ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. 443 



the Stonesfield, Combe, and Bladon quarries are sold at 

 Oxford. 



Unfortunately slates are constantly sold at Oxford by the load. 

 Now if five loads of common large always went to the thousand, 

 it would give in Oxford $s. lod. the thousand in 1515, when 

 this article is reckoned by number, and i6s. 8d. in 1524 when 

 they are reckoned by the carriage. Again, by the load of five to 

 a thousand common large in Oxford, under the year 1529, 

 would be 6s. 8d., not including carriage in this place, and 

 under similar conditions, 6s. 8d. in 1543. At the same rate in 

 1552, common large would be 21 s. 8d., though in the year 

 before, when the measure of five loads to the thousand is noted, 

 it is icxr. In the latter part of the period it becomes the 

 custom to -describe roofing material in Oxford under the 

 generic name of lateres, and the entries are not a little 

 ambiguous. Still, I have thought it better to construct annual 

 and decennial averages, feeling sure that if some of my entries 

 are of difficult interpretation, they are valid as assisting the 

 general theory of values and prices. 



Where slates were used for roofing, tiles were often employed 

 for crests and gutters. But sometimes the stone was hewn into 

 crests and evestones. Thus evestones are bought in Oxford at 

 4^. 8d. the hundred in 1410; at 5^. yd. in 1421 ; at 43. $d. in 

 1435; at Radcliffe in 1419 at 3^. ^d. ; in Coleshull at 5.$-. in 

 1441; and again at Oxford in 1507 at 3.$-. 4^.; in 1509 and 

 1514 at 3^. ; in 1510 at 5^. ; in 1518 at 4^. Enyslate or 

 evyslate for the same purpose is bought for Radcliffe in 1437 at 

 7^. ; in 1457 at 4^-. ; at Beading in 1481 at 4^. the load. In 

 1574 a load of caving slate is purchased for 8s. 6d., and in 

 1570 a hundred of caving bricks at zs. 6d.\ common bricks at 

 the same place and time being purchased for i8s. 6d. the 

 thousand. 



In 1447 a ' parcel ' of white Purbeck slate is bought for zos. I 

 do not know this measure of quantity. It is probably local and 

 obsolete. I suspect that in the slates de Coleym/ purchased at 

 Oxford in 1468, we are to understand Culham near Abingdon. 



