CHAPTER XX. 



ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



PART of the charges annually incurred by the bailiff in 

 husbandry were the necessary repairs of the manor-house and 

 grange. It is seldom that a year passes without some expen- 

 diture being incurred under the head of c Custus domorum.' 

 Occasionally the outlay is large and the information ample, 

 because, new buildings have been erected or extensive repairs 

 have been undertaken. 



Again, the college or monastery was often constrained or 

 induced to incur considerable charges on the same ground. 

 Those great ecclesiastical structures, the cathedrals, the col- 

 legiate and monastic churches, were slowly piled up, as the 

 funds available for their construction were saved or begged 

 or given. A great church was long in building, and seldom 

 completed. Merton College chapel, which has formed the 

 model for nearly all structures intended for similar purposes, 

 was, it appears, never finished, and is but a fragment of the 

 original plan, which must have contemplated a nave as well 

 as choir and transepts. But nearly two centuries elapsed 

 between the commencement of this building and the last 

 additions made to it. 



Again, similar but less extensive outlay was made upon 

 domestic buildings. I am not sufficiently versed in Gothic 

 architecture to determine the progress of the older portions 

 of, (for instance,) Merton College, many of which have perhaps 

 been disfigured by modern facings, but the charges incurred in 



