ON THE PRICE OF STOCK AND MEAT. 345 



By far the largest number of these entries are for saddle- 

 horses, purchased by the Head and Fellows of the different 

 societies whose accounts have contributed so much to this 

 enquiry, for the progresses which they make for the collection 

 of their rents and the inspection of their estates. This intimate 

 acquaintance with landed property and its capabilities was 

 part of the training of an Oxford or Cambridge Fellow in the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and became an experience 

 which their successors have very ill dispensed with in these 

 later times. The College stable has supplied me with most 

 of the information which I possess, not only about horses and 

 saddlery, but with the prices of hay and straw, oats, peas and 

 beans. 



In the sixteenth century, entire horses, which were almost 

 universally employed in an earlier period, began to be disused, 

 though they are still occasionally found. Besides the common 

 name of horse, I find geldings, mares, nags, and colts. 



The colours which our ancestors in the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries recognised in their horses are very numerous. 

 The following occur in the purchases : white, grey, grey flea- 

 bitten, iron grey, dapple grey, dark grey, brown, brown bay, 

 brownish, bay, dun, mouse dun, black, fleabitten, sorrel, pied, 

 grisled, piebald, sand-coloured, chestnut, roan, and bald-face. 

 They are described as trotting and ambling, as sumpter, as 

 coach, occurring for the first time in 1614, and mill-horses. 

 Sometimes names are given to them, but I have only found 

 Ginger, Crabb, Banks, Huggins, and Thief. 



There is very little change in the price of horses, taken 

 on an average during the first thirty years of my period. 

 Then the price begins to rise for the next thirty years, and 

 though the dear decade 1643-1652 does not represent the 

 highest average of the whole, the exaltation over the thirty 

 years that precede it is very marked. In the period 1673-1682 

 horses are decidedly dear. Thus in 1673 a horse is bought by 

 All Souls College at 30 5?., and two others at Cambridge at 

 20 each. In 1674, Winchester gives 15 8j. 6//. for a saddle- 



