1806. 

16In 1800 the Composite Price Index rose by the largest-ever figure of 36.5% and by another 11.7% in 1801; in 1802 it fell by 23%. 

17Henry Austen’s remuneration as curate in 1816, several years later, during which there had been further inflation, was 52 guineas.  In Sense and Sensibility, written 1797–98 and not updated before publication, there is a reference to the danger of Edward Ferrars’s settling down upon a curacy of £50 per year (276; see Avery Jones and Hussain).  Clergymen with an income below £60 per annum, which was the income tax exemption limit, keeping only one horse were exempt from the duty on horses in 1805 (45 Geo 3 c 13 Sch E Exemptions Case VII).  This exemption indicates that there were clergymen on an income below £60.