THE PRICE OF WOOL. 367 



trived, or attempted to secure to himself, a monopoly of profit 

 on the export of wool, caused serious depressions in its home 

 price, and, concurrently with other causes to be explained 

 below, reduced its value greatly. The annual export of wool, 

 according to an account quoted by Misselden in his " Circle of 

 Commerce," amounted, in the middle of the fourteenth century, 

 to nearly 33,000 sacks. In the next place, even when the bailiff 

 sells the produce, it is frequently the case that the number of 

 fleeces only is given, with the price at which they were sold. 

 It is not possible, of course, to make more than a good guess at 

 the weight which such numbers and such prices imply. 



The second difficulty, which peculiarly affects an enquiry 

 into the price of wool in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu- 

 ries, is the extraordinary variation in the number of pounds 

 contained in the petra, or stone. I have already, in the chapter 

 on weights and measures, adverted to the > general uniformity of 

 other measures, and it is manifest that there was little variety 

 in the quantity at least of the quarter qyer the length and 

 breadth of England. But however fully obedience to royal 

 mandates, coupled with the obvious convenience of deference 

 to such authority, induced uniformity in this and other mea- 

 sures, the frequent ordinance that the stone of wool should 

 contain fourteen pounds was for a long time disregarded. 



The reader will see, on turning to vol. ii. p. 337, that there 

 were very various weights employed for wool. In p. 713 of 

 the same volume I have collected the evidence for the different 

 kinds of stone, or petra. There are no less than thirteen of 

 these variations, and in some cases two, or even three, are 

 recognized in the same locality. Thus, for instance, there is a 

 stone of seven, of fourteen, and of sixteen pounds used at 

 Gamlingay. Again, the tod seems to be used once for fourteen 

 pounds, frequently for twenty-one, as well as in its modern 

 signification as a weight of twenty-eight pounds. 



So considerable did these difficulties appear, that at first 

 I despaired of finding any satisfactory solution of them. But 

 partly by taking note of the occasions on which the weight of 



