WOOL AND HIDES. 



1570, 1575. Sales are made at Oxford at i6s. and 20^. the tod. 



1577. A sale is made at Hunstanton at 14.?. 



1578, 1579. Woolfells are sold in London at 2os. the dozen in 

 the former, and sheep-skins at the same price in the latter. These 

 rates give an average of three times the fullest price in the earlier 

 period. 



HIDES. Ox, cow, and horse hides are entered in 116 years 

 out of the 182, but, as usual, more sparsely at the conclusion of 

 the period. The reason is chiefly to be found in the fact that 

 the record of private and corporate expenditure gets to be 

 scantier, while, in that which has been preserved, it becomes a 

 growing custom to buy meat by the stone of 14 Ibs., and there- 

 upon not to purchase live animals. By far the largest number 

 of hides are described as ox, no less than 4091 such entries 

 having been recorded. Calf-skins are sold generally by the 

 dozen, to the amount of 3003 ; cow-hides, 322 ; those of 

 boviculi, 348; bovetti, 119; bullocks, 45; heifers, 78; stotts, 

 13; steers, 186; bulls, 6; juvenci, 3. Horse-hides tanned white 

 are bought to the number of 30 ; 89 tanned hides are purchased, 

 and five times backs are bought by the diker, and always at the 

 same price, 40^. 



Beef, generally ox beef, is the diet of the whole year, veal of 

 the spring. Horse-hides are employed for common harness, 

 and tanned backs for the soles of shoes. Once I have found 

 an entry of pig-skins at 8df. each. There is no information as 

 to whether they were used, as now, in saddlery. 



As the ox varied greatly in size and quality, so the hide 

 very greatly varied in value. In the table therefore which 

 follows on this chapter I have given the maximum price reached 

 in each year. High prices come from the records of wealthy 

 consumers, such as the Duke of Buckingham, in 1443-4 at 3.$-., 

 or from exceptionally large animals, as in 1468, when two 

 hides are sold in Cambridge at 3.$-. ^d. ; in 1505-7-8, at the 

 same place, in 1516 at Sutton-at-Hone, in 1521-5-6-9-30 

 at wealthy abbeys or at noblemen's houses. Or again, a hide 

 might be bought for a smith's bellows, when the best quality 



