650 ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



fractions of which are pottles, quarts, and pints. Now it is 

 known that a sextary was an allowance to a table, and is so 

 described in divers monastic records, being stated to contain 

 about five gallons. A careful examination of all the entries 

 from the Wardrobe accounts which I have been able to collect 

 so far confirmed this statement, that I was able to determine 

 that the number of sextaries in the tun of Gascony, according 

 to the Wardrobe estimate, was fifty-two ; and thus the key was 

 found for reducing the aggregate price of the quantity bought 

 and debited to the comptroller annually. Sometimes Gascony 

 wine is not found in the account, or the part of the page in 

 which the entry should appear has been destroyed. 



The comptroller's account also contains entries of sweet 

 wine by the butt of 104 to 105 gallons. Here, again, there are 

 a few deficiencies, but only in the earlier years. The butt of 

 sweet wine is also divided into fifty-two sextaries, but the 

 sextary only contains two gallons, as I have found not only 

 from the obvious fact of the butt's capacity, but from the frac- 

 tions of the sextary which are reckoned in the several years. 



It will be seen that the prices at which the tun of Gascony 

 and the butt of sweet wine are bought vary from year to year. 

 Generally the tun is rated at a higher price than the butt, and 

 in the later years invariably so. But on several occasions the 

 butt is dearer than the tun. Had the quantities been divided 

 into gallons and valued on this basis, the proportion between 

 the gallon of French wine and that of Spanish would not have 

 materially varied from that which will be seen in the price of 

 these articles when they were bought by retail for the use of 

 private persons, monasteries, and colleges. I have collected 

 the evidence for sixty-two years, between 1489 and 1579. 



The comptroller sometimes acknowledges the receipt of 

 small quantities of Rhenish wine. Once, in 1515, a 'fat' is 

 included. No estimate is given of the quantity contained in 

 this vessel, but the price, 8 i$s. 9^., implies that it was large. 

 If it contained, as 'the entry of 1444 suggests, five aums, the 

 value of the aum would be i 143. 9^., a price which does not 



