could not have possibly weighed more than half, and probably very often not more than the third of a pound. Traces are to be found of heavier shoes. Thus several of the entries in bailiffs' accounts, from 1265 to 1276 (unless we conclude that wrought iron was always dearer in the eastern counties, owing to the general enhancement of wages in a region then so favoured by manufacturing activity), seem to indicate stouter and heavier shoes than are ordinarily found. So marked is this difference on some occasions, that Mr Rogers was obliged to omit certain entries at very high prices from his calculations of the annual average, lest he should give a false impression as to the value of this ordinary manufacture in certain years. Thus, while particular shoes are returned from Ospringe in 1286, 1287, and 1288, at 3s. 4d. the hundred,—a rate which is very frequent in the 13th century,—others are quoted at 5s., 5s. 6d., and 8s. 6d., and are specially designated as 'great shoes.' These may have been like the specimen figured on page 392 ante. Similarly, the entries for the last year in which evidence is afforded, are shoes supplied for the saddle-horses of Merton College, and the price, it must be admitted, is very high. The Hornchurch return for the year 1396 is also excessive; but the purchase is made for the farm stud, and represents probably only that dearness which is found, even in those early days, in the vicinity of London. On the occasions when the kind of shoes are distinguished, a difference is generally made between the price of cart-horse and affer, or stott, shoes. The latter, Mr Rogers observes, were a breed of ponies used for the rougher kinds of husbandry, or for such work as that in which endurance and hardihood were more
