404 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



needed than strength. Sometimes, however, as in 1297, 

 cart-horse shoes were less than stott shoes. It is probable, 

 too, that the strength of the shoe varied with the soil and 

 the work. Thus at Gamlingay, in 1343, the shoes of the 

 cart-horse were dearer than those needed for ploughing 

 horses. The theory given above, that the shoes were light, 

 is supported by the fact that at Farley, in the year 1320, 

 ox-shoes are quoted at little less price than horse-shoes. 

 The range of prices for shoes, indicated by Mr Rogers's 

 researches, is equally suggestive with that of any other 

 commodities. In the first ninety years shoes are dearest 

 in 13 1 1 — 1320, though the price is not materially 

 enhanced. Afterwards they fall again, and would have 

 fallen still more markedly, were it not for the immediate 

 results of the Great Plague occurring at that period. This 

 visitation produces its effects at one place only in the year 

 1348— this being Boxley. where the price is at once nearly 

 four times that at which purchases were made in 1339 

 and 1340; but afterwards the effect is univ^ersal. Shoes 

 customarily worth only a halfpenny before, are instantly 

 and permanently a penny, and the price never falls again. 

 For when we consider how steadily the need increased for 

 these articles, how universal was the smith's labour, and how 

 the relative value of the commodity was governed by 

 causes over which the interference of the legislature could 

 exercise only a very partial control — if, indeed, it could 

 effect any real control at all — we should be prepared to 

 anticipate the result which actually ensued, that the price 

 was doubled. Even here, however, we may trace the 

 same phenomenon, adds Mr Rogers, which has so often 

 occurred. Prices are higher in the decade 13 71 — 



