WINE, 643 



the price at Cambridge being about twenty per cent, higher than 

 that of Oxford, which got its supplies it appears through South- 

 ampton and Bristol. During this time there was peace be- 

 tween England and France, and no interruption of those 

 commercial relations which (in spite of war in the first half of 

 the fifteenth century, and the union of Guienne to the French 

 Crown events which might have brought about an exaltation 

 of money values) were, as we shall see, so intimate between 

 England and the western coast of France. Wine, too, by the 

 tun was dear. The only entry in 1471-80 is a pipe at Nor- 

 wich, the price being 9 6s. &/., while between 1481-9 it is 

 10 the tun, twice over in 1482, 6 in 1448, when wine is 

 also cheap by retail, and 8 in 1491. I am disposed there- 

 fore to set down the comparatively high prices of these years 

 to deficient supply. Perhaps there is some corroboration of 

 this surmise in the fact that 1482 was a deficient harvest in 

 England 1 , grain of all kinds being nearly double the average 

 prices, while 1491 was also rather a dear year. 



The author of the * Debat des Heraulx d'Armes,' though ad- 

 mitting the greatness of the English mercantile marine, and 

 that the position of the island is singularly advantageous for 

 the transit of goods from the cold regions of Europe to the 

 southern countries, charges the English merchants with sheer 

 piracy on the commerce of France, Spain, Denmark, and 

 Scotland, and asserts that the ruin of all trade but their own 

 is the object of Englishmen, and that which leads them to 

 make war on their neighbours. This, he says, is the great 

 valour of the English. They wish to appropriate the trade of 

 the world, and to shut all other Christians out of it, and they 

 make no war on miscreants, like the kings of Grenada and 

 Belle Marine (northern Africa, from Marocco to Tunis), but 

 every kind of war and pillage on Christians. 



' I believe/ he continues, that the king (of France) has 

 vessels of 1000 to 1200 tons burden. If he cared to give 



1 After 1438, 1482 was the worst harvest in the fifteenth century, wheat being 

 los. 4<f. the quarter. 



T t 2 



