| Oil Dressed | Value | Fee |
| Right Buffe[634] | 33s. 4d.—15s. each | 7d. |
| Counterfeit Buffe | 13s. 4d.—7s. " | 7d. |
| Right Shamoise | 30s. the doz. | 7d. |
| Counterfeit " | 14s. " | 7d. |
| Sheep " | 8s. " | 3½d. |
| Lamb " | 6s. " | 3½d. |
| Right Spannish skins[635] | 30s. " | 7d. |
| Counterfeit Spannish skins of goat and buck | 3 li. " | 7d. |
| Counterfeit Spannish sheep skins | 12s. " | 3½d. |
| Right Cordovan skins | 40s. " | 12d. |
| Seal skins dressed | 40s. " | 7d. |
| Stagge skins,[636] English, Scottish, as big as buffyn, dressed like buffe | 12s. each | 6d. |
| Stag skins, Irish, dressed like buffe | 3 li. the doz. | 12d. |
| Buck and doe, dressed like buffe | 40s. " | 12d. |
| Calf skins, in like sort | 16s. " | 7d. |
A number of trades, such as glovers, saddlers, pursemakers, girdlers, and bottlemakers, used leather, but the most important class were the shoemakers. They in turn were divided into a number of branches, at the head of which stood the cordwainers, who derived their name from having originally been workers of Cordovan leather, but were in actual practice makers of the better class of shoes.[637] At the other end were the cobblers, or menders of old shoes. Elaborate regulations were made in London in 1409 to prevent these two classes trespassing on one another's preserves.[638] The cobbler might clout an old sole with new leather or patch the uppers, but if the boot required an entirely new sole, or if a new shoe were burnt or broken and required a fresh piece put in, then the work must be given to the cordwainer. A distinction was also drawn at a much earlier date, in 1271,[639] between two classes of cordwainers, the allutarii and the basanarii, the latter being those who used 'basan' or 'bazan,' an inferior leather made from sheepskin. Neither was to use the other's craft, though the allutarius might make the uppers (quissellos) of his shoes of bazan: to prevent any confusion the two classes were to occupy separate positions in the fairs and markets. In 1320 we find eighty pairs of shoes seized from twenty different persons, thirty-one pairs being taken from Roger Brown of Norwich, and forfeited for being made of bazan and cordwain mixed.[640] Fifty years later, in 1375, a heavy fine was ordained for any one selling shoes of bazan as being cordwain,[641] and a similar ordinance was in force at Bristol in 1408.[642] By the London rules of 1271, no cordwainer was to keep more than eight journeymen (servientes), and at Bristol in 1364 the shoemakers were restricted to a single 'covenant-hynd,' who was to be paid 18d. a week and allowed eight pairs of shoes yearly.[643] In the case of Bristol, however, no limit is stated for the number of journeymen, who were paid by piecework, the rates being, in 1364, 3d. a dozen for sewing, and 3d. for yarking; 3d. for making a pair of boots entirely, that is to say, 1d. for cutting and 2d. for sewing and yarking; 2d. for cutting a dozen pairs of shoes, namely 1d. for the overleathers and 1d. for the soles, and a further 1d. for lasting the dozen shoes. The rates of pay were still the same in 1408, though there are additional entries of 12d. for sewing, yarking, and finishing a dozen boots and shoes called 'quarter-schone,' and 7d. for sewing and yarking, with an extra 1½d. for finishing a dozen shoes called 'course ware.'[644]
The sale of the finished articles was also an object of regulations: in London in 1271, shoes might only be hawked in the district between Corveiserstrete and Soperes Lane, and there only in the morning on ordinary days, though on the eves of feast they might be sold in the afternoon.[645] Leather laces also might not be sold at the 'eve chepings.'[646] Possibly it was considered that bad leather might be more easily passed off in a bad light, but the idea may simply have been to prevent the competition of the pedlars and hawkers with the shopkeepers. At Northampton, in 1452, the two classes of tradesmen were separated, those who had shops not being allowed to sell also in the market.[647] Northampton had not at this date begun to acquire the fame which it earned during the seventeenth century as the centre of the English boot trade, but regulations for the 'corvysers crafte' there had been drawn up in 1402,[648] and much earlier, in 1266, we find Henry III. ordering the bailiffs of Northampton to provide a hundred and fifty pairs of shoes, half at 5d. and half at 4d. the pair.[649] These were for distribution to the poor; and similar orders in other years were usually executed in either London or Winchester: no particular importance can be attached to this single order being given to Northampton, as presumably any large town could have carried out the order. So far as any town can be placed at the head of the shoemaking industry, the distinction must be given to Oxford where the cordwainers' gild was in existence early in the twelfth century, it being reconstituted in 1131,[650] and its monopoly confirmed by Henry II.[651]
CHAPTER X
BREWING—ALE, BEER, CIDER
Malt liquors have been from time immemorial the national drink of England, but the ale of medieval times was quite different from the liquor which now passes indifferently under the names ale or beer. It was more of a sweet wort, of about the consistency of barley water. Andrew Borde,[652] writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, says: 'Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme or godesgood, doth sofysticat theyr ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drynke. Ale must have these propertyes: it muste be fresshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy nor smoky, nor must it have no weft nor tayle. Ale should not be dronke under v dayes olde. Newe ale is unholsome for all men. And sowre ale, and dead ale the which doth stand a tylt, is good for no man. Barly malte maketh better ale then oten malte or any other corne doth: it doth ingendre grose humoures; but yette it maketh a man stronge.'
The supremacy of English ale was already established by the middle of the twelfth century, that of Canterbury being particularly famous,[653] and casks of ale were amongst the presents taken by Becket to the French court on the occasion of his embassy in 1157.[654] At this time it really deserved the title of 'the people's food in liquid form'; the consumption per head of population must have been enormous, the ordinary monastic corrody, or allowance of food, stipulating for a gallon of good ale a day, with very often a second gallon of weak ale. It must be borne in mind that it was drunk at all times, taking the place not only of such modern inventions as tea and coffee, but also of water, insomuch that a thirteenth-century writer describing the extreme poverty of the Franciscans when they first settled in London (A.D. 1224) exclaims, 'I have seen the brothers drink ale so sour that some would have preferred to drink water.'[655] Such was the importance attached to ale that it was coupled with bread for purposes of legal supervision, and the right to hold the 'assize of bread and ale' was one of the earliest justicial privileges asserted by municipal and other local courts. The Assize of Ale as recorded on the Statute Rolls in the time of Henry III. fixed the maximum price of ale throughout the kingdom on the basis of the price of malt, or rather of the corn from which malt was made.[656] When wheat stood at 3s. or 3s. 4d. the quarter, barley at 20d. to 2s., and oats at 16d., then brewers in towns were to sell two gallons of ale for a penny, and outside towns three or four gallons. And when three gallons were sold for a penny in a town then four gallons should be sold for a penny in the country. If corn rose a shilling the quarter, the price of ale might be raised a farthing the gallon.[657] A later ordinance, issued in 1283, set the price of the better quality of ale at 1½d.; and that of the weaker at 1d., and the commonalty of Bristol, fearing that they might be punished if the brewers of the town broke this regulation, issued stringent orders for its observance, infringement entailing the forfeiture of the offender's brewery.[658]