CHAP. XII, 



LIVING MONEY. 315 



In Wilkins' Leges Saxon, as quoted by Dr. 

 Henry, we have prices of various articles in 

 England in the reign of Ethelred about the year 

 997, which the learned Doctor has calculated 

 with great correctness in money of the present 

 time. 



Price of a man or slave . 2 16 3 sterling, 



a horse . . 1 15 2 



a mare or colt .135 



an ass or mule . 14 1 



an ox . . 7 



a cow . .062 



a swine . .01 10^ 



a sheep . .012 



a goat . . 4i 



Though the money prices of that description of 

 property which the nobles chiefly possessed were 

 thus low, they do not appear to have rendered 

 them less attached to their rural gratifications 

 or less tenacious of their exclusive rights to them 

 than their successors of the present generation. 

 Such was their eagerness for field sports that the 

 price of a hawk or a greyhound was the same as 

 that of a man, and the robbing a hawk's nest 

 was as great a crime in the eye of the law as the 

 murder of a human being. 



The vast amount, in proportion to the whole 

 quantity of coin in circulation, which Ethelred 

 paid as tribute to the Danes, and which so ex- 

 hausted England as to compel her to submit to 



