ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. 455 



kept in stock. They were probably a bye product of the smith's 

 craft, and the price of iron being taken into account, illustrate 

 the depressed condition of labour after the great rise in general 

 prices occurred. Such we shall find to be the case in almost 

 all articles in the manufacture of which labour was the principal 

 factor of value as compared with the cost of the material. 



Lath-nails are also purchased by the sum and the bag, the 

 former being apparently 10,000. The earliest entry by the bag 

 is in 1450. Twenty-three entries by the bag between 1450- 

 1541, give an average of 95. o^d., most of the entries coming 

 from Sion, where the price of nails, especially lath-nails is low. 

 Two entries in 1564 give a medium price of iqs. The earliest 

 entry by the sum is in 1487. Fifteen entries by the sum give 

 an average, all being made between 1487-1540, of 6s. zd. 

 The sum is also used for other kinds of nails. 



In the earlier years there are frequent entries of board nails, 

 and a few of great nails, the price of the former varying from 

 Sd. to 4\d. the hundred, that of the latter from S$d. to $s. the 

 hundred. Sometimes these great nails are sold by the pound, 

 as in 1442. But in 1427 occurs for the first time a price of 

 nails by the hundred under ^d. and $d. designations. This is 

 at Cambridge, and the entry probably is of foreign articles. 

 The same reckoning is made at Chesterton in 1439, and at 

 Yarmouth in 1444, where the prices by the hundred conform to 

 the pence. But they do not always, even in the earliest entries. 

 At Cambridge in 1447 sixpenny nails are bought at 4^-. 8d. and 

 4^. the thousand, fivepenny and fourpenny at 3^. ^d. In 1450 

 threepenny nails are bought at is. 6d. the thousand in Cam- 

 bridge, and in 1454 the reckoning reaches Oxford, where we 

 find the first entry of tenpenny at 8j. 4^., of sixpenny at 45., 

 of fivepenny at 35-. 4^., and fourpenny at is. 6d. From this 

 time the custom becomes general, though, as I have said, the 

 nominal value is not always attained, e.g. Woodstock in 1463. 

 By 1480 the custom becomes almost universal, but the price 

 falls. 



In the table which follows on this chapter, I have taken nails 



