ON THE PRICE OF METALS. 477 



the period it is constantly sold by the pig or fotmael of 70 to 

 73 Ibs., by the stone and the pound, the stone being frequently 

 of 12 Ibs. weight. It is also sold by the sow (Vol. Ill, pp. 373-4, 

 378-81) of between eight and nine hundredweights, and by 

 other local or ancient weights. But the commonest is the 

 fother, and later on the hundredweight. It is plain too that 

 this article is bought in pigs or rolled, the plumber being hired 

 either by day or piece to melt or roll his employer's purchases, 

 when the raw metal is bought. 



Lead fluctuates very considerably in price, and is naturally 

 much dearer in small than it is in large parcels, unless the 

 smaller masses made part of the purchase, as at York in 1404, 

 when a few stones are purchased in addition to twelve fothers, 

 the former being at the same price as the other. The variation 

 in price is also occasionally due to the locality, though in 1425 

 lead is cheaper by the fother at Oxford than it was at York 

 in 1404. In the early period it is cheapest in 1499, when it 

 is bought in Cambridge at i 19^. the fother. But during the 

 period between 1460 and 1530 all articles were cheap. On 

 the other hand it is, like most other articles, dear at the begin- 

 ning of the fifteenth century. 



Rolled lead, during the earlier part of the period, is about 

 80 per cent, dearer than lead in pigs, in the later not more 

 than thirty. The rise in the price of pig-lead however is 

 closely analogous to that which is visible in other prices, i.e. 

 about seven to three. Both kinds indeed are for a long time 

 much cheaper (see Vol. I, p. 605) than they were in the last 

 half of the fourteenth century, when the average was 6 Ss. <\d. 

 the fother, the price having been doubled after the plague, and 

 having decreased slowly as time passed on. Lead in pipes 

 was, of course, the dearest form of the article. 



Lead was cheapest on the whole in London. It was weighed, 

 perhaps made subject to a staple market, at the Leadenhall, 

 a locality in London which is now quite rid, I believe, of this 

 trade. The purchases made on behalf of Henry VIII are 

 always tested and weighed at the Leadenhall assize. After 



