306 WOOL AND HIDES. 



Office a very continuous series of accounts supplied by an 

 extensive sheep farm at Coleshull in Gloucestershire, and in 

 the Cots wold district. But I have rarely come across an 

 extensive sale of the produce. If I had frequently found such 

 an entry as I discovered under the year 1421, when the bailiff 

 records the sale of seven sacks of this produce at Alvescot, 

 a village near the estate, at .8 los. the sack a little in 

 excess of the value put on Cotswold wool in the schedule, 

 and I may add in a generally cheap year I should have been 

 able with little difficulty to have constructed a table of averages 

 which would have been quite satisfactory, and have even been 

 able to parcel out the produce into various districts under 

 various values. A similarly large sale of wool is made at 

 Heylisdon in 1427, at Canons Ashby in 1440, at Fountains 

 Abbey in 1457 and 1458, at Netley Abbey in 1437 (where the 

 price is a great deal below the Hampshire average in the 

 schedule, wool being in all places exceedingly cheap about this 

 time), at Stoke in 1482, at Norwich in 1491, at Osney in 

 1510-11, at North Elmham in 1515, at Ixworth in 1516, at 

 Durham in 1531-2, in various Lancashire towns and villages 

 in 1536, at Lincoln in 1545, and in the Cotswold district to 

 an enormous amount in 1560. 



Again, it is often the practice, both in small and large sales, 

 for the vendor to deal by the fleece. These sales may very 

 likely mean contracts, in which the buyer speculated on the 

 produce, taking his risks into account in estimating the quantity 

 of the produce. Scab was the terror of the sheep farmer, and 

 the peril of his calling. Against it the shepherd was always 

 to have his tar-box ready. In anticipation of his needs, the 

 sheep-master purchased large quantities of this medicament, and 

 of grease or lard with which to mix it. When this pest broke 

 out among sheep, and could not be arrested, when the animal's 

 coat became foul, and his skin sore, and maggots bred in the 

 sores, not only was he out of condition, and therefore would 

 grow a poor fleece, but the wool became ragged, or, as the 

 accounts call it, refuse. The price of a fleece therefore, from 



