Note 32 — PART I.

A few examples of the retail price of wine throughout the century at Reims may here be noted. For instance, a judgment of 1303 provided that all tavern-keepers selling wine at a higher rate than six deniers, or about a farthing per lot, the rate fixed by ancient custom, were to pay a fine of twenty-two sous. The lot or pot, for the two terms are indifferently used, was about the third of an old English gallon, four pots making a septier, and thirty-six septiers a poinçon or demi-queue, equal to about forty-eight gallons. The queue was therefore about ninety-six gallons at Reims, but at Epernay not more than eighty-five gallons. Not only had every district its separate measures,—those of Paris, for instance, differing widely from those of Reims,—but there were actually different measures used in the various lay and ecclesiastical jurisdictions into which Reims was divided.

In the accounts of the Echevinage, wine, chiefly for presents to persons of distinction, makes a continual appearance. In 1335 it is noted that ‘the presents of this year were made in wine at 16 deniers and 20 deniers the pot,’ or about 2 ¼ d. English per gallon. In 1337–8 prices ranged from ¾ d. to 4 ½ d. English per gallon, showing a variety in quality; and in 1345 large quantities were purchased at the first-mentioned rate, five quarts of white wine fetching 2 d. English. In 1352 from a 1 d. to 2 ¼ d. was paid per gallon, and five crowns for two queues. In 1363 the citizens, a hot-headed turbulent lot, who were always squabbling with their spiritual and temporal superior and assailing his officers, when not assaulting each other or pulling their neighbours’ houses down, successfully resisted the pretensions of the archbishop to regulate the price of wine when the cheapest was worth 12 deniers per pot, or 1 ½ d. per gallon. The dispute continued, and in 1367 a royal commission was issued to the bailli of Vermandois, the king’s representative, to inquire into the right of the burghers to sell wine by retail at 16 deniers, as they desired. The report of the bailli was that a queue of old French wine being worth about 20 livres, or 16 s. 8 d., and wine of Beaune and other better and stronger wines being sold in the town at higher rates, French wine might be sold as high as 3 ½ d. English per gallon, and Beaune at 4 ½ d. The great increase in production, and consequent fall in price, is shown by the wine found in Archbishop Richard Pique’s cellar in 1389 being valued, on an average, at only 1 s. 6 d. per queue.