CHARGES OF THE STABLE. 539 



and after or stott shoes. As 1 have observed before, the latter 

 animals were a breed of ponies used for the rougher kinds of 

 husbandry, or for such work as that in which endurance and 

 hardihood were more needed than strength. Sometimes how- 

 ever, as in 1297, carthorse-shoes were less than stott-shoes. It 

 is probable too, that the strength of the shoe varied with the 

 soil and the work. Thus, at Gamlingay in 1343, the shoes of 

 the cart-horse are dearer than those needed for ploughing 

 horses. The theory given above, that the shoes were light, is 

 supported by the fact that at Farley, in the year 1320, ox-shoes 

 are quoted at little less price than horse-shoes. 



The course of prices as indicated by these articles is equally 

 suggestive with that of any other commodities. In the first 

 ninety years shoes are dearest in 1311-1330, though the price 

 is not materially enhanced. Afterwards they fall again, 

 and would have fallen still more markedly were it not for 

 the instant results of the Plague. This visitation produces 

 its effect at one place only in the year 1348, this being 

 Boxley, where the price is at once nearly four times that at 

 which purchases were made in 1339 and 1340. But afterwards 

 the effect is universal. Shoes customarily worth only a half- 

 penny before are instantly and permanently a penny- and the 

 price never falls again. For when we consider how steady 

 was the need for these articles, how universal was the smith's 

 labour, and how the relative value of the commodity was 

 governed by causes over which the interference of the legis- 

 lature could exercise only a very partial control, if indeed 

 it could effect any real control at all, we should be prepared 

 to anticipate the result which actually ensued, that the price 

 was doubled. 



Even here, however, we may trace the same phenomenon 

 which has so often occurred. Prices are higher in the decade 

 1371-1380, and are lower afterwards. Were there sufficient 

 evidence for the last ten years, the facts which I have been 

 able to collect would, I am confident, have been varied in the 

 averages, and the quotations in all likelihood would have to be 



M m 



