54* 



PRICES OF ALE AND BEER. 



house always drawing up their accounts in English, probably 

 from ignorance of Latin. In Writtle the barrel of ale is $s., 

 of beer from 4$-. to 3$. At Sion the barrel of ale is 4^. n*/., 

 of beer $s. But malt is cheap this year, $s. <$\d. It is dearer 

 at Sion, 4$-. nd. the quarter. But the price of ale suggests a 

 very strong beverage, not less, in fact, than seven bushels to the 

 barrel. In 1452 malt is dear in the neighbourhood of London, 

 cheap in the eastern counties, but ale or beer is 4$-. 4*3?. the 

 barrel; in 1453, 4^.; in 1455, apparently 4?. 4^.; in 1459, 

 4^. ic*/.; in 1481, 4?. id. In 1494 large amounts of beer are 

 bought cheaply, malt being cheap; but in 1501 the nunnery 

 buys Godebill beer at 12s. the barrel, a price beyond precedent. 

 Three-halfpenny is only 2.?. 4^., single zs. the barrel. 



In 1504 we find that three kinds of ale are bought at Canter- 

 bury, one called London at 30^. the tun, another Canterbury 

 at 25.$"., a third English at 23^. 4d. If the tun be two pipes 

 four hogsheads and eight barrels, this gives 3 s. <)d. t 3^. i \d., and 

 2s. lid* the barrel for the three qualities of this ale. 



In 1505 we find the first entry of the Oxford quarter. This 

 measure is found twice at Oxford before the rise in prices, in 

 1505 and 1511, and nowhere else except at Writtle in 1547. 

 In each of these cases it is priced is* 4d. The following are 

 found subsequently, and serve to illustrate the scanty entries 

 of malt in the later period. 



Ale is purchased by the Crown, and entered in the Wardrobe 

 account. Eight of these purchases by the tun between 1492 

 and 1549 give an average of 24^. *]\d. ; fourteen, between 1565 

 and 1581, give one of 40^. io\d. It is difficult to resist the 

 inference that these prices are untrustworthy, and that the 



