574 ON THE PRICE OF TEXTILE FABRICS AND CLOTHING. 



1555 is id. There is an entry of two ounces and one piece of 

 fringe in 1494. The aggregate is $s. ^\d. Now if the average 

 price of fringe can be relied on, it appears that a piece of fringe, 

 i. e. the quantity into which the manufacture was made up, was 

 about three ounces. 



Venice gold fringe is sold in 1553 at SSs. the pound for 

 Edward's funeral. The record tells us that it was at *js. ^d. 

 the ounce ; in this case the pound is therefore twelve ounces. 

 Similar to this is the c orfreyse,' i.e. the edging to copes of 

 Venice gold, four of which are bought by Magdalen College, 

 Oxford, in 1533 at 8os. 



Skeins of silk are sold at id., and of all colours, red, black, 

 yellow, blue, and white. The price is not higher after the 

 general rise in money values than it was before that event ; 

 and my reader will observe that silk products are not affected 

 by the general rise in prices to any notable extent, even 

 although the evidence is not copious after the change occurred. 

 Still it is, in my opinion, sufficient. If I am correct in my 

 inference, I get in the price of this produce a further illustra- 

 tion of the position laid down so frequently in this volume, 

 that home prices are only affected, whatever be the changes 

 in the nominal value of the currency, except through the foreign 

 exchanges, operating in the first instance on foreign imports. 

 This rule must be guarded by the condition that good faith 

 is maintained in the currency, i.e. that it be not indefinitely 

 and unintelligibly debased. When this sort of confusion arises, 

 we witness the catastrophe of Henry the Eighth's money. Had 

 he and his son's counsellors kept the same rate of debasement 

 the evil might have been checked, or at least limited; but 

 as the various prices of base money were of indistinguishable 

 but very different value, the confusion was ruinous. 



Before 1541 the average price of velvet, from the entries 

 given above, is 13^. \o\d. the yard, afterwards it is iSs. %\d.> 

 the money value being swollen by the entry in 1551. That of 

 satin is js. b\d.\ or, if we include with this article damask, 

 Js. 4\d. ; afterwards it is ys. ^d. Sarsnet is 45. 4^. before the 



