ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. 457 



end and St. Albans for ios., and at Oxford for i6s. They cost 

 I2s. at Greenwich in 1568, and 17^. '^d. at Oxford. An 

 average of nine entries up to 1543, is Js. 8%d. ; an average of 

 twenty entries after this date is i$s. $d. 'Twenty-four' nails 

 are bought at Deptford at 20.9. the thousand in 1562-3, when 

 other nails are at the dearest. 



These are the principal and most frequently recurrent kinds 

 of nails. But there are others which must be commented on. 

 Among these are the articles purchased for York Minster, and 

 recorded in the Fabric Rolls. We know that during the fif- 

 teenth century great efforts were made to build this noble 

 church, and if we can trust contemporaneous history, several 

 expedients were adopted, not always of the most creditable 

 kind, in order to procure the necessary funds. 1 The nails 

 used in the structure are denoted by singular names, which 

 occur throughout the records. 



The nails used in York Minster are double, middle, and 

 single spiking, scotsem nails, brods, tingle nails, sharplings, 

 stonebrods, strabrods, stone nails, gullet nails, lead nails, and 

 brags. Entries are made for twenty years between 1414 and 



1559- 



Of stone nails, brags are the dearest. Six entries are found 

 of them between 1527 and 1543, a ^ wa y s at ^s. the hundred. 

 They appear to be identical with the double tens or twenty- 

 fours of the later accounts. Judging from the price of the 

 heaviest nails, the hundred must have weighed from eight to 

 twelve pounds, probably the latter, and these nails must have 

 been used where the strongest article was required. 



Next in price are sharplings. Eight entries from 1455 to 

 1543 are at an invariable price of 8d. the hundred, but a ninth 

 entry is at yd. Under the year 1531 we are told that the 

 hundred was one hundred and twenty. Next come double 

 spiking. Fifteen entries give an average of 3^. o%d. the thou- 

 sand, but the price varies from 3^-. 6d., the highest rate at the 

 beginning of the period, to 2J. 6d. in the later part. One entry 



1 Gascoigne. Loci e libro veritatum. 



