SILK GOODS. VELVET. CLOTH OF GOLD. 571 



present striking analogies now that, according to my custom, 

 I have drawn these averages after having commented on the 

 facts to those of other prices. The first quality of cloth rises 

 during the last forty-two years, to the same extent that prices 

 generally do ; the inferior kinds only to the extent that other 

 produce of mere English labour does, since homespun, produced 

 by domestic labour, was sure to be affected by the causes which 

 affected the English labourer a depressed rate of wages, a 

 stinted demand, and an enforced economy. 



SILK GOODS. My accounts supply me with certain entries 

 of silk fabrics, all, or nearly all at kast in the earlier part of 

 the period the products of foreign industry. There was, how- 

 ever, as I have noted above, p. 149, a silk manufacture in 

 London in the middle of the fifteenth century which prayed for 

 and obtained protection against foreign competition. 



Of these foreign silks the most costly was velvet. It was 

 purchased for the use of the king and his kinsfolk, for the great 

 nobles, and for church purposes. Thus Lord Cromwell in 1441 

 buys two velvet copes, of the kind known as velvet upon velvet, 

 the quantity not being given, at 5 13^. ^d. each. But the 

 most considerable purchases are those of the Howard accounts. 

 In 1464, besides buying quantities of fine cloth, Sir John Howard 

 purchases velvet in London at i&y., 17.$-., and 12^. %d. the yard ; 

 in 1465 at 15^., i$s. 4^., us. 4^., and us. ; in 1466 at us.; 

 in 1467 at 2os. t i6s. 8d., 13^. 4^., us., and ios. ; while more 

 precious stuffs, cloth of gold, costs 6os. a yard, and ' velvet on 

 velvet picked with gold/ 2,$s. In 1474 the corporation of 

 Norwich buys velvet at 2,6s. 8d. the yard. But the pur- 

 chases of the Howard account are most extensive in 1481 and 

 1482; here the prices of velvet of all colours are i6s., 15^., 

 14^-. 4^., 13.$-. 4*/., I2J-., and us. in the former year, i6s. and 

 12s. in the second. In the year 1481 cloth of gold costs Sos. 

 a yard ; Howard, then in the height of his influence and wealth, 

 purchasing no less than twenty-five yards of this expensive 

 article. In 1507 half a yard of velvet is bought by King's 

 College at 10^., and in 1520 five and a half yards at Oxford 



