AGRICULTURE IN FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 39 



art. It is true that I have found one undated document in the 

 archives of Canterbury Cathedral which gives the rate of pro- 

 duction at Adisham, and which is certainly to be assigned to 

 the middle of the fifteenth century. I have put it in the notes 

 under the year 1460. The prices are an average, or rather 

 below an average, and the rate of production corresponds 

 closely to that which might be expected from land of average 

 quality. The rate of 68 acres on wheat is 12 bushels at 5.5-. the 

 quarter, of 104 acres of barley is 16 bushels at 3^. ^d. the 

 quarter, of 13$ acres of peas is 8 bushels at 3^. ^d. the quarter, 

 of 59 acres of vetches is 8 bushels at $s. 4^. the quarter, and of 

 30 acres of oats is 20 bushels at is. 8^/. the quarter. Such a 

 rate closely corresponds with the facts which are given in 

 detail for several years during the early part of the fourteenth 

 century in Vol. i. pp. 38-49. 



There is however abundant reason to believe that the art of 

 agriculture was absolutely stationary during the whole period 

 comprised in these volumes. Up to the latter end of Henry the 

 Eighth's reign, prices on an average remain unaltered. The 

 money value of the products and of labour remains unchanged, 

 the average prices of grain being even lower than it was in the 

 fourteenth century, though the facts being taken from the pur- 

 chases of opulent corporations, we may be certain that full 

 market prices were recorded, and there is evidence that in 

 many cases, particularly when the purchases were made in 

 remote places, the cost of carriage is a noteworthy item in the 

 price of grain. Nor should the manifest rise in the price 

 of cattle and sheep make one hesitate. In the former accounts, 

 these products are priced as farm stock, in which it was im- 

 possible to distinguish lean from fat stock. In the period 

 before me now, they are almost entirely of the latter kind, and 

 therefore would show an exaltation of price even under other- 

 wise identical conditions. 



But though the evidence of prices generally would be 

 conclusive to those who are accustomed to interpret figures, 

 there is for the general reader equally conclusive evidence in 



