LEAD. 



597 



stone of fourteen pounds), the great libra or clove, and the little 

 pound. The pund is used in Sussex, as before for butter and 

 cheese, and may be taken as 21 Ibs. The wey of 2 cwts. is 

 also used, and it seems that the singular weights, the pannus, 

 the bule, the tela, and the lacrima, are to be identified 

 with the wey. Perhaps the pannus was a mass plumbed or 

 rolled. 



As a rule, lead was bought in pigs or fotmaels, the labour of 

 melting or rolling it being subsequently performed, and paid, 

 if we can trust the entry (vol. ii. p. 580. i.), at about ic*/. the 

 fother. Ordinarily the plumber is paid by the day, and, as we 

 have seen above, p. 279, a considerable rise in the price of this 

 labour takes place after the Plague. 



In order to exhibit the price of lead as variously as the 

 materials before me allow, I have constructed the table of 

 decennial averages in five columns. The first contains the price 

 by the pig or fotmael, that is the third part of a square foot 

 of lead ; the second by the fother of thirty pigs, or as carect or 

 plaustrata ; the third, fourth, and fifth by the clove, wey, and 

 stone respectively. These last weights are not given in 

 sufficient number for the purpose of continuous decennial 

 averages. 



I have included the Irish prices in the averages. The lead 

 used at Katherlow, or Carlow, was bought in Dublin, having 

 been carried by water from Bristol. Lead-mining was carried 

 on extensively in the western parts of England. We have the 

 accounts of four consecutive years from the Devonshire mines, 

 and we may see, on comparing the cost of a fother of lead at 

 Strugull, and of six charrets at Ledes in Kent, how considerable 

 was the difference which the carriage of this article made in its 

 cost at a place which was distant from the mine. The lead 

 used at Ledes Castle in 1296 was bought in London, as we 

 see from the entry ; it is probable that the larger purchase of 

 1291 was procured from the same locality. We may see also 

 that lead employed for building purposes at St. BriaveFs in 

 Gloucestershire was bought at Worcester, and carried thence to 



