INTRODUCTORY. 9 



rials allow me, to shew how wealth was distributed in Eng- 

 land during the fourteenth century. It will be needful also 

 to discuss the moneys, the weights, and the measures of the 

 time, a subject on which some variety of opinion has pre- 

 vailed; and to determine, as far as possible, the proportion 

 which such moneys bore to present values. 



From these general considerations I shall pass to actual 

 prices. Of these the most important are corn and labour, 

 partly because they bear most nearly upon the social history 

 of the time, partly because they can be estimated with the 

 greatest precision. Thence I shall proceed to comment on 

 the prices of agricultural stock and produce, and of the mate- 

 rials necessary for the industrial occupations of the time, 

 the subsistence of the labourer, and the supply of such con- 

 veniences as a rude manufacture and an undeveloped com- 

 merce afforded. 



The tables of averages, and other numerical statements, 

 have been prepared with as much care and precision as my 

 abilities permit. I shall state the method which I have 

 adopted in each case, and as it is quite possible that abler 

 analysts may examine the figures which I have collected, I 

 leave them to determine whether my inferences are correct. 

 The facts of the second volume are far more important than 

 the comments of the first. 



In order to make the tables as suggestive as possible, I shall 

 reduce the values of the most important among the series to 

 grains of silver, premising that the same value has been as- 

 signed throughout to the nominal currency, on the ground 

 that the issues of the mint were, in large payments at least, 

 corrected by the all but universal practice of weighing the 

 specie employed in the transactions of trade. 



In conclusion, I shall attempt to tabulate certain prices, 

 with a view to exhibiting the purchasing power of money at 

 certain dates in the period before us, so as by these means 

 to supply opportunity for comparison with the facts of later 

 times. It will be admitted that the historical value of such 



