Its Customs. 103 



morass, wliicli only the combined science, industry, seclusion, 

 and leisure of tlieir new owners could have converted into 

 fertile tracts ; and charters still exist to prove this interesting 

 fact.^ On the other hand, in the opinion of the Saxon laity, 

 husbandry was a despised sciencs, fit only for serfs and boors. 

 Then again, not only was the external trade of the kingdom, 

 except perhaps in wool, at an end, as we have already had 

 occasion to point out, but the internal trade was restricted by 

 harsh laws, so that no one could buy anything above the value 

 of twenty pennies, save in the presence of a magistrate or two 

 witnesses, and within the walls of a town. Everything sold 

 above that price was subject to a percentage claimed by the 

 king. There were also tolls to pay in the weekly markets or 

 fairs, which were (at first) held on a Sunday. Exchanges of 

 cattle or slaves for other commodities were more often made 

 without the intervention of a money medium, and this practice, 

 perhaps, accounts for the value fixed by law on the commoner 

 commodities. Thus King Ethelred's laws contain the follow- 

 ing schedule of prices : — ^ 



But these prices were not strictly adhered to. The price of 

 sheep's wool, compared with the carcase, was extremely high, 

 and is accounted for by the supposition that there was a foreign 

 trade in this commodity. From this cause the price of a 

 sheep was widely different just before midsummer and just 

 after the time of shearing. The value of land, as compared 

 with that of cattle or sheep, is another remarkable feature of 

 the times. Thus an acre of land was often sold for the price 



* Hallam, Middle Ages, iii., 265-435, and Anglo-Saxon Chr., a.d. 657. 

 ' Craig and McFarlane, Hint, of Eag., Bk. 11., ch. iv. 



