FATS. 411 



wanting for the last fifty. It is probable, however, as these 

 ninety years include the great scarcities, that the general 

 average is not very far from the price which actually prevailed. 

 To judge from analogous cases, the price would have been 

 depressed in the decades 135160, 1381-1400, and have been 

 high in the twenty years 1361-1380, as we see that it is 

 high for cepum, unctum, and pinguedo. The rise and fall 

 would, I have little doubt, have balanced each other, and the 

 general average would have hardly varied had we been able 

 to supply positive evidence during this period. 



All fats are high during the period 1301-1330, though the 

 price declines during the latter part of the last decade. They 

 follow, in short, the price of cattle, which, as has been often 

 observed, shew fluctuations in value during these dear times. 

 The reader will recognise the fact that these fats are all dearer 

 than butter, whether we take the decennial or the general 

 averages, and that in some cases they represent what, on 

 comparison with other utilities, are excessive prices. But the 

 entire absence of winter roots will, I think, account for the 

 fact that this portion of the animal, which now bears the lowest 

 market price, was at that time of so high a relative value, that 

 though meat, as I have suggested, was readily to be procured 

 at a farthing, or perhaps less than a farthing the pound, fat was 

 worth from i \d. to id. 



Lard, the softest, was on the whole the cheapest of these 

 fats. It was used, when it formed an article of agricultural 

 economy, for dressing sheep as well as for domestic consump- 

 tion, being employed most likely, as in modern times, as a 

 vehicle for medicaments, such as quicksilver, verdigris, and 

 copperas. When so mixed and sold in this state, it appears 

 that it was known by the name of unguentum; for except 

 on the hypothesis that this term means medicated fats, (and 

 it will be recollected that such is still the medical use of the 

 word,) it is difficult to account for the high price of the article 

 known by this name. Thus, for instance, the reader will find, 

 on turning to vol. ii. p. 384, that the gallon of unguentum was 



