PRICES OF SHOES AND NAILS. 40,3 



could not have possibly weighed more than half, and prob- 

 ably very often not more than the third of a pound. 

 Traces are to be found of heavier shoes. Thus several of 

 the entries in bailiffs' accounts, from 1265 to 1276 (unless 

 we conclude that wrought iron was always dearer in the 

 eastern counties, owing to the general enhancement of 

 wages in a region then so favoured by manufacturing activ- 

 ity), seem to indicate stouter and heav^ier shoes than are 

 ordinarily found. So marked is this difterence on some oc- 

 casions, that Mr Rogers was obliged to omit certain entries 

 at very high prices from his calculations of the annual aver- 

 age, lest he should give a false impression as to the value of 

 this ordinary manufacture in certain years. Thus, while 

 particular shoes are returned from Ospringe in 1286, 1287, 

 and 1288, at 3.V. ^d. the hundred, — a rate which is very 

 frequent in the 13th century, — others are quoted at 5.?., 

 5.?. 6d., and 8.^. 6d., and are specially designated as ' great 

 shoes.' These may have been like the specimen figured 

 on page 392 ante. Similarly, the entries for the last 

 year in which evidence is afforded, are shoes supplied for 

 the saddle-horses of Merton College, and the price, it 

 must be admitted, is very high. The Hornchurch return 

 for the year 1396 is also excessive; but the purchase is 

 made for the farm stud, and represents probably only that 

 dearness which is found, even in those early days, in the 

 vicinity of London. On the occasions when the kind of 

 shoes are distinguished, a difference is generally made 

 between the price of cart-horse and affer, or stott, shoes. 

 The latter, Mr Rogers observes, were a breed of ponies 

 used for the rougher kinds of husbandry, or for such 



work as that in which endurance and hardihood were more 



26* 



