504 ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



to turn, the base remaining immoveable, is of comparatively 

 modern date. 



The most expensive part of the mill was the millstone. I 

 have been able to collect sufficient evidence for a table of the 

 highest price given for certain kinds of stones, which is toler- 

 ably consecutive at the commencement of the period, but very 

 scanty towards its conclusion. The cause of this difference 

 in the aggregate of evidence is to be found in the fact that 

 towards the close of the fourteenth century the miller generally 

 took upon himself the charge of the machinery and the cost 

 of stones. His condition, as we have often had occasion to 

 observe, was improving, and as he accumulated capital he 

 ceased to depend upon the aid which he previously needed from 

 the resources of his landlord. 



At least four kinds of millstones can be distinguished. The 

 best and the dearest are of foreign origin, and are probably 

 made of the chert found in the neighbourhood of Paris. This 

 substance, which is of excessive hardness, is obtained only in 

 small pieces, which needed to be united by a strong cement. 

 In the Middle Ages these millstones were held together by an 

 iron band passing round the cylindrical surface of the mass. 

 The various prices which are found in the originals are not, 

 I imagine, to be explained by the various values of the frag- 

 ments making up the stone, but by differences in the size of 

 the mass. It is thus, I presume, that we must explain the 

 purchase of half a stone at Castre in 1277. 



Sometimes these foreign stones must have been very large. 

 It is not, I should think, to any pressure of demand that we 

 should assign the high price of ^5 apiece for two millstones 

 at Framlingham in 1295, and that of \ 6s. 8^. for one at 

 Bosham in the following year, but solely to the fact that the 

 mass was unusually large. 



As a rule the price of the stone does not include the cost 

 of carriage. Occasionally, however, this is charged in the 

 value given, the transit being, it seems, undertaken frequently 

 by common carriers. Sometimes the carriage is given as a 



