500 THE PRICE OF MATERIALS. 



Corpus Christi College chapel, Oxford, at 7*/., and in Winchester 

 in 1647 coloured at is. $d. In 1635, when Corpus Christi 

 College yielded to the instructions of Laud, sixty-six painted 

 pieces were put up in the chapel at 4s. the piece ; and at Cam- 

 bridge, in 1611 and 1613, King's College fills 'holes' in the 

 chapel with wrought glass at 3^. $d. and is. 6d. 



Hartlib tells us that glass was manufactured in Sussex by 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, and at the end of the 

 same century Houghton gives a list of the principal glass 

 manufactories in the whole of England. It had now become 

 a regular industry in the country. The price of glass is the 

 most constant of all articles in use, having been relatively cheap 

 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 



The accounts, to which reference has been made before in this 

 chapter, have also supplied evidence, between 1671 and 1702, 

 of the price of glass, many thousand feet being often purchased 

 in the year. The glass is sometimes described as new, some- 

 times as English, and one entry (1677) seems to imply that, 

 provided the glass could be cut into quarrels, the purchaser 

 was content to take pieces which were not squares, for such 

 squares cost 8*/., while in the same year, glass not so desig- 

 nated is bought at 6\d. In 1671, the price is 6d. a foot, in 

 1672, 1673 7^., in 1677 6\d. and 8^., in 1678 and 1680 7^., in 

 1 68 1 6d., in 1684 yd. and 6d., both being described as new, in 

 1685 and 1686 8d., in 1688 6d., in 1693 8d., in 1696 6d., in 

 1699 7\d., in 1700 and 1702 gd. It will be seen then that in 

 London, from which place all these entries come, that there 

 were considerable fluctuations in price. The quantity bought 

 is often very large; thus in 1685 nearly 3000 feet are pur- 

 chased. 



The subjoined tables give the price of wrought iron by the 

 cwt., of rolled lead by the cwt, of solder by the cwt., of pewter 

 by the cwt., and of silver-plate by the ounce. Subjoined to 

 them are the decennial averages. 



