CHAPTER XX. 



ON THE PRICE OF TEXTILE FABRICS AND CLOTHING. 



THE information supplied by such accounts of the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries as have been examined for these 

 volumes, is copious on linen, hempen, woollen, and other 

 fabrics. This was to be expected. The farm accounts of the 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were of production and 

 sale. The collegiate and monastic records of the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth are of purchase and consumption. My earlier re- 

 searches supplied me with a considerable array of facts as to 

 the coarse fabrics used for sacking, for windmill sails, and for 

 dairy purposes, and but little for such linen as was purchased 

 for domestic use, i.e. for wearing apparel, the use of table, and 

 for sheeting. Again, I found only a few entries of woollen 

 cloth, and that quality was generally of the coarsest kind. 

 During my present period I am in possession of abundant 

 facts, especially during the later part of the enquiry, the abun- 

 dance being occasionally embarrassing, and the facts requiring 

 selection in order to give any trustworthy history of prices. 

 The particulars, however, will be found to supplement in- 

 directly, especially those which refer to woollen clothing, 

 those deficiencies in the record of raw materials which are 

 so marked in the case of certain heads of production and 

 exchange. 



Most of the notes which have been made are extracted from 

 the records of corporations, educational and religious. A few 

 are still of farmers, because even when landowners generally 

 gave up agriculture on their own account, it was the custom 

 to retain a home farm. Occasionally the bailiff or steward 



