7^6 SUNDRIES. 



of articles are named and priced in the accounts, and included 

 in the list of sundry articles. These particulars throw no little 

 light on the expenditure of the upper and middle classes. 

 Most of the information which I am able to give under this 

 head comes from private accounts, though one of the sets of 

 particulars, the cost of presentation gloves, comes almost 

 exclusively from the records of corporation expenditure. 



The practice of presenting gloves to great people sprung up, 

 if I can rely on the notes which I have been able to make, 

 about the middle of the fifteenth century. The cost of these 

 articles was modest and reasonable for nearly a century and a 

 half. Towards the close of the sixteenth century the price 

 began to be extravagantly high, and during the first twenty 

 years of the seventeenth the cost was very great. The 

 custom is dropped during the Civil War and the Common- 

 wealth, and was revived at the Restoration. But I have found 

 only two entries after that event. It is not improbable that 

 the glove was the vehicle for a present or a bribe. The gift 

 of gloves with that end has had a long history, from the days 

 of Leotychides (Herod, vi. 72) to that of Lord Chancellor 

 Clarendon (vol. vi. p. 601, col. ii), for the double spur royal, 

 though a small contribution to that distinguished historian's 

 irregular gains, had a good deal to do with the 7 which 

 New College paid for the gloves which they gave him. 



At first the price of presentation gloves remained moderate. 

 In 1583 Corpus Christi College gave its Visitor (the Bishop 

 of Winchester) and his wife two pairs at a cost of us. 3^., and 

 the city two pairs at^j. each. In 1584 New College gave two 

 pairs to the Lord Chancellor at 6^. a pair. In 1585 All Souls 

 College gave five pairs to great persons, paying $ for the 

 whole. The city gave four pairs at 4s. 4^., five pairs at is., 

 four pairs to the judges at 3^. 4^., and again to the Bishop of 

 Winchester a pair at i6s. In 1586 the Lord Treasurer and 

 his lady got two pairs from All Souls College at a cost of 32.$-. 

 In 1587 the city gives two pairs at 4s. 4^., and two pairs at 

 5^. %d. to distinguished persons, probably judges, though one 



