414 ON THE PRICES OF FARM PRODUCE. 



the estate of some individual whose lands were, since the 

 owner was a lunatic, in the custody of and administered by 

 the Crown. The lunatic resided on the Salden estate, and 

 the purchases of candles were made for his use, and for that of 

 his household, if indeed the wax purchased at this place does 

 not represent the material supplied for his wants, the candles 

 the domestic expenditure. 



Information as to the price of candles is very scanty in the 

 earlier part of the period commented on in these volumes, but 

 becomes copious at the close. The first entry, in 1366, must 

 bear reference to some article of very superior quality, pur- 

 chased, in all likelihood, at some occasional visit of Isabella de 

 Fortibus to her manor at Easington, or else for some friend 

 who tarried there for a night, as Lord William de Vesci does 

 at another of her manors in 1270. (Vol. ii. p. 608. ii.) Such 

 articles as these must have been placed in the two boxes which 

 are (C bought to hold white candles" (vol. ii. p. 610. i.) when 

 Roger Bigod accompanied Edward the First on that Scotch 

 expedition in the course of which Baliol was utterly routed at 

 Dunbar. With the commencement of the fourteenth century 

 the entries of purchases become more copious, and we may 

 conclude that up to this time whatever artificial light was 

 needed for the business of the farm or of the household was 

 manufactured at home. 



The record of the price paid for these articles, estimated in 

 the annual and decennial averages in quantities of a dozen 

 pounds, presents similar information as to high and low prices 

 with that which has been so often adverted to on other occa- 

 sions. The price is high during the first twenty years of the 

 fourteenth century, highest of all in the decade 1361-1370, and 

 declining towards the close of the century. During the last 

 twenty years candles are cheaper than at any other time, and 

 particularly so in the last ten. 



But though the price of these articles declines, the reader 

 will recognize that they are relatively high, the general average 

 being only a fraction under id. the pound. If we take the 



