Lampreys. 
Eels. 
64 ON THE PLACE OF FISH IN 
received certain payments from fishermen licensed 
to angle or net parts of the piscary. On an average 
these licences amount to Ios. I}d. annually. Thames 
salmon sold at very high prices; their value, when 
expressed in present money, being on an average 
£2 15s.10a. Nosalmon are now taken in the Thames, 
sewage having destroyed them. 
Christchurch fish was about the same value. 
But none equal the value of Severn fresh fish, 
sold at Gloucester at 6s. 5d. each. This is enormous 
despite the traditional price of Severn fish. 
Eltham—they were sold for Is. 6d. 
In this record salt fish is expressly named; thus 
fourteen are named as being purchased at Gloucester 
at 2s. 94d. ; six at Conway in 1392 at 2s. 6d. ; three at 
Hardlaugh—that is Harlech—at 11d.each. In 1316a 
sturgeon was caught at Mortlake which the bailiff of 
Westshene purchased for 41 for the King’s use. By 
a statute of the same reign (16 Ed. II. cap. 1) all 
sturgeon, wherever caught, are declared vested in the 
Crown by virtue of its dignity or prerogative, and 
are to be delivered wz¢hout purchase. 
Lampreys were considered the choicest of fish. 
They were expensive luxuries in the year 1284, 
selling in Clare at 7s. a dozen, and in Bridgnorth, in 
1392, 6s. 8d. was the price for a single dish. 
The dearest eels were those caught at Wythornese- 
mere in Yorkshire, which sold at 3s. 8d. the stick of 
twenty-one. All these entries are before the plague. 
After those are two entries of sa/¢ eels, in 1392 at 6d, 
in 1398 at 2s., the stick. Conger eels were bought at 
Winchester in 1259, at Branndon in 1327. The latter 
gives an entry of porpoise purchased at 8d. If these 
