Strona 686 z 2651

The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibited from

wearing hose, of which the price should exceed fourteen-pence the

pair, equal to about eight-and-twenty pence of our present money.

But fourteen-pence was in those times the price of a bushel and

near two pecks of wheat; which in the present times, at three and

sixpence the bushel, would cost five shillings and threepence. We

should in the present times consider this as a very high price

for a pair of stockings to a servant of the poorest and lowest

order. He must however, in those times, have paid what was really

equivalent to this price for them.

In the time of Edward IV. the art of knitting stockings was

probably not known in any part of Europe. Their hose were made of

common cloth, which may have been one of the causes of their

dearness. The first person that wore stockings in England is said

to have been Queen Elizabeth. She received them as a present from

the Spanish ambassador.