342

SUPPLY OF WOOL.

CHAP. XII.

throne. On this subject, Matthew Paris , speak-ing of the year 1240, says, “ Such was the rapa-city of the Popes , and such the stupid bigotryand ignorance of the laity, that it was the sub-ject of general complaint that there did not re-main in all England so much treasure as hadbeen extorted from it in three years by the seeof Rome.” Henry the Third in 1244, on in-quiry, ascei'tained that for several years the an-nual amount sent to the Popes had been sixtythousand marcs, or one hundred and twentythousand pounds of our present money.

By comparing the price of wool, as given inthe reign of Edward the Third, with Exchequerrecords of the year 1354, we find that the'quan-tity of wool exported amounted to full 12,715,200pounds weight. The sheep of that age weresmaller in size than those of the present day,and the wool thus exported could not be theproduce of less than three or four million sheep.Besides the wool, there was in the same yearcoarse cloths exported whose value amountedto 16,266/. in the money of that time, or to41,490/. in our present money.

In a country where no other clothing wasused by the great mass of the inhabitants butthat made from the wool of their flocks, whereafter supplying that demand there could be sucha surplus as is here exhibited, the carcasses oftheanimals must in deficient harvests have supplied