WINE. 637 



I have taken in the table subjoined to this account of the price 

 of foreign produce. 



Ordinary red and white wines most commonly the former 

 were easily and conveniently purchased from dealers. Only 

 a few persons and corporations of considerable opulence bought 

 wine in bulk ; such are the purchases of the Countess of War- 

 wick in 1405, those of Salisbury in the next year, those of the 

 Corporation of Norwich in 1417, 1427, 1473, I 49 I > anc * I 5 I 5 

 and similar stocks at Chichester, St. Dennis near Southamp- 

 ton, Castre on Fastolfe's account, Winterton, Writtle for the 

 Duke of Buckingham, Pershore, Stoke, London, Canterbury, 

 Farley (Somerset), Sion, King's College (Cambridge), Battle 

 Abbey, Hunstanton, Oxford, Bardney, Durham, Kirling, and 

 the various Wardrobe accounts. 



I have been occasionally constrained to omit entries from 

 my estimates. Such are the tuns at Canterbury in 1483, at 

 2; and the dolea, i.e. tuns of Rochelle wine from the same 

 place in 1515, at 3. Such prices are too low to indicate real 

 market rates. In all probability they refer to the charges 

 incurred in bringing the produce of a grant made to the monks 

 of Christ Church, Canterbury, by St. Louis, of a certain amount 

 of tuns of French wine annually, in honour of Becket's memory. 

 This grant, owing to the frequent wars with France, and to 

 the fact that the produce issued from a royal estate in the 

 centre of France, frequently got into arrear, and was irregularly 

 satisfied. Similarly I have been constrained, though very 

 reluctantly, to omit, especially in the later years, the Wardrobe 

 prices. The Crown bought its wine, as it did its corn, at 

 nominal prices, and the insertion of these prices would have 

 been entirely misleading. I shall, however, refer to them at 

 the conclusion of this chapter. 



Much of the wine purchased in the accounts, and recorded 

 in my transcripts, is for ecclesiastical purposes. Many of the 

 entries come from the accounts of Oriel College, a society which 

 was too poor even to supply a common table for its fellows. 

 But it was the impropriator of the great tithes of St. Mary the 



