and 'Extension of the Merino Breed of Sheep. 367 



Leicester and the best of Gloucester and Hereford £20. 1 3s. id. or /^ 1 3. 1 25. 6d. 

 per pack ; and so of the rest. 



In the same proclamation, the wool of Holland is rated at 11 marks, or 

 £y. 6s. %d.; or £12. gs. gd. of our money per pack. This is exactly the same 

 value as was assigned to our wools of Northampton, Bucks, Bedford, Somerset, and 

 the best of Yorkshire. The best Lana de Marisco, by which is meant wool that 

 had come through the Streights of Gibraltar, then called the Streights of Morocco, 

 is directed to be sold at the same price. 



Relatively to this period, a letter, said to be written from Medina del Campo in 

 1437, gives the following account; which I copy from my excellent friend Sir 

 Frederic Eden's valuable Collections on the State of the Poor: 



" The Council appointed Gomez Carrillo to go to the Admiral, and the King 

 " had named Juan Sanchez de Tovar ; and it was debated which of them should 

 " go ; and warm speeches passed between Fernan Sanchez de Berlanga, and 

 " Pedro Laso de Mendoza, son of Inigo Lopez ; one of them being related to 

 *' the one, and the other to the other. Pedro Laso said, in the king's presence, 

 " that Gomez Carrillo was son to one of the king's gentlemen or pages, and 

 " grandson to King Don Enriques' chief cup-bearer, who was son of Lope Car- 

 " rillo, gentleman and chief huntsman of Don Juan the First; and that he was 

 " not son of a judge over shepherds. This was said as a sneer; for Juan Sanchez 

 " de Tovar is descended from Fernan Sanchez de Tovar, judge of the royal flock 

 *' of sheep and folds. F. S. de Berlanga answered, in the king's presence, that he 

 " understood the sarcasm, but that it was ill aimed, and might be retorted upon 

 " himself; for that J. S. whom he reproached as a judge over shepherds, was his 

 " equal ; that the ojfice of judge and alcayde of the royal flocks was always held 

 " by gentlemen of rank. That King Alfonso, when he first brought sheep from 

 " England by sea in great ships (in naves carracas) appointed Inigo Lopez de 

 <' Orozco to be the first person to begin to exercise that office; from whom Pedro 

 " Laso himself was descended on the part of his mother : and now being informed 

 " that himself was descended from a judge over shepherds^ he might mock at his 

 " pleasure." King Alfonso the last died in the year 1350.* 



It is an evidence of increasing manufacture, about the year 1347, that shortly 

 before that time a custom of fourteen-pence had been laid on every white cloth, 



* Vol. I. page 88, note. 



