AVERAGES OF PRICES. 217 



well as from other articles. The record of the price of iron, 

 generally manufactured, but constantly sold by weight, and 

 other metals, is very copious. I shall dwell in detail on other 

 manufactured goods, on which there is abundant information, 

 especially on linen and woollen stuffs, the price of the latter 

 supplying in the most concrete form what is wanting in the 

 record of the values assigned to the raw material. 



The cost of carriage is as efficiently illustrated in the later 

 as it was in the earlier volumes. Lt enters necessarily into 

 the price of all commodities, but is a far more serious con- 

 sideration in the later part of the present period. But not 

 to anticipate too fully what will be discussed in a later portion 

 of this volume, it may be stated that the cost of carriage 

 decreased during the time which immediately preceded the 

 Reformation, and is disproportionately increased after that 

 event. There is reason to believe that the roads became worse 

 in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and the perils of the 

 traveller became greater. 



V. I have not thought it necessary, for reasons already 

 adduced, to adhere so strictly to the cautionary rule given in 

 my previous volumes, of taking the maximum price for various 

 articles. Records of consumption are, I repeat, far better 

 evidence of prices than records of production and sale, for 

 the best was bought for the consumer, and all was sold by the 

 producer. But I must simultaneously repeat the warning that 

 the reader must not believe that prices were always dearer, 

 because sales were effected at higher prices. The value for 

 instance of an ox-hide sold by a college or monastery was of 

 the beast stalled and in good condition. The value of an 

 ox-hide sold by a farmer is to be discounted, for the animal 

 might have been worn out at the plough, or killed because 

 sickly, or most probably, even if he were in any condition, an 

 inferior animal slain for the harvest diet. So with the rest of 

 the articles referred to in vol. i, p. 185. 



VI. I have thought it unnecessary to go so far in my 

 averages as I did in the previous volumes. I calculated on 



