HIDES. 401 



the rise and fall of the decennial averages. The reader will 

 however detect a similar range of high prices in the first thirty 

 years of the fourteenth century, though the rate is not so much 

 depressed during the next twenty years. And again, it is to be 

 observed that there is a similar improvement in the twenty 

 years 1361-1380, though hides do not partake of this rise to 

 an analogous extent with that of wool. 



Cow-hides are considerably cheaper than ox-hides. On the 

 whole, the averages taken for the value of these articles follow 

 those for ox-hides closely, rising and falling, as a rule, with the 

 rise and fall of the more valuable article. The value of stott, 

 or affer, and horse-hides is low, not being, if we except the 

 doubtful entries of the last forty years, as much as half that 

 obtained for ox-hides. 



In one year, 1308, the price of hides is exceptionally high, 

 the rate being excessive in all the localities from which in- 

 formation has been obtained, that is, in Surrey, Oxfordshire, 

 Hants, Monmouth, and Warwickshire. On other occasions 

 high prices are recorded in particular localities, but they are 

 accompanied by entries at low rates, and seem to indicate 

 a special goodness in the article. Thus, unless the sale denotes 

 a transaction affected by the same causes as those which 

 brought about the high price of 1308, one hide in 1307 sold 

 at Kingsnod for 8/., an amount without precedent or subse- 

 quent parallel. So in 1296 the hides purchased at 5^. each at 

 Bodmin for the tin mines, and others in 1304 at the same 

 place, are expressly intended to form bellows for smelting, 

 and were therefore probably of the best possible quality. 



In the early years of this enquiry the largest sales of hides 

 are derived from the consumption of oxen at Bigod's castles or 

 manors, or on those of the Clares, Earls of Gloucester. Those, 

 for instance, which occur under Hampstede in the year 1277, 

 at Forneset in 1285, at Waleton in 1287, 1288, and 1291, at 

 Holesle in 1290 and 1295, at Framlingham in 1295, 1300, and 

 1301, are of this character, being proceeds from Bigod's estates. 

 So, again, the sales from Usk, Caerleon, and Lantrissan are 



cd 



