THE PRICE OF LIVE STOCK. 



Porculi appear to be lean or store pigs, which would be in 

 time subjected to the fatting of the two to four bushels 

 mentioned above. They indicate, I conceive, with greater 

 exactness than the other money values, what was the rise and 

 fall in the price of the animal. The reader will find that this 

 price, as on other occasions, is greatest in the decades 1311- 

 1330, 1361-1370. If, again, these porculi are taken to be store 

 pigs, and if the proportion of three bushels of drage to a pig 

 from the time in which it returned from the woods after feeding 

 on the mast and acorns, till it was killed in the middle of 

 November, be reckoned as a general amount, we shall find a 

 fairly close correspondence between the price of the former 

 and the latter. The average value of the porculus is i*. 8d. y 

 of the porcus 2,5. 1 1 f d. Now three bushels of drage, or drage 

 and peas mixed, were worth, on an average, about is. $d. y 

 which represents almost exactly the difference between the two 

 classes of animals. In all likelihood, however, the pigs were 

 fed on those inferior kinds of grain which, known as scurril or 

 cursal, have been omitted from the account of grain prices, 

 and thus the cost of fattening, as estimated in the market 

 value of porculi and porci, might have been somewhat less. 



Porcelli are sucking-pigs for the most part, and the price at 

 which they are sold corresponds in general to what might have 

 been anticipated. 



There does not appear to be any radical difference between 

 porculi and hoggets, but entries of the latter kind are com- 

 paratively rare. 



There is abundant evidence as to the price of poultry. Of 

 these the commonest are geese, capons, hens, and pigeons. 

 All are reckoned by the head except the last, which are 

 invariably quoted in the accounts at so many a penny, but 

 are calculated by the doz.en in the tables subjoined to this 

 chapter. 



Capons are frequently, indeed all but universally, kept on 

 medieval farms, and the price at which they are sold is, on 

 an average, about double that at which cocks and hens are 



