WOOL AND HIDES. 327 



where a north of England or Sussex wool is priced, an Oxford, 

 Hampshire, Wilts, or Berkshire produce would have been 

 nearly double the price. Again, Norfolk wool is notably higher 

 than north-country wool, but not much higher, as the schedule 

 indicates. 



The average prices of northern wool for the ten decades 

 after 1431, are 4^-. 6d.> 4s. nj^/., $s. 6d., 43. $d., 4^. i\d., 

 45. *]\d., 4s. id., $s. %\d., 4s. 8J<, 4.$-. 7^., and 6s. the tod, in 

 which it will be observed that the rate falls twice only under 

 the lowest in the schedule. The averages of medium good 

 wool for the first three decades are 9.$-. o\d. and 9^. 4^., 

 7^. ^\d. and 7^. 9i</., Js. 4\d. and 6s. 9$d., the first of these 

 pairs being from Wilts, the second from Bucks. I do not doubt 

 that the trade estimate is so accurate that, whenever an entry 

 from any well-defined district is made in any year, it would 

 be feasible to construct a table of hypothetical prices for the 

 other districts, which would be found, if entries were hereafter 

 discovered, to correspond to the facts. Thus I have no doubt 

 that when, as in 1441, north-country wool was 6s. the tod, 

 Oxford and Wilts were at us. or thereabouts, and when, as in 

 1457, it falls to 3^. 6d., I am not far from such a reckoning when 

 I find that the Hampshire produce of Netley was at $s.2\d.; and 

 that during the decade 1451-60, when 'northern wool was at 

 an average of 35. 6d., the produce of the district, which is rated 

 at nearly double the lowest estimate, stood at 5 s. 1 1 f d. The 

 decade during which these averages are taken was one of con- 

 tinuously depressed wool prices ; and it is not surprising that the 

 Commons, according to their lights, strove to limit the exporta- 

 tion, and as they knew that the foreigner paid the exchequer 

 the export duty without loss to the producer, believed that he 

 might be made to keep up the market price of the article at the 

 staple, by stinting supply. The proportion again which I have 

 indicated between the cheapest wool and the Wilts produce, 

 as nearly double in the latter case, is illustrated by the scanty, 

 but fortunately continuous, facts for the first thirty years, as 

 compared with the northern prices for the last hundred. The 



