624 ON T HE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



veniences of modern vessels and the skill of modern seaman- 

 ship. Such wines, when the carriage was far ruder, could not 

 have been imported. There is no reason to believe that our 

 ancestors would have willingly drunk wine which was tart or 

 spoiled. They were very likely indifferent to flavour, and 

 were content with common sorts of claret ; but the wine 

 must have been sound to have been marketable. 



The custom, or prisage, on French wine was very light, being 

 only is. the tun. Nor is the price at which it was procurable, 

 mutatis mutandis^ entirely out of the reach of modern expe- 

 rience. Good new Bordeaux wine may be bought in France 

 and carried to an English port at $ the barrique of 50 gallons 

 at the present time, that is, at is. the gallon, a rate which 

 corresponds with the 4</. of my accounts, if we adopt the mul- 

 tiple of 8. Habit and prejudice, and a patient acquiescence 

 in the enormous charges levied by the intermediaries of the 

 wine trade, have accustomed English people to look on that 

 as a luxury which their forefathers five hundred years ago were 

 enabled to use freely and cheaply, and procure at low rates 

 in the common inns on the road, at a time when communi- 

 cation and travel were certainly neither so easy nor so frequent 

 as at present, and land and water carriage were far dearer. 

 Hereafter perhaps we may recover the custom of our ancestors, 

 and see the produce of foreign vineyards within the easy reach 

 of the mass of the people. 



OIL. The information which I have been able to obtain 

 as to the price of oil is derived exclusively from the records 

 of domestic expenditure. It is rarely found in the early 

 accounts, but is much more common in later times. It may 

 have been used occasionally for cookery, but it is clearly pur- 

 chased, in the great majority of cases, for lamps in chapel. It 

 is no doubt olive-oil, this fact being sometimes specified. 

 It is sometimes used in lieu of wax, generally with it. 



Two entries only are found before the commencement of 

 the fourteenth century, one of these being at Chesterford, the 

 other at Elham. It is first used by Merton College in 1310; 



