33 8 THE PRICE OF LIVE STOCK. 



In my first volume (p. 333) I stated that the price of rams 

 in the fourteenth century was occasionally very high, and I 

 inferred that there must consequently have been an attempt to 

 improve the local breeds of sheep. The deficiency of similar 

 evidence in these volumes has not induced me to alter this 

 opinion, and I am further convinced, from the schedule of wool 

 prices in Vol. iii, p. 704, that in the fifteenth century the 

 qualities were pretty well taken to be settled. With one ex- 

 ception, 1405, when a ram was bought at is. 4*/., no price 

 of this animal exceeds that of the best mutton in the year. 



The average of the best mutton for the 140 years ending 

 with 1540 is 2J. i\d. Had it not been for the exaltation in 

 price in the twenty years 1531-1540, the average, is. o\d., 

 would not have differed materially from that of the [40 years 

 preceding, which was is. iof< The price of mutton did not 

 vary notably from that of corn, though a slightly higher rise 

 was effected. The high prices of 1441-50 ftiay be explained, 

 or at any rate read with the notes in Vol. iii, p, 678, where the 

 allowances made to the tenant of New College at Alton 

 Barnes are recounted, under the years 1447, 1448. It must be 

 allowed, however, that the highest priced mutton in the years 

 1443, 1444, 1449, is at the unparalleled rates of 4^., 3.$-. 3^., 

 and 4s. id., respectively. One of these is a sale at Easter, 

 when mutton would naturally be very dear ; another is the 

 purchase of 300 at Writtle at this rate, on behalf of the Duke 

 of Buckingham ; and the third is a sale of a single animal at 

 the same place (Candlesby) which gives so high a price in 1443, 

 where indeed five more are sold at $s. id., and one at 3.$-. 



The price of muttons rises considerably and regularly after 

 1540, the rates in the three decades and the last twelve years 

 being on an average 4$-. \\\d., 6s. l\d., 6s. 6\d., and js. %%d. 

 This is an almost proportionate rise to that which is effected 

 in the price of ewes, though it is a little in excess of that which 

 is exhibited in the latter, being within a fraction of three 

 times, while the rise in ewes is a little less than two and a-half 

 times. It will however be remembered that the price of 



