FIRST PERIOD
In 1350, and for some time before, the average price of the quarter of wheat
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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
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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 signi-fied not only cloaths 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. Ten-pence 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 Ed-ward 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
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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, G.ed. p196 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,
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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
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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, first, 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; secondly, fifty-eight quar-ters of malt, which cost seventeen pounds ten shillings, or six shillings a quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present money; thirdly, 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
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ness 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
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called The Assize of Bread and Ale, which the king says in the preamble had been made in the times of his progenitors, sometime kings of
Eng-land. It is probably, therefore, as old at least as the time of his grandfather G.ed. p197 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 suppos-ing 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
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conclude that, about the middle of the fourteenth century, and for a consid-erable 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
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teenth 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
The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
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 houshold book of Henry, the fifth Earl of Northumberland, drawn
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up in 1512, there are two different estimations of wheat. In one of them it is computed at six shillings and eight-pence the quarter, in the other at five shillings and eight-pence only. In 1512, six shillings and eightpence contained only two ounces of silver, Tower-weight, and were equal to about ten shillings of our present money.
From the 25th of Edward III to the beginning of the reign of
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beth, during the space of more than two hundred years, six shillings and
eight-pence, it appears from several different statutes, had continued to G.ed. p198 be considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable, that is the
ordinary or average price of wheat. The quantity of silver, however, tained in that nominal sum was, during the course of this period, con-tinually diminishing, in consequence of some alterations which were made in the coin. But the increase of the value of silver had, it seems, so far compensated the diminution of the quantity of it contained in the same nominal sum that the legislature did not think it worth while to attend to this circumstance.
Thus in 1436 it was enacted that wheat might be exported without a
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licence when the price was so low as six shillings and eightpence; and in 1463 it was enacted that no wheat should be imported if the price was not above six shillings and eightpence the quarter. The legislature had imagined that when the price was so low there could be no inconveniency in exportation, but that when it rose higher it became prudent to allow importation. Six shillings and eightpence, therefore, containing about the same quantity of silver as thirteen shillings and fourpence of our present money (one third part less than the same nominal sum contained in the time of Edward III), had in those times been considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable price of wheat.
In 1554, by the 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary; and in 1558, by the
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1st of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat was in the same manner pro-hibited, whenever the price of the quarter should exceed six shillings and eight-pence, which did not then contain two pennyworth more silver than the same nominal sum does at present. But it had soon been found that to restrain the exportation of wheat till the price was so very low was, in real-ity, to prohibit it altogether. In 1562, therefore, by the 5th of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat was allowed from certain ports whenever the price of the quarter should not exceed ten shillings, containing nearly the same quantity of silver as the like nominal sum does at present. This price had at this time, therefore, been considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable price of wheat. It agrees nearly with the estimation of the Northumberland book in 1512.
That in France the average price of grain was, in the same manner,
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much lower in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
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century than in the two centuries preceding has been observed both by
Mr. Dupre de St. Maur, and by the elegant author of the Essay on the po- G.ed. p199 lice of grain. Its price, during the same period, had probably sunk in the
same manner through the greater part of Europe.
This rise in the value of silver in proportion to that of corn, may either
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have been owing altogether to the increase of the demand for that metal, in consequence of increasing improvement and cultivation, the supply in the meantime continuing the same as before; or, the demand continuing the same as before, it may have been owing altogether to the gradual diminu-tion of the supply; the greater part of the mines which were then known in the world being much exhausted, and consequently the expense of work-ing them much increased; or it may have been owwork-ing partly to the other of those two circumstances. In the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the greater part of Europe was approaching towards a more settled form of government than it had enjoyed for several ages before. The increase of security would naturally increase industry and im-provement; and the demand for the precious metals, as well as for every other luxury and ornament, would naturally increase with the increase of riches. A greater annual produce would require a greater quantity of coin to circulate it; and a greater number of rich people would require a greater quantity of plate and other ornaments of silver. It is natural to suppose, too, that the greater part of the mines which then supplied the European market with silver might be a good deal exhausted, and have become more expensive in the working. They had been wrought many of them from the time of the Romans.
It has been the opinion, however, of the greater part of those who have
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written upon the price of commodities in ancient times that, from the Con-quest, perhaps from the invasion of Julius Caesar till the discovery of the mines of America, the value of silver was continually diminishing. This
opinion they seem to have been led into, partly by the observations which G.ed. p200 they had occasion to make upon the prices both of corn and of some other
parts of the rude produce of land; and partly by the popular notion that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in every country with the in-crease of wealth, so its value diminishes as its quantity inin-creases.
In their observations upon the prices of corn, three different
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stances seem frequently to have misled them.
