FUEL. 



4*3 



should have been less than half that at which it was sold at the 

 former. Can it be the case that the tax on sea-borne coal, 

 which has endured up to this time, is to be considered the 

 cause of so great a difference between the price at two places 

 in the same year, a difference the more remarkable because the 

 distance from the coal-field was so much more considerable at 

 Southampton? It is probable, as there was, in later times at 

 least d , a considerable coasting trade in grain from the south to 

 the north of England, that sea-coal was taken in ballast. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the entries of the price of 

 sea-coal are few, it is manifest that an enormous rise was 

 effected in its market value as a consequence of the Plague, 

 from which it was probably not depressed till the last ten or 

 twenty years of the century. Such a rise must have been 

 due to the fact that there was a considerable demand for this 

 article, though it was probably of a local character. It seems 

 indeed to have been employed, occasionally at least, for smiths' 

 work, as well as for burning in houses ; but the latter use is 

 more frequent, and implies that the sea-coal fire of Shakespeare 

 was not the anachronism which some critics have supposed, 

 the sea-borne coal having been carried for market long before 

 the time of Henry the Fourth. 



Turf is quoted only in the earlier part of the period, the 

 latest entry being found under the year 1337. The rate is by 

 the thousand, that is 1 200, or by the last, that is 1 2,000. The 

 price varies between *]d. and is. id. the thousand, the highest 

 price being given at Cambridge in 1334, where the turf is 

 specified as heather. The general average is about yd. the 



d For the proof that such a coasting trade was carried on in the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, see the Durham Household Book, published by the Surtees Society. 

 The monks bought most of their barley in Norfolk then, as now, a great barley-growing 

 county and carried it by sea to the monastery. Newcastle-on-Tyne was an important 

 town in the time before me, as may be seen from the assessment to the wool-tax, the 

 proportion paid by this city being far more than that of York, and considerably in excess 

 of that paid by Bristol. Under the year 1372 (vol. ii. p. 582. iv.) will be found an entry 

 from Finchale, the monks of which went to the cost of 2 6s. 7^. in order to sink a shaft 

 for a coal-pit on their estate. 



