53 a ON THE PRICE OF FISH. 



at Oxford at 6s. the dozen. These are the entries in my 

 accounts; and, from the few cases in which the weight is given, 

 it appears that this kind of food was costly, as much as four 

 times the price of meat being once recorded. It is probable 

 that, when the resources of the Colleges were lessened as 

 general prices increased, while rents were absolutely or almost 

 stationary, the establishment was forced to stint its luxuries. 



Salt eels were purchased by the barrel 1 , and its subdivisions 

 by the stick; in Durham by the gag, which a note (Vol. Ill, 

 327, iii.) informs us was six, and by tale. The price is very 

 various, but generally high. An entry at Cambridge, under the 

 year 1545 (Vol. Ill, 329, iv.), states that the barrel contained 

 thirteen score. 



Barrelled eels are found with tolerable frequency during the 

 fifteenth century, but purchases in this form become rare and 

 finally cease in the sixteenth. The price varies greatly, but is 

 always highest when the eels are designated as < stub.' This is 

 the case at Sion in 1448, when 98 called stubling are bought 

 for 156^., i. e. at is. l\d. each. In 1489 a barrel of stub eels 

 costs 53^. ^d. ; in 1491, $6s. %d. ; in 1496, $os. ; in 1499, 53*. 4^. ; 

 in 1522, 63^. ^d. ; in 1524, 46^. 8d. The employment of this 

 term is confined to Sion, except in 1496, when it is used at 

 Selborne, and probably is one of the London market. It may 

 be noted that King's College, Cambridge, generally buys its 

 barrelled eels in London, as for instance in 1554 and 1555. 

 In 1554 the barrel contained 360 eels at a little over 2,d. each, 

 each eel probably weighing a pound. Eels are also sold by the 

 stick : at Cambridge in 1451 at 2s. 4^., at 35-. ^d. in 1453, anc * 

 at 4s. in the same place in 1466, where, if we may judge by the 

 price of eels by the barrel, the stick was one-fifth of the barrel ; 

 in 1470 at 3^., when it appears to be a dozen ; at Stoke in 

 1481, when it is is. 6d., the eels being described as small; in 



1 By 2 Hen. VI, cap. 15, the barrel of herrings and eels was thirty gallons, the butt 

 of salmon eighty-four. See also 22 Ed. IV, cap. 2, by which salmon is to be packed in 

 butts of eighty-four, barrels of forty-two, and firkins of twenty-one gallons ; herrings 

 in barrels of thirty-two, half-barrels, and firkins ; eels in barrels of forty -two, half- 

 barrels and firkins. 



