WINE. 647 



such a hypothetical sum by the tun, the general average for 

 the last forty-two years would have been almost exactly 13, 

 which will, when compared with the averages of 1401-1540, of 

 retail prices, and those of 1541-1582, be found to represent 

 a proportionate rise on the wholesale side of the purchases. 



Coke's English ' Debate between the Heralds,' republished 

 simultaneously by the * Societe des anciens Textes ' with the 

 French debate between the heralds, and originally printed in 

 1549, in reply to the taunt of the French advocate as to the 

 absence of wine from England, says, ' For your wine, we have 

 good ale, beer, metheglin, cider, and perry, being more whole- 

 some beverages for us than your wines, which maketh your 

 people drunken, also prone and apt to all filthy pleasures and 

 lusts.' This passage, as do certain others in the rejoinder, 

 seems to imply not only that English people may be content 

 to do without French beverages, and is the ordinary cry of 

 sour grapes, but that wine had ceased to be imported into 

 England in any quantity, a considerable decline from the 

 plenty of a previous century. Henceforward wine is employed 

 for religious purposes, for the consumption of a few rich men, 

 and for extraordinary feasts. 



Sweet wine, the price of which is generally double that of 

 ordinary red and white Bordeaux, is known by several names. 

 It occurs far less frequently in the accounts than red and white 

 French wine, and is considerably dearer as a rule. But in the 

 early part of the sixteenth century it is often cheaper than 

 French wine. The origin of this wine is almost certainly 

 Spain and Portugal, and, as I have observed above, p. 145, the 

 act of 32 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, was intended to promote trade 

 with South-Western Europe, the ordinary limit of English 

 commerce at that time (1541) being Malaga. But I have not 

 found wine described as Spanish on more than one occasion. 

 This is in 1462, when two tuns are purchased by the lord of 

 Stoke at 5 6s. 8^., a rate only slightly in excess of the price 

 of Bordeaux. 



Malmsey, the commonest name given to sweet wine when 



