ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. 44$ 



average of ten entries between 1516 and 1538 is 107^. %d. 

 The average of three entries between 1541 and 1567 is 200 s. 

 The last rise is only part of the general increase of money 

 values, and would have been more significant had the entry 

 of 1541 been included in the earlier portion, for the hun- 

 dred on this occasion is izos., while that of the other two 

 is 240,$-., and the rise would on such an arrangement have 

 represented that rise from two to five which is already so 

 familiar to us. 



This remarkable increase in the price of the best timber is, I 

 am persuaded, due to that singular land-hunger of the fifteenth 

 century, under which the purchasing price of land rose so 

 considerably in the period, and the return from land as an 

 investment sank correspondingly. Clearances of woodland 

 and enclosures were the natural remedy for such an exaltation 

 in price. The purchase by the King's Hall, Cambridge (Vol. 

 Ill, 556, ii), of forty acres of arable land at Chesterton for 

 50 is an indication of the price which land fetched in the 

 middle of the fifteenth century (1461). Such land did not let 

 at best at from more than %d. to is. the acre, and the return on 

 the purchase money must have been considerably less than five 

 per cent, the maximum rate which land was reckoned to yield 

 at this period. Now at a time when all prices were depressed, 

 i.e. during the early part of the sixteenth century, that of 

 wainscot was doubled, and during the last part of the whole 

 period is nearly six times the price of the earlier period, during 

 which again, comparing the middle of the fifteenth century 

 with the beginning, the price is more than doubled. There 

 can be but one explanation of the fact, the enclosure of waste 

 and the clearance of forest land, unless we are to assume a 

 growing demand for domestic decorations, the result of accumu- 

 lated wealth and narrow means of enjoyment. 



The same inference can be drawn from the price of wainscots 

 by the piece. There are twenty such entries between 1406 

 and 1486, the average being nearly *]\d. Between 1509 and 

 1540 twelve entries give an average of is. id. Between 1541 