First, in ancient times almost all rents were paid in kind; in a certain
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quantity of corn, cattle, poultry, etc. It sometimes happened, however, that the landlord would stipulate that he should be at liberty to demand of the tenant, either the annual payment in kind, or a certain sum of money in-stead of it. The price at which the payment in kind was in this manner exchanged for a certain sum of money is in Scotland called the conversion price. As the option is always in the landlord to take either the substance or the price, it is necessary for the safety of the tenant that the conversion price should rather be below than above the average market price. In many
The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
places, accordingly, it is not much above one-half of this price. Through the greater part of Scotland this custom still continues with regard to poultry, and in some places with regard to cattle. It might probably have continued to take place, too, with regard to corn, had not the institution of the public fiars put an end to it. These are annual valuations, according to the judg-ment of an assize, of the average price of all the different sorts of grain, and of all the different qualities of each, according to the actual market price in every different county. This institution rendered it sufficiently safe for the tenant, and much more convenient for the landlord, to convert, as they call it, the corn rent, rather at what should happen to be the price of the fiars of each year, than at any certain fixed price. But the writers who have
collected the prices of corn in ancient times seem frequently to have mis- G.ed. p201 taken what is called in Scotland the conversion price for the actual market
price. Fleetwood acknowledges, upon one occasion, that he had made this mistake. As he wrote his book, however, for a particular purpose, he does not think proper to make this acknowledgment till after transcribing this conversion price fifteen times. The price is eight shillings the quarter of wheat. This sum in 1423, the year at which he begins with it, contained the same quantity of silver as sixteen shillings of our present money. But in 1562, the year at which he ends with it, it contained no more than the same nominal sum does at present.
Secondly, they have been misled by the slovenly manner in which some
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ancient statutes of assize had been sometimes transcribed by lazy copiers;
and sometimes perhaps actually composed by the legislature.
The ancient statutes of assize seem to have begun always with
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ining what ought to be the price of bread and ale when the price of wheat and barley were at the lowest, and to have proceeded gradually to
determ-ine what it ought to be, according as the prices of those two sorts of grain G.ed. p202 should gradually rise above this lowest price. But the transcribers of those
statutes seem frequently to have thought it sufficient to copy the regu-lation as far as the three or four first and lowest prices, saving in this manner their own labour, and judging, I suppose, that this was enough to show what proportion ought to be observed in all higher prices.
Thus in the Assize of Bread and Ale, of the 51st of Henry III, the price
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of bread was regulated according to the different prices of wheat, from one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter, of the money of those times.
But in the manuscripts from which all the different editions of the stat-utes, preceding that of Mr. Ruffhead, were printed, the copiers had never transcribed this regulation beyond the price of twelve shillings. Several writers, therefore, being misled by this faulty transcription, very natur-ally concluded that the middle price, or six shillings the quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present money, was the ordinary or average price of wheat at that time.
In the Statute of Tumbrel and Pillory, enacted nearly about the same
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time, the price of ale is regulated according to every sixpence rise in the
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price of barley, from two shillings to four shillings the quarter. That four shillings, however, was not considered as the highest price to which barley might frequently rise in those times, and that these prices were only given as an example of the proportion which ought to be observed in all other prices, whether higher or lower, we may infer from the last words of the statute: et sic deinceps crescetur vel diminuetur per sex denarios. The expression is very slovenly, but the meaning is plain enough: ‘That the price of ale is in this manner to be increased or diminished according to every sixpence rise or fall in the price of barley’. In the composition of this statute the legislature itself seems to have been as negligent as the copiers were in the transcription of the other.
In an ancient manuscript of the Regiam Majestatem, an old Scotch law
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book, there is a statute of assize in which the price of bread is regulated ac-cording to all the different prices of wheat, from tenpence to three shillings the Scotch boll, equal to about half an English quarter. Three shillings Scotch, at the time when this assize is supposed to have been enacted were
equal to about nine shillings sterling of our present money. Mr. Ruddiman G.ed. p203 seems3 to conclude from this, that three shillings was the highest price
to which wheat ever rose in those times, and that tenpence, a shilling, or at most two shillings, were the ordinary prices. Upon consulting the ma-nuscript, however, it appears evidently that all these prices are only set down as examples of the proportion which ought to be observed between the respective prices of wheat and bread. The last words of the statute are: reliqua judicabis secundum proescripta habendo respectum ad pre-tium bladi. ‘You shall judge of the remaining cases according to what is above written, having a respect to the price of corn.’
Thirdly, they seem to have been misled, too, by the very low price at
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which wheat was sometimes sold in very ancient times; and to have ima-gined that as its lowest price was then much lower than in later times, its ordinary price must likewise have been much lower. They might have
which wheat was sometimes sold in very ancient times; and to have ima-gined that as its lowest price was then much lower than in later times, its ordinary price must likewise have been much lower. They might have