660 ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



vol. iii, pp. 675-686) chronicles the occurrence of a plague 

 or pestis, the name being of course generic for all exceptional 

 mortality. In one of these years, 1508, a large quantity is 

 bought at Cambridge, tempore pestis. 



The price of saffron, before the general rise occurred, is 

 highest in 1531-40, one of the decades in which foreign spices 

 are so dear. Saffron was never, I imagine, imported from 

 the East. But it doubtlessly was from south-eastern Europe, 

 and may have been indirectly affected by any cause which 

 made other spices dear. It does not rise in price to anything 

 like the same extent, after 1541, that other articles do, the 

 increase in money value being under fifty per cent. Nor does 

 it seem to have been so extensively used in later times. 



Saffron was grown in England, especially in the eastern 

 counties. Harrison tells a story to the effect that in one year 

 there was an exceedingly plentiful crop of the article, and that 

 the growers, embarrassed by abundance, vented their discontent 

 in a coarse and profane comment, and that thereupon they 

 were visited with a general scarcity of the article. I have 

 found saffron designated as English in 1467, and bought ap- 

 parently at a cheap rate. In 1557 some is bought which is 

 designated as best, and in 1499 the Grantchester saffron- 

 ground, belonging to King's College, is let at a rental of 

 2 8.$-. ^d. a year. This must have been a plot which was 

 stocked with the bulbs. It is very probably the case that the 

 cheaper saffron was of English growth. I find no information 

 as to the origin of foreign supplies. 



CLOVES. After pepper, cloves are most frequently mentioned 

 in the accounts. They are cheapest in the twenty years 

 1471-90. But in the twenty years 1521-40 they are raised 

 proportionately to a higher price than any other spice, except 

 mace. The strongly aromatic and almost acrid oil of these 

 buds must have made them peculiar favourites with our an- 

 cestors, who preferred strong to delicate flavours. After the 

 rise in prices the money value of cloves is increased in nearly 

 the same ratio as that of pepper and of other spices, though 





