ao HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



sheep 5^., a hog 8d., a slave ;^i — so that a slave was worth 8 

 oxen ^ ; and these prices do not seem to have advanced by the 

 Pomesday period. 



According to the Pipe Roll of 1156, wheat was is. 6d. a 

 quarter ; but prices then depended entirely on seasons, and we 

 do not know whether that was good or bad. However, many 

 years later, in 1243, it was only 2s. a quarter at Hawsted.^ In 

 dear years, nearly always the result of wet seasons, it went up 

 enormously ; in 1024 the English Chronicle tells us the acre 

 seed of wheat, that is about 2 bushels, sold for 6s., 3 bushels 

 of barley for 6s., and 4 bushels of oats for 4s.^ In 11 90 

 Holinshed says that, owing to a great dearth, the quarter of 

 wheat was 18^. 8</. The average price, however, in the twelfth 

 century was probably about 4s. a quarter. 



In 1 1 94 Roger of Hoveden * says an ox, a cow, and a plough 

 horse were the same price, 4s. ; a sheep with fine wool lod., 

 with coarse wool 6d. ; a sow i2d., a boar izd. 



Sometimes prices were kept down by imports; 1258 was 

 a bad and dear year, * most part of the corn rotted on the 

 ground,' and was not all got in till after November i, so 

 excessive was the wet and rain. And upon the dearth a sore 

 death and mortality followed for want of necessary food to 

 sustain the pining bodies of the poor people, who died so thick 

 that there were great pits made in churchyards to lay the dead 

 bodies in. And corn had been dearer if great store had not 

 come out of Almaine, but there came fifty great ships with 

 wheat and barley, meal and bread out of Dutchland, which 

 greatly relieved the poor.'' 



' Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 44 ; Cunningham, Growth of Industry 

 and Commerce, i. 171 ; Domesday of S. Paul, pp. xliii. and xci. 



^ CuUum, History of Hawsted, p. 181. 



^ Rolls Series, ii. 220. According to this, the price of a bushel of wheat 

 reckoned in modern money was ^3 in that year. 



* Ibid. iii. 220. 



* Holinshed, who is supported by William of Malmesbury in the asser- 

 tion that in time of scarcity England imported corn. Matthew Paris, 



Chron. MaJ., v. 673. 



