ON THE PRICE OF SALT. 437 



to spare for the products of the new agriculture. And al- 

 though it is impossible, until one is able to exhibit the whole 

 results of these records of prices, to draw general and particular 

 inferences, it may be permitted to dwell a while on the price 

 of an article, which any one who knows anything about social 

 economy in the seventeenth century must allow to be in the 

 highest degree suggestive. 



As it appeared to me to the purpose to draw up the double 

 set of annual averages from the Eastern and the Midland 

 counties, I have not included in these tables the few prices 

 which come from the North. I have already stated that in 

 my opinion the crannock is here identical with the quarter, 

 and that six of the Shuttleworth mets are equal to the quarter, 

 the met being divided into two pecks, and eight eighendoles 

 or eyttyndales. Taken at these rates, the Gawthorp crannock 

 of 1584 at 14^., that of 1586 at 16^., that of 1589 at 15?. 6d., 

 and that of 1590 at 155. $d., are not exceptional. So again 

 the quarter at Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland, in 1585 does 

 not differ materially from some of the purchases made at 

 Cambridge in this year, ijs. lod. as compared with iSs. Taking 

 six mets to the quarter, salt in 1591 and 1592 is bought at 

 Gawthorp at an average of ioj., in 1598 at i6j., in 1599 at 

 2oj., in 1600 at 2,2s., and in 1601 at i8j. gd. In 1602 it is pur- 

 chased at Gawthorp by the load, at an average of 1 2s. $d., and 

 this probably was something less than a quarter. In 1610, it 

 is us. a load; in 1611, 13^. $d.\ in 1617, us. ic*/., when a 

 ' cart of salt ' is also bought at 1 2s. In 1 61 1 , at the same place, 

 it is at 24s. the quarter of six mets ; and in 1620, the last year 

 in which it appears at Gawthorp, there are two inexplicable 

 entries, by the peck and the quarter. The Shuttleworth pur- 

 chases are generally made in June or July. The Howard ac- 

 counts give a price of 32^. in 161 2 and 1613. This is very high, 

 but nearly as high a rate is seen at Oxford in the previous year. 



There are one or two entries besides which I have thought 

 would have been deceptive in the general averages. One of 

 these is at Mendham in 1584, where the price paid for a peck 



