SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



of wools both of Yorkshire and other northern counties.'" Among these 

 there is no mention of Lancashire, but as most of the Westmorland wools 

 were furnished by the abbey of Furness the term Westmorland might be 

 inclusive of Lancashire as represented by Furness and its dependencies. 



The wools of Cumberland and Westmorland were the poorest and 

 cheapest, only fetching £2 1 3J. 4^. a sack, whereas wool of Yorkshire was 

 priced at £^ \os. a sack, of Derbyshire (the Peak) at ^t, t,s. 4^. per sack, of 

 Leicestershire at £^ 6s. 'id. (exactly double the value of the cheapest, that 

 is the Westmorland wool), and that of Shropshire at ^6 6s. ^d. the sack." 

 It is noteworthy that the specified entry in the Lytham Roll indicates that 

 the wool of Lytham was sold for 40^. a stone,*' or at the rate of ^4 6s. Sd. 

 the sack. It can only be supposed that the wool of the Lytham sheep was 

 of good quality. 



Sheep were evidently extensively bred on the demesne estates, for we 

 read of 404 sheep being driven by the king's order from the manor of 

 Woolton to Holland.*' Also in 1324 (17 Edward II) a certain Ranulf de 

 Dacre was paying rent for the pasture of 500 sheep at Halton, near 

 Lancaster.'* Sheep are mentioned in the records of Warrington Manor as 

 being kept by the abbot of Dieulacres at Rossall in the reign of Henry III.*' 

 But the greatest contribution of northern wools came from the great abbey 

 of Furness. According to the evidence of the mediaeval Italian documents 

 incorporated in Pegolotti's Mediaeval History of Commerce, and given at length 

 in Dr. Cunningham's appendix to the fourth edition of his Growth of English 

 Industry and Commerce, Furness supplied a yearly contribution of thirty sacks, 

 of which the good wool was priced at i8i marks and the worst (? 'i locchi 

 mar.') at 10 marks a sack. There must have been some difference in the 

 weight and size of these north-country sacks to account for this abnormal 

 price of wool. Probably they were double sacks, as the normal price of 

 northern wools was usually at the very highest under ^^5 a sack.** Even 

 supposing the sacks to be of double size, i8j marks would represent the 

 price of the very best Midland wool, with which it is interesting to learn 

 Lancashire wool was able to compete. 



Lancashire was required to contribute 256 sacks 5 stone of the 30,000 

 sacks of wool granted to the king in the Parliament of 1340. In 1342 the 

 community of the county begged that 9 marks for each sack (4/ per lb.) 

 might be levied instead of the wool, owing to the difficulty of finding 



" Smith, op. cit. p. 29, par. 9. In 1338 the collectors at Hull were ordered to send on to Antwerp 

 500 sacb of wool collected in Lancashire and the West Riding ; Cal. Ckse, i337-9» P- 5°7- Many other 

 references to the wool trade will be found in these calendars. 



" Smith, op. cit. i, 29. There were 26 stone to each sack, the Westmorland wool was therefore worth 

 i^. per lb. 



" Indentura de — or status de . . . Lytham, 1 345. Among the ' Receipts ' at the time of the Compotus 

 is the entry '38 stone of wool sold at \od. a stone, and half a stone afterwards sold and omitted from last 

 compotus — £6 8/. 4</.' The price was z^d. per lb. 



" L.T.R. Misc. Enr. Accts. 14, m. 76</. 



" Accounts and Receipts of the wapentake of Lonsdale from 15 July in 17 Edw. II, L.T.R. Enr. Misc. 

 Accts. m. 72 d. I (first skin). 



" Annals of the Lords of Warrington (Chet. Soc. Ixxxvi), 65, 66. 



•"The two limits work out at %\d. and i,\d. per lb., an impossible price, which confirms the 

 supposition that the sacks contained 52 instead of 26 stone. Cf. the prices of wool, Pat. 25 Edw. I, 

 m. 4, m. 4 sched, and m. 2 : also 26 Edw. I, m. 32, &c. Cf. also 4 Edw. I, m. 29, burgesses of 

 Lynn paying ^96 for 24 sacks of wool ; and 20 Edw. I, m. 24 d., 53 sacks at 8 marks, and 50 sacks 

 at 6 marks a sack. 



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