

EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY. 461 



perhaps the c smigma' bought at Oldinton (vol. ii. p. 568. i.) at 

 ^\d. the pound was a medicated soap or ointment. 



Between the years 1283 and 1327, the last of which is the 

 latest entry of the article, I have found and recorded (vol. ii. 

 p. 429) twenty-two purchases of verdigris. The average price 

 is a very small fraction over 9^. a pound. The price, as the 

 reader will recognise, is very high, for copper at this time was 

 about id. the pound. Verdigris, I have little doubt, was 

 imported, and in all probability was manufactured, as it now 

 is, by laying thin plates of copper over the fermenting refuse of 

 grapes. The process, however, was most likely a secret, for 

 otherwise we cannot account for so great a charge. Verdigris 

 seems to have been a favourite remedy in some places, as it is 

 used in Oxfordshire, Warwick, Berks, and Hants after it was 

 abandoned elsewhere. It is found sometimes as high as is. ^d. 

 the pound, as at Pevensey in 1286, while it is purchased at the 

 same place in 1289 for 4^. 



Copperas, by which must be meant sulphate of iron, was an 

 article in frequent use for the manufacture of writing-ink, a con- 

 venience which our forefathers manufactured with great success 

 six hundred years ago. I discovered a receipt for ink in one 

 of the New College rolls, at a date a very few years after that 

 with which these volumes conclude, and it has been found to 

 produce a very excellent compound by some who have followed 

 its proportions. But copperas was also used for sheep-dressing, 

 and is quoted in the accounts under the head of c Custus Ovilis.' 

 Nineteen entries of purchases made for this purpose have been 

 collected, at an average price of if*/. In the manor of Boxley 

 it was used long after it was abandoned elsewhere, and the 

 price is exceptionally high. Without these the remaining 

 seventeen entries would give an average of a little less than 

 \\d. Such a price suggests that copperas was made easily. 

 It was probably manufactured, as it sometimes is still, by 

 exposing iron pyrites to the influence of the weather, especially 

 in the neighbourhood of the sea, by treating the decomposed 

 mass with water, and by evaporation. I should think that the 



