TIN AND SOLDER. 6oi 



of the currency a . But the communication for trading purposes 

 between different countries was so slight in the Middle Ages, that 

 near events of the greatest gravity would hardly have had any 

 effect on prices. Except, of course, in connexion with the first 

 necessaries of life, anticipations of excessive demand or of ex- 

 ceedingly straitened supply never entered into the imagination 

 of producer and consumer in the Middle Ages. In an article 

 like tin, the possible produce, or the produce which could be con- 

 veniently obtained by the existing number of miners, was in a 

 rough way understood and attained, and the demands of the 

 market were in the same manner practically anticipated. But 

 no one either produced in excess, in hopes of stimulating a new 

 market, or bought in excess, in the hope either that a new set 

 of customers might be developed or a larger profit attained on 

 the average run of present sales. And hence it is, in spite of 

 the scantiness of the information and the general character of 

 the traffic carried on in these articles, that we can determine, 

 with a precision almost as great if not wholly equal to that 

 which can be attained now, what was the general rate at 

 which such commodities were produced and exchanged. And 

 similarly, as all articles ordinarily produced were needed and 

 in steady demand, any increase of price which was solely due 

 to a deficiency in the labour required to produce the article 

 would be felt to the full in the charge made for it in the 

 general market. 



I am therefore stating a mere inference from prices, which 

 is founded on no other basis than the fact that no great altera- 

 tion was effected after the Plague on the market value of this 

 Cornish produce, when I offer the opinion, that Cornwall must 



a Where one country like Flanders depended on another like England for the greater 

 part of the raw material on which its chief industry was founded, an interruption of 

 communication was of considerable significance, might form the object of diplomatic 

 action, and eventually of alliances, or at least of a similar public policy. But of course 

 this was a rare conjunction of circumstances. The most striking effect, however, induced 

 on medieval prices is that which followed on the final disruption of Guienne from the 

 English crown. The reader will find below what were the effects which it produced on the 

 value of French wine?. 



