494 ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



of 95-. i^/., two afterwards of 135-. o|^. j though I cannot, of 

 course, speak confidently, as the record contains no other 

 suggestion than that of price. ' 



These small slates are quoted from Woodstock, Oxford, 

 Heyford Warren, Wolford, Tingewick, and Radcliff, the price 

 at the last two places being considerably higher than that 

 reached in any other locality. The larger slates, with one 

 exception, all come from the Oxford accounts, and especially 

 from the building rolls of Merton, Queen's, and New Colleges. 

 It is possible that the largest stones, though called slates, were 

 in reality slabs to be used for flooring. 



We can, I think, rely on the record of the small slates as 

 illustrating the rise of prices in all products of mechanical 

 labour which characterized the last fifty years of the fourteenth 

 century. The omission of the entries from RadclifF and 

 Tingewick would reduce the average to is. q\d. after the 

 Plague, and this rise, though certainly large, is not without 

 parallel. 



Slates are also used in the south of England. I have pre- 

 viously commented on the fact that from the great extent of 

 house property in Southampton b possessed by the provost, 

 brethren, and sisters of GOD'S House in that town, the annual 

 rolls of this society are peculiarly rich in records of building 

 materials. Up to the middle of the fourteenth century roofing 

 material bought for this corporation is almost invariably 

 described as slate. Similarly, too, slate is bought at Bove- 

 combe in the Isle of Wight, at Christchurch in Hampshire, 

 at Apuldrum and Thorney in Sussex, the average price up to 

 1347 being is. ^\d. the thousand, as gathered from twenty-two 

 entries of Hampshire purchases. 



Slates are bought also at Oldinton in Kent, at Alton Barnes 

 in Wilts, and at Bradway in Somerset and there is also an 



b It is very difficult to decide on the origin of these Southampton slates. They may 

 have been carried from the west of England, i. e. Devon or Cornwall, or by the Loire, 

 from the neighbourhood of Angers. In all likelihood they were conveyed as ballast. There 

 is, my friend Professor Phillips informs me, no slate nearer Southampton than that found 

 in these localities. 



