The figures in the end column were calculated from those supplied by the Bank of England which show the estimated purchasing power of a pound sterling comparing the years 1300 and 2004.
The Lay Subsidies were a means of taxing people on the value of their movable assets and were commonly known as tenths or fifteenths as tax was levied at a rate of 10 per cent in the towns and 15 in the countryside.
The relative status of the people listed can be judged by the amount of tax they had to pay with Ricardo Malebisse owning 50 percent of the entire village [this was only one of his manors] and the two molendarios [millers] being relatively wealthy men, owning 7.8 and 4.9 per cent respectively.
Roberto de Venur [the modern equivalent of a gamekeeper] and Galfredo the carpenter were also at the top end of the scale as were Rogerio filio [son of] Aun and Matild relicta [widow of] Nicholai and the lower taxes paid by the rest of the community reflected their lesser wealth and probable lower social status
The presence of two millers in the village shows that at least one mill was working at the beginning of the 14th century and Saxton’s map drawn nearly 300 years later showed it adjacent to Nettlebeck opposite the Old Byland field known as Scawton Ings. As William Preston was the Fairfax tenant of a miln and kiln in 1694 it appears that a mill was working for at least 400 years but an industrial archæologist searched the length of Nettlebeck and found no trace of it
