Fresh herrings sold for five or six a penny in the time of Henry VIII., and were never cheaper.  Fresh salmon five and six shillings apiece.  Roach, dace, and flounders from two to four shillings a hundred.  Pike and barbel varied with their length.  The barbel a foot long sold for five-pence, and twopence was added for each additional inch:  a pike a foot long sold for sixteen pence, and increased a penny an inch.—­Guildhall MSS.  Journals 12, 13, 14, 15.

[26] “When the brewer buyeth a quarter of malt for two shillings, then he shall sell a gallon of the best ale for two farthings; when he buyeth a quarter malt for four shillings, the gallon shall be four farthings, and so forth... and that he sell a quart of ale upon his table for a farthing.”—­ Assize of Brewers:  from a MS. in Balliol College, Oxford.

By an order of the Lord Mayor and Council of the City of London, in September, 1529, the price of a kilderkin of single beer was fixed at a shilling, the kilderkin of double beer at two shillings; but this included the cask; and the London brewers replied with a remonstrance, saying that the casks were often destroyed or made away with, and that an allowance had to be made for bad debts.  “Your beseechers,” they said, “have many city debtors, for many of them which have taken much beer into their houses suddenly goeth to the sanctuary, some keep their houses—­some purchase the king’s protection, and some, when they die, be reckoned poor, and of no value, and many of your said beseechers be for the most part against such debtors remediless and suffer great losses.”

They offered to supply then:  customers with sixteen gallon casks of single beer for eleven pence, and the same quantity of double beer for a shilling, the cask included.  And this offer was accepted.

The corporation, however, returned two years after to their original order. Guildhall Records, MS. Journal 13, pp. 210, 236.

[27] 28 Hen.  VIII. cap. 14.

The prices assessed, being a maximum, applied to the best wines of each class.  In 1531, the mayor and corporation “did straitly charge and command that all such persons as sold wines by retail within the city and liberties of the same, should from henceforth sell two gallons of the best red wine for eightpence, and not above; the gallon of the best white wine for eightpence, and not above; the pottle, quart, and pint after the same rate, upon pain of imprisonment.”

The quality of the wine sold was looked into from time to time, and when found tainted, or unwholesome, “according to the antient customs of the city,” the heads of the vessels were broken up, and the wines in them put forth open into the kennels, in example of all other offenders. Guildhall MS. Journals 12 and 13.

[28] Sermons, p.101.

[29] See HARRISON, p. 318.  At the beginning of the century farms let for four pounds a year, which in 1576 had been raised to forty, fifty, or a hundred.  The price of produce kept pace with the rent.  The large farmers prospered; the poor forfeited their tenures.