342 SUPPLY OF WOOL. 



CHAP. XII. 



throne. On this subject, Matthew Paris, speak- 

 ing of the year 1240, says, " Such was the rapa- 

 city of the Popes, and such the stupid bigotry 

 and ignorance of thejaity, that it was the sub- 

 ject of general complaint that there did not re- 

 main in all England so much treasure as had 

 been extorted from it in three years by the see 

 of Rome." Henry the Third in 1244, on in- 

 quiry, ascertained that for several years the an- 

 nual amount sent to the Popes had been sixty 

 thousand marcs, or one hundred and twenty 

 thousand pounds of our present money. 



By comparing the price of wool, as given in 

 the reign of Edward the Third, with Exchequer 

 records of the year 13,54, we find that the quan- 

 tity of wool exported amounted to full 12,715,200 

 pounds weight. The sheep of that age were 

 smaller in size than those of the present day, 

 and the wool thus exported could not be the 

 produce of less than three or four million sheep. 

 Besides the wool, there was in the same year 

 coarse cloths exported whose value amounted 

 to 16,266Z. in the money of that time, or to 

 41,490/. in our present money. 



In a country where no other clothing was 

 used by the great mass of the inhabitants but 

 that made from the wool of their flocks, where 

 after supplying that demand there could be such 

 a surplus as is here exhibited, the carcasses of the 

 animals must in deficient harvests have supplied 



