642 ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



same place and price in 1498. In 1506 and 1507 it is purchased 

 in Cambridge at zs. %d., the last occasion being another visit of 

 Margaret. In 1534 it is purchased in Cambridge again at 4^., 

 in Norwich in 1537 at 4^., and in 1541 at 5.$-. id., at London 

 in 1558 at 4s. &/., and in Cambridge in 1570 at $s. 4^. It will 

 be seen below that in none of these later years were prices 

 of such spice as was added to wine particularly high. Many 

 receipts for the manufacture of hippocras exist in old cookery 

 and medicine manuals. It was believed to be a specific 

 against the contagion or infection of the plague. 



In the annual and decennial averages, given in the later 

 pages of these chapters, I have supplied my reader with three 

 tables, one nearly continuous, of red or white French wine 

 by the dozen gallons, a second of sweet wine by the same 

 quantity, and a third of Bordeaux by the tun. Entries of sweet 

 wine as Malmsey or sack by the butt are not numerous 

 enough for tabulation, but will be commented on lower down, 

 as also those of such wines as were more rarely purchased. 



The average price of wine by the dozen gallons between the 

 years 1401-1540 differs very little from that between 1351 and 

 1400, and would have been almost exactly the same, or a little 

 lower, had it not been for the high prices of wine by retail in 

 the twenty years 1531-40, for the average of the fifty years is 

 8s. l\d^ and of the hundred and forty Ss. $\d. The informa- 

 tion for these twenty years of higher prices is not very copious 

 as regards wine by retail, but is abundant for purchases in 

 bulk. Here the high price is not sustained, for wine by the 

 tun or hogshead is lower than the average, and in one decade, 

 1531-40, is the lowest but one in the whole series. This 

 decade includes the large purchases of the Durham monastery 

 for the five years 1530-4. 



Till we come to the years 1521-40 (during which time, by 

 the way, there is a singular and striking exaltation in the 

 price of nearly all foreign produce, a fact to be hereafter com- 

 mented on), the dearest decade is 1481-90. The entries by 

 retail are nearly all from the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, 



