ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. 447 



4j. in 1471 ; another elm in 1519 for 2^.5 and in 1561 nine 

 great elms are purchased to form keels for the Queen's ships at 

 Js. $d. each. 



Besides timber standing in the wood, or felled and undressed, 

 the accounts give prices of timber by the load or by the ton, 

 especially in the later period. The load is (1534) 55 cubic feet, or 

 when seasoned 50 cubic feet, 1482, 1536, 1573 ; but sometimes 

 (1540, 1563) 40 cubic feet. The ton is 40 cubic feet. Such timber, 

 when designed for navy stores, is described as compasses and 

 knees, or compasses and straight, or ankerstorks, terms not yet 

 obsolete. It is chiefly oak, but sometimes elm. Up to 1546 

 twenty-three loads of oak timber are bought at an average of 

 5.$-. 6\d. After this date numerous entries give an average of 

 12^. 8f<^., the rate rising from ics. to i^s. Sd. and more. The 

 purchases are principally for the royal works, and it appears that 

 common ship or building oak did not suffer so great an exaltation 

 in price during the later period as the finer kinds did. Perhaps 

 the old stocks, obtained from the monastic houses, kept the 

 prices down. Four entries of oak timber by the ton before 

 1548 give an average of 5^. 8J^., five subsequently one of 

 los. o^d. An entry in 1561 gives 40 feet to the bigate of 

 timber, as another does in 1563. 



Timber is also sold by the foot and hundred (c\ the former 

 generally at Cambridge. By this measure the price varies from 

 $\d. (1488) to less than \\d. (1528). An average of twelve 

 entries up to 1541 gives i$d. the foot. Eleven later entries 

 give an average of nearly 5^., a rise as significant as that of 

 wainscot. A few entries by the hundred are at an average of 

 2,s. gd., except one quotation of 1507, where two hundred of 

 great timber are valued at izs. iod., and also at }\d. the foot. 

 At the short hundred this would be i2s. 6d. It appears from 

 this fact that the purchases by the foot are of great timber, that 

 the measure was by the short hundred, and that other purchases 

 by the hundred refer to some different article or different 

 quality. Another term, employed for timber, but somewhat 

 ambiguous, is asseres. Thirteen entries up to 1538 of this item 



