ALL SOULS
The full name of "All Souls" is "The College of the Souls of All the Faithful Persons Deceased in Oxford," It was founded in 1437, as a Memorial to the Brave Warriors who fell at Agincourt in 1415; and it thereby antedates the discovery of America by over half a century.
It took seven years to complete the buildings, at a cost of a little over four thousand pounds. The account-books, which have been preserved, make very pleasant reading to those of us who have, in recent days, been paying for the erection of private homes, or of public institutions, in the New World. The workmen were the most skilful that could be procured; and we learn that sawyers and carpenters were paid sixpence a day; masons eight pence; laborers four pence half penny; daubers—otherwise painters—five pence, and all female laborers five pence. A horse, purchased for the Warden, in 1451, cost sixty shillings; a pair of boots two and eight pence; and,most interesting of all, the bill for a small pig and a capon—it is not recorded for whose consumption—amounted to twelve pence—say a quarter of a dollar—for the pair.
15
