Under Philip of Valois (1328-50) the livre was debased to 1/12 its original value,[451] and almost simultaneously the pound was debased by Edward III. to 4/5 its primitive value.[452] Or 1 good livre was worth 12 bad livres, and 1 good pound was worth 5/4 of a bad pound. Therefore—
12 livres = 16/15 (5/4 pound) = 4/3 pound; or 9 livres = 1 pound.
Dividing the price of 1 lb. French powder, 1375, by the price of 1 lb. English powder, 1378, we get 120/13.664 = 8.7; so that the French powder at this period was somewhat cheaper than the English. As the purchasing power of fourteenth-century money was about ten times that of ours, the French powder of 1375 cost about 11s., and the English powder of 1378, 11s. 4½d. per lb.
The high price of early gunpowder resulted from high freights and (in the case of saltpetre) the rapacity of Eastern merchants. We may form some notion of the price they exacted for their saltpetre which cost them little,[453] from the price they put upon their naphtha which cost them next to nothing. “Another fountayne there is towarde the Oryent whereof is made fyre grekysshe, with other myxtyons (mixtures) that is put thereto; the which fyre when it is taken and lyght is so hote that it can not be quenched with water, but with aysel (vinegar), urine or sande only. The Sarasynes sell this water dere, and derer than they do good wyne.”[454]
The manufacture of gunpowder soon became a trade. We find a powder-mill in Ausburg in 1340, in Spandau in 1344, and in Liegnitz in 1348.[455] There was a gunmaker in Stockholm in 1430, who was very probably a powder-maker too;[456] and it is certain that there was a powder-maker there in 1464—Mäster Berend.[457] Nor were Governments blind to the importance and the profit of the trade. Beckmann states that the Archbishop of Magdeburg in 1419 only permitted the collection of saltpetre on payment of a license,[458] and Clarke informs us that the Pope and the Archduke of Bavaria engaged themselves in powder-making at an early date.[459] Louis XI. appointed commissioners in 1477 to collect all the saltpetre they could find, with power to force an entry wherever they suspected it was stored.[460]
During the Ancient Period, say 1250-1450, when serpentine was exclusively used, one powder could only differ from another in composition, that is, in the proportions of the ingredients used, supposing them to be equally pure; during the Modern Period, say 1700-1886, the powders used (in each individual State) differed only, as a general rule, in the size of the grain;[461] during the Transition Period, 1450-1700, they generally differed both in composition and grain.
The proportions of the ingredients were quite arbitrary during the Ancient Period, and not only Governments, but private manufacturers, had their special recipes. As late as 1628 Norton says there were “infinite recipes for making of powder, but most states have enjoyned a certain proportion.”[462]
The introduction of corning, far from curbing the lawlessness of the Ancient Period, made confusion worse confounded. Then there was but one variable—the proportions of the ingredients; now a second independent variable was introduced—the size of the grain. But a reaction was at hand, which set in first in France, where corned powder had been adopted in 1525.[463] It appears to have been noticed during the second half of the fifteenth century that large-grained powder was the fittest for big guns, and this fact the French utilised in 1540 by officially restricting the service powders to three, of uniform composition but different-sized grains.[464]
The largest-grained powder was used for the largest guns, and the composition was 80.7 salp., 11.5 char., and 7.8 sulph., which closely corresponded to Whitehorne’s (corned) hand-gun powder—78.3 salp., 13 char., and 8.7 sulph.[465] It may be questioned, however, whether the French, official injunctions notwithstanding, confined themselves very religiously to powders of uniform composition. Boillot, whose work was published at Chaumont in 1598, says the grain for big guns was as large as a pea, that for medium guns the size of hempseed, and that for serpents, &c., still smaller. But from a remark he makes on reaching the manufacture of powder—“vous viendrez à la composition (de la pouldre), mais par poix et mesure, selon que vous voudrez faire les pouldres”[466]—it is clear that powders for all purposes were not of the same composition.
During the first half of the seventeenth century the French official powder was weaker than the above—75.6 salp., 13.6 char., and 10.8 sulph.—and for big guns had grains as large as hazel-nuts.[467] At Pont-à-Mousson, just across the German border, powders of different compositions were in use in 1620;[468] and east of the Rhine powder for different guns probably varied in grain, and certainly varied in composition. “Of the various powders now made,” says Furtenbach in 1627, “the following are generally employed:[469]—