572 ON THE PRICE OF TEXTILE FABRICS, ETC. 



Sometimes the fan was bought complete. An entry of such 

 a kind from Letherhead in 1378 (vol. ii. p. 566. iv.) gives 

 3*. 64. as the price of this article another, from Wolford in 

 1335, is bought at is. %d. 



HAIR-CLOTH. In the economy of the malt-house a kind of 

 cloth woven of hair was, as now, used for drying the malt after 

 it had been made to germinate. The amount of evidence is 

 slight, but there is, I think, no reason to doubt that the price 

 at which this article stood varied in any notable degree from 

 the averages given for the period before and after the Great 

 Plague. 



Under the year 1282 a complete hair-cloth is bought at 

 Cambridge. If the price of the article was the same at this 

 time as it was afterwards, such a cloth would contain about 

 fifteen yards of the stuff. 



LINEN. The accounts supply us with information as to the 

 price of linen for two purposes for under-clothing, namely, 

 and for the table: and although the evidence given is inter- 

 rupted and imperfect, it is still sufficient for the purpose of 

 a decennial average, and for a general contrast between the 

 two great periods of 12601350 and 1351-1400. Linen is 

 almost always reckoned by the ell, and the averages given in 

 the table subjoined to this chapter estimate the price by dozens 

 of ells in the case of linen for clothing and for the table. 



Among the sources from which information is given as to the 

 price of linen for wear, the most copious and exact is that from 

 Maiden Bradley for the four successive years 1325-1328. This 

 priory supported a certain number of women and men, all the 

 former, it appears, being lepers, and the number maintained 

 being generally from thirteen to fifteen. The accounts do not, 

 however, state how many men were supported by the founda- 

 tion. Each woman seems to have been furnished with two 

 shifts a-year, each of which contained two and a half ells of a 

 linen stuff designated as c tela longa;' another kind of linen, not 

 much cheaper, but called c tela minor,' being used occasionally 

 for shirts and surplices. The number of shirts made is not 



