CHAPTER XXV. 



ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



IT will have been seen that a considerable commercial 

 intercourse was kept up between this country, the Hanse 

 and Flemish towns, the north and western coasts of France, 

 and the north coast of Spain. Some of the produce derived 

 from these localities, as tar, clothing, iron, and millstones, 

 have been already commented on. It remains to advert to 

 such facts as have been collected on the price of other foreign 

 commodities. Some of these, as wine and oil, are European, 

 others, which our forefathers included under the general name 

 of spices, were generally of Eastern origin. 



WINE. From the time in which Guienne was connected 

 with England by the marriage of Eleanor with Henry the 

 Second, that portion of France which produced the most 

 abundant supplies of wine was intimately united by commercial 

 interests with this country, the produce of the two nations 

 was freely interchanged, and French wine was exceedingly 

 cheap. Mr. Hallam imagines that our forefathers in these 

 rude times could have drunk but little wine; but, to judge 

 from its price, there was no need that they should debar 

 themselves from the enjoyment of that which, in the last half 

 of the thirteenth century, and in the first half of the fourteenth, 

 was little more than four times the price of cider, and not 

 much more than twice the price of beer. Wine, we cannot 

 doubt, was an article of general and familiar supply, because 



