SALMON. 613 



factor, being more probably 30. In such a case the value of 

 these fish, when expressed in our money, would be <% 155-. icd. 

 The price of the Christchurch salmon is not much less. 

 But none of these equal the rate at which (vol. ii. p. 555. ii.) 

 seven fresh fish are sold at Gloucester : here the price, 6s. $d. 

 each, is enormous, despite the traditional reputation possessed 

 by the produce of the Severn. This fish is also found at Elham 

 (probably from the Medway), at Newcastle (where one is 

 bought for is. 6d. vol. ii. p. 638), at Usk, at Caerleon, at Wye, 

 at Conway (where it is salt), and at Boxley. The fish pur- 

 chased in Oxford and Bicester was probably salt or kippered, 

 as we can hardly imagine that it mounted the Thames so high 

 as the Isis and Cherwell. The entry at London it was a 

 purchase on behalf of the Crown is suspicious (vol. ii. p. 557. 

 ii.), partly from the fact that it is described as half a fish, partly 

 from the prodigious price. The entry has been copied exactly 

 from the original, but it is possible that the word c barrel' or 

 c cade' was omitted by the clerk. 



Salt salmon, expressly so designated, is occasionally found. 

 Thus, fourteen fish are recorded as bought at Gloucester, (in the 

 roll which gives so high a price for fresh fish,) at 2,s. q\d. Six 

 are bought at Conway in 1392 at %s. 6d.^ three at Hardlaugh, 

 that is, Harlech, at nd. each. 



Salmon is also found estimated by the barrel and pipe, (the 

 latter being double the size of the former,) among the purchases 

 of fish made by the Boxley monks in 1376. From an entry of 

 the same character in 1395 we learn that the barrel on this 

 occasion held four dofcen fish. These salt salmon are not rela- 

 tively dear, if indeed the fish were full-siz-ed. It is plain that 

 the pipe and barrel are the half and the quarter of the tun, and 

 that they therefore held 12,6 and 63 gallons respectively. If a 

 barrel of 63 gallons wine measure of the time contained about 

 390 Ibs. of water, as seems to have been the case with wine 

 measures, and we take fish to be nearly the same weight as 

 water, these forty-eight salmon contained in the barrel of 1395 

 would have weighed about 8 Ibs. each when trimmed for 



