598 ON THE PRICE OF METALS. 



Bristol, and from Bristol to the place of its destination. (Vol. ii. 

 p. 604. i.) Again, the lead purchased for Elham Church in 

 I 33 was bought in London, carried by water to Sandwich, 

 thence to Fordwich, and thence by land to Elham. In the 

 same way lead is purchased at Lynn, having been, no doubt, 

 brought thither by water from the west of England. 



Small quantities of lead, such for instance as the pound, great 

 or small, and the stone, are, as may be expected, dearer than 

 those procured in considerable amounts. Similarly, when a 

 large and small mass are purchased for the same place, the less 

 is often much higher than its due proportion. Hence the 

 average gathered from these less weights is considerably higher 

 than that of the larger, at least for one portion of the enquiry. 

 But the rise and fall of lead by fotmael and fother is suffi- 

 ciently close for all purposes of practical inference. 



The entry found under Oxford for the year 1376 gives the 

 price of a fother which is disproportionately low, and is probably 

 an error of the scribe. Taken by the pes or fotmael, the value 

 of the fother should be ^7 8s. 9^., a price which more' nearly 

 corresponds with the purchase made at St. Briavel's the year 

 before. I have taken the entry as it stands, though it will be 

 seen to depress the general average very considerably, and to 

 induce a great apparent fall in the price for the decade 1371- 

 1380. If the fother, however, be calculated by the fotmael, 

 the average of this decade will be 7 95-. 4^., and the general 

 average ^7 os. *]d. Such a rate would give an almost exact 

 correspondence, the difference of quantity accounted for, be- 

 tween the fotmael and fother. Both these measures in the last 

 two decades have been calculated from smaller weights. 



There is no considerable variation in the price of lead up to 

 the time of the Plague. The earliest purchases are cheap, 

 apparently because they are effected in immediate proximity 

 to the mines. There is a slight increase in the first thirty 

 years of the fourteenth century, but there is again a fall, not to 

 quite so low a rate, but still manifest enough, during the twenty 

 years which follow these. Immediately on the Plague, however, 



