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Neither wind nor water mills of any kind were known in England so

early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, nor, so far as I

know, in any other part of Europe north of the Alps. They had

been introduced into Italy some time before.

The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some

measure, explain to us why the real price both of the coarse and

of the fine manufacture was so much higher in those ancient than

it is in the present times. It cost a greater quantity of labour

to bring the goods to market. When they were brought thither,

therefore, they must have purchased, or exchanged for the price

of, a greater quantity.