184 AVERAGES OF PRICES. 



and therefore the cost of the carriage is a notable element in 

 its price. 



Similarly, the price of iron is always low near the sea and 

 the great towns in the south of England, being often only two- 

 thirds of the price at which it is purchased in inland districts. 

 Again, the cost of canvas for agricultural implements and 

 clothing is much lower in the eastern counties, where it was 

 manufactured, than in the western, into which it was carried 

 for sale, in case the bailiff did not buy what he needed at 

 Stourbridge fair. Now as the information on this and some 

 similar facts is very copiously drawn from records of the 

 eastern counties in the early part of this enquiry, but very 

 scantily supplied in the later, and then chiefly from the mid- 

 land and western districts, the real rise which took place after 

 the Great Plague appears to be greater than it really was, 



There is one article of great importance in the Middle Ages, 

 and indeed of equal significance now, in which the cost ot 

 carriage is a serious element, but in which as a rule the fact 

 of the cost being included in the charge is specially noted. 

 Millstones of the best quality were imported from France to 

 Southampton, London, and especially to the ports of the 

 eastern counties. The cost of carrying these bulky com- 

 modities must have been, indeed we shall see in discussing the 

 cost of carriage over known distances was, very great. But 

 again, in certain manufactured articles, in which the cost of 

 labour was high, and the labour itself generally diffused, no 

 great variation, consequent upon the locality of the produce, 

 can be traced. Thus, for instance, the price of lath-nails is 

 nearly uniform over England. The smith was found in every 

 village j we know how universally he has left his patronymic, 

 under the various shapes into which the name has been twisted, 

 as well as in the rarer form of Faben Now the cost of work- 

 ing raw iron into nails must have been very considerable, 

 though tolerably uniform. Hence we shall find that fluctua- 

 tions in the aggregate price of these articles and similar 

 commodities represent more nearly the true rise and fall in 



