6 10 ON THE PRICE OF FISH. 



reckoned by the cade and the barrel; the former being a 

 measure of white, the latter of red or smoked fish. Cades of 

 red herrings have been found before and after the Plague, and 

 generally from Boxley in Kent. The rise in price fully corre- 

 sponds to the proportion given in the table of decennial averages 

 (p. 641), for the average before that event is 3*. 8f<^. the cade, 

 and 6s. iof*/. after it. It would seem then that the cade con- 

 tained between 500 and 600 fish. White herrings, again, are 

 sold by the barrel. All the entries of this description are found 

 within the last twenty-five years of the fourteenth century, and 

 indicate, being chiefly taken also from Boxley, that the price 

 was falling. The average in los. yd. 



SALMON. As may be expected, the price of salmon is very 

 various. I have found it as low as 4^. in Oxford, in 1318, as 

 high as 6s. $d. at Gloucester, in 1327. The largest and most 

 important entries are those between 1313 and 1317, in which 

 the produce of the Thames fishery at Westshene is priced. 

 To these may be added another entry in the year 1298, from 

 Christchurch in Hampshire. 



The account of the salmon fishery at Westshene, now Rich- 

 mond, is contained in seven rolls preserved in the Public 

 Record Office; the first of which is of the year 1313, the last of 

 1321: the returns for the years 1314 and 1318 being lost. 

 The manor was then the property of the Crown, and continued 

 to be ; for the manor-house, or some lodge built subsequently, 

 was the place of Edward the Third's death. 



The salmon sold in 1313 were worth ^5 13*.; those in 

 1315,^3 IQS. ; those in 1316, ^2 u.j those in 1317, jz 9*.; 

 those in 1319, <^8 u.; those in 1320, 6 145-.; those in 1321, 

 135-. 6^.; that is, ^4 35-. on an average of the seven years, or 

 omitting the last year, in which the fishery seems to have been 

 almost a complete failure, ^4 145-. 6d. 



Besides the profit derived from the sale of the fish caught, 

 the manor is in receipt of certain payments from fishermen, 

 licensed, it appears, either to angle or net parts of the piscary. 

 On an average these rents or licences amount to los. \\d. 



