GARDEN PEASj 
241 
years 1403-1538, after which date such entries disappear. There 
are sixty-one entries of Pottage or Porridge Peas, probably 
Garden and Grey Peas. During this period the price was 5s. lid. 
to 16s. per quarter. At Wormlington, in 1599, Hastings Peas were 
sold at 16s. per quarter. Better kinds of White, Pottage, or Sand¬ 
wich Peas appear to have been sold at Winchester in 1601 at 32s. 
to 34s. per quarter, and in 1697 Boiling Peas of inferior quality 
sold at the same time and place at 24s. per quarter. There 
are other entries of Peas in the Manciple Book, and they 
formed part of the Fellows’ diet when they sat at the Common 
Table. 
“ In 1617, at Theydon Gernon, an entry of three quarts of 
Setting Peas 4 d. At Mendliam, in 1626, twenty-seven bushels 
of Peas cost Is. 4 d. per bushel. In 1654, at Mount Holl, among 
other sorts, a half peck of Sandwich Peas sold for 2s. In 1698, 
in London, a half peck of Hotspur Peas realised 4s. In 1702, 
also in London, four quarts of Egg Peas were sold at 4 d .; four 
quarts Dutch Admiral were sold at Qd. ; and four pints of Dwarf 
Peas were sold at 6^.” 
The foregoing is interesting as affording some information 
as to the varieties of Peas in cultivation in early days. 
The “Treasury of Botany” says that “before the intro¬ 
duction of the Potato into England Peas were largely eaten by 
the working classes, and a food so rich in nitrogen was doubtless 
the cause of the superior muscular development among the 
peasantry of the last century. So important was this crop held 
to be that in the letting of a farm the proportion of 1 Siddan ’ 
land (i.e. Pea land) was always taken into consideration.” 
The following interesting information is from Rhind’s 
“History of the Vegetable Kingdom” :— 
“ At the close of the thirteenth century the English forces 
were detained so long at the siege of a castle in Lothian that, 
having exhausted all their provisions, they contrived as a resource 
to subsist on the Peas and Beans cultivated in the surrounding 
fields,” which shows they were an important field crop, and 
would lead to a belief that the Pea was then one of the staple 
articles for human food. In the privy purse accounts of 
Henry VIII. there is an entry to the effect:—“ Paid to a man in 
rewarde for bringing Peas cods to the King’s Grace, iiifs. viii<A” 
(£1 11s. 8 d.). 
