0^ THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. 437 



of roofing other than that of thatch, and it is not easy to dis- 

 tinguish shapes and usages in the several terms employed. 



The most obvious and common kind is that of plain tiles, 

 with which one must generally identify such tiles as are not 

 otherwise specifically designated. But, for example, I have been 

 not a little reluctant to include in the first year of the present 

 enquiry an entry from Heghtredebury, at the great price of 

 13^. ^d. the thousand. Where indeed a locality was at once at a 

 considerable distance from fissile stone or brick clay of a quality 

 good enough for tiles, one might expect high prices, but it is 

 noteworthy that this entry is more that double the price at 

 which the article is procured both at London and at Oxford. 



Besides ordinary or plain tiles, others, described as thack, and 

 wall tile, are quoted from York, Norwich, Cambridge, Romsey, 

 Hulme, and Swyn. The distinction is kept up as late as 1547 

 at York, which also makes an entry of bastard wall tiles in 

 1509. There is no great difference between the price of these 

 and ordinary tiles, though they are rather dearer, and the last 

 entry of thack tiles from York is quoted at a very high price. 



More puzzling are the various kinds of tiles employed to 

 keep the ridge, the corners, and the gutters of the roof water- 

 tight. These tiles are known as crest, concave, roof, ridge, 

 hupe, hepe, or hip, corner, fystoux, or festeux, and gutter. 

 Those known as crests are generally the dearest, being often 

 bought in the early period, and indeed occasionally through the 

 whole fifteenth century in small parcels, but at very high prices, 

 frequently at more than double the price by the hundred of plain 

 tiles by the thousand. The term ' holwerke,' employed at Wind- 

 sor in 1417, 1418, appears to be the same as some one of these 

 tiles. Here the article costs the same by the hundred that 

 plain tiles do by the thousand. 



Tiles were no doubt generally of English manufacture. But 

 Flanders tile, both small and large, is quoted at a high price at 

 York in 1415, and at Hornchurch in 1420. ' Ogley ' tiles, given 

 under the Cambridge account of 1467, are probably derived from 

 some locality in the Eastern counties. Later on in the period, 



