wheat in England seems not to have been estimated
lower than four ounces of silver,
Tower weight, equal to about twenty shillings
of our present money. From this price it
seems to have fallen gradually to two ounces
of silver, equal to about ten shillings of our
present money, the price at which we find it
estimated in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, and at which it seems to have continued
to be estimated till about 1570.
In 1350, being the 25th of Edward III.
was enacted what is called the Statute of Labourers.
In the preamble, it complains much
of the insolence of servants, who endeavoured
to raise their wages upon their masters. It
therefore ordains, that all servants and labourers
should, for the future, be contented with
the same wages and liveries (liveries in those
times signified not only clothes, but provisions)
which they had been accustomed to receive in
the 20th year of the king, and the four preceding
years; that, upon this account, their
livery-wheat should nowhere be estimated
higher than tenpence a-bushel, and that it
should always be in the option of the master
to deliver them either the wheat or the money.
Tenpence a-bushel, therefore, had, in the 25th
of Edward III. been reckoned a very moderate
price of wheat, since it required a particular
statute to oblige servants to accept of it
in exchange for their usual livery of provisions;
and it had been reckoned a reasonable price
ten years before that, or in the 16th year of
the king, the term to which the statute refers.
But in the 16th year of Edward III. tenpence
contained about half an ounce of silver, Tower
weight, and was nearly equal to half-a-crown
of our present money. Four ounces of silver,
Tower weight, therefore, equal to six shillings
and eightpence of the money of those times,
and to near twenty shillings of that of the
present, must have been reckoned a moderate
price for the quarter of eight bushels.
This statute is surely a better evidence of
what was reckoned, in those times, a moderate
price of grain, than the prices of some particular
years, which have generally been recorded
by historians and other writers, on account
of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness,
and from which, therefore, it is difficult
to form any judgment concerning what may
have been the ordinary price. There are, besides,
other reasons for believing that, in the
beginning of the fourteenth century, and for
some time before, the common price of wheat
was not less than four ounces of silver the
quarter, and that of other grain in proportion.
In 1309, Ralph de Born, prior of St. Augustine's,
Canterbury, gave a feast upon his
installation-day, of which William Thorn has
preserved, not only the bill of fare, but the
prices of many particulars. In that feast were
consumed, 1st, fifty-three quarters of wheat,
which cost nineteen pounds, or seven shillings
and twopence a-quarter, equal to about one-and-twenty
shillings and sixpence of our present
money; 2dly, fifty-eight quarters of malt,
which cost seventeen pounds ten shillings, or
six shillings a-quarter, equal to about eighteen
shillings of our present money; 3dly,
twenty quarters of oats, which cost four pounds,
or four shillings a-quarter, equal to about
twelve shillings of our present money. The
prices of malt and oats seem here to be higher
than their ordinary proportion to the price of
wheat.
These prices are not recorded, on account
of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness,
but are mentioned accidentally, as the prices
actually paid for large quantities of grain consumed
at a feast, which was famous for its
magnificence.
In 1262, being the 51st of Henry III. was
revived an ancient statute, called the assize of
bread and ale, which, the king says in the
preamble, had been made in the times of his
progenitors, some time kings of England. It
is probably, therefore, as old at least as the
time of his grandfather, Henry II. and may
have been as old as the Conquest. It regulates
the price of bread according as the prices
of wheat may happen to be, from one shilling
to twenty shillings the quarter of the money
of those times. But statutes of this kind are
generally presumed to provide with equal care
for all deviations from the middle price, for
those below it, as well as for those above it.
Ten shillings, therefore, containing six ounces
of silver, Tower weight, and equal to about
thirty shillings of our present money, must,
upon this supposition, have been reckoned the
middle price of the quarter of wheat when
this statute was first enacted, and must have
continued to be so in the 51st of Henry III.
We cannot, therefore, be very wrong in supposing
that the middle price was not less than
one-third of the highest price at which this
statute regulates the price of bread, or than
six shillings and eightpence of the money of
those times, containing four ounces of silver,
Tower weight.
From these different facts, therefore, we
seem to have some reason to conclude that,
about the middle of the fourteenth century,
and for a considerable time before, the average
or ordinary price of the quarter of wheat
was not supposed to be less than four ounces
of silver, Tower weight.
From about the middle of the fourteenth
to the beginning of the sixteenth century,
what was reckoned the reasonable and moderate,
that is, the ordinary or average price of
wheat, seems to have sunk gradually to about
one half of this price; so as at last to have
fallen to about two ounces of silver, Tower
weight, equal to about ten shillings of our
present money. It continued to be estimated
at this price till about 1570.
In the household book of Henry, the fifth