A. D. 1257. 409 



The mifery of the year was aggravated by a very defedive crop, 

 which raifed wheat to the price of ten (hillings a quarter (' fumma') ; 

 and, the country being drained of money by the rapacity of tlie popes, 

 the profufion and mifmanagement of the king, and the tranfportation 

 of the earl of Cornwall's treafure to Germany, many thoufands perifli- 

 ed for abfolute want, and by the difeafes proceeding from the famine. 

 Some old men remembered former fcarcities, which raifed the wheat to 

 a mark, or even twenty fliillings, a quarter, and were not attended with 

 fuch mortal confequences, becaufe the people then had money circulat- 

 ing among them, and were enabled to buy corn, even at the extravag- 

 ant price. [M. Paris, p. 958.] Unlcfs the famine had been univerfal 

 throughout the world, which, we know, was not the cafe, the want of 

 corn in England could have been fupplied by commerce. But the com- 

 merce of England was, comparatively fpeaking, as yet but in its in- 

 fancy : and there were even many inftances in thofe ages of corn being 

 unreafonably cheap in fome parts of England, while it was enormoully 

 dear in others. So little were the principles, or the practice, of a be- 

 neficial commerce then under flood. 



1258 — The famine in England was fomewhat alleviated by the arrival 

 of about fifty large fliips loaded with wheat, barley, and bread, which 

 the emperor Richard had engaged to come over ; and they were follow- 

 ed by others fent by the merchants of Germany and Holland. By the 

 king's proclamation the citizens of London were prohibited from buy- 

 ing any of the cargoes for floring up. But the want of money prevent- 

 ed many, who had formerly been in good circumftances, from being 

 benefited by the fupply. [M. Pa/is, pp. 963, 976.] 



The king claimed as an antient prerogative, a right of taking at an 

 inferior price, by the name of prife, a certain part of the cargo import- 

 ed in every veflel ; and particularly two tuns (' dolia') from every cargo 

 of wine confiding of above nineteen tuns, viz. one before the mafl:, and 

 one behind it, at the price of twenty (hillings each "*. IMatiox's Hijl. 



of the excheq. c. 18, § 2 Fa'dera, V. iii, p. 192.] His purveyors alfo 



made a pradice of taking for his ufe, or at leafl; in his name, whatever 

 they thought proper, at a lower price than what the red of the cargo 



* Some have fiippofed that the prife wines were li:ul an hereditaiy grant of the king's prife wines 



tine to the king without any compenfation to the in the cities of Dublin, Drogheda, Waterford, 



owners. But the following fafts ferve to prove Cork, and Limerick, and by the archbifhop of 



that they were paid for at a fixed price. — Ed- York, who in the year 1327 claimed the prifage 



ward II made over to his favourite, Piers de Ga- of the wines impcrted at Hull in virtue of a char- 



vallon, his antient and due prifes of wine, being ter from King Athtlilan. {Fadcra, V. iii,/. 191 ; 



two tuns out of every veffel, in two ports of De- F. ly, pp. 26S, 272.] 



von-lhire, Gavafton paying to the merchants twenty The fixed price oi the pnfe wines at Brifto! ^va« 



{hillings llerh'ng for each tun, ' as it ufed to be in only 15/, as appears by a record of the 12"' year 



' the times of his anceftors the kings of England.' uf Iving John, quoted in Madox's Hijlory of the ex- 



The fame price was alfo paid to the importers by chequer, f. 18, § 2, '<ivAthe Libir gardtra!>/f £dzv. I, 



the family of Botiler (or Butler) in Ireland, who ^. ^56. 



Vol. I. ■ 3 F 



