Miscellaneous, 259 



any accuracy at the money value of the animal " (p. 335). " Pigs 

 are occasionally said to be leprous, and are especially liable to measles 

 — that is, to entozoa ; and the accounts frequently allude to forced 

 sales of animals in which the latter disease was present and suspected, 

 though it does not appear that such a circumstance seriously depre- 

 ciated the market value of the animal " (p. 337) . "Wild boars, though 

 rarely mentioned, are not unknown " (p. 337). 



" There is abundant evidence as to the price of poultry. Of these, 

 the commonest are geese, capons, hens, and pigeons. All are rec- 

 koned by the head except the last, which are invariably quoted in the 

 accounts at so many a penny " (p. 338). "Besides the poultry, our 

 forefathers kept swans and peacocks ; the average price of the former 

 is Zs. 9|c?. Peacocks are bought at 2s. in 1278, and at 5«. in 1395" 

 (p. 340). 



" The animals [rabbits] are so dear as to suggest either that they 

 were at this time confined to particular localities, from which they 

 have subsequently spread over the whole country (a view which 

 seems to be countenanced by the fact that the price does not increase 

 in the later part of the period), or that they were, which we can 

 hardly believe, rigorously and effectually protected in the interest of 

 the great landowners. They were sold at 5d. each in 1270, and 

 from 3c?. to ^d. afterwards" (p. 340). 



" We know but little of the period at which animals now familiar 

 were introduced into England. Thus, though I am far from saying that 

 they could not have been found, it is a little singular that I have never 

 met with any entry of hares or pheasants in the period before me ; 

 and it is the more remarkable in the earlier period, because the 

 Bigod and Clare accounts give considerable detail of the domestic 

 life and expenditure of the Earl of Norfolk and Gloucester" (p. 341). 



" Fish, as the reader will discover, was by no means a cheap article 

 of food in the middle ages. It was so dear that in the time before 

 us it could hardly have been consumed by the poorer classes except 

 as a luxury or a relish. Nor does this observation apply only to the 

 better kind of fresh fish, as lamprey, salmon, pike, and eels. 

 Herrings and ordinary salt fish and stock fish were, on the whole, 

 relatively dear. The stories told of the exceeding plenty and cheap- 

 ness of salmon, if they are not purely local, even in later times, 

 would not, as far as can be inferred from the account before me, have 

 been true of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries" (p. 606). 



" Most kinds of fish were sold salted as well as fresh ; the business 

 of a stock-fishmonger being a regular branch of trade in mediaeval 

 times. Thus we not only read of salt herrings red and white, but of 

 salmon, eels, sturgeon, lamprey, and haddock, lyng, moruca (which 

 are said to be cod), mulvells, melyns, hake, hoburden, cropling, dog- 

 drave, and hard, stock and salt fish, all of which are cured in this 

 manner" (p. 607). 



" There may have been many other kinds of fish kept which do 

 not come generally into the market, or were not purchased by such 

 persons as supply us with information. Hence it is possible that 



18* 



