198 ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. . 



wheat, and beans, peas, and vetches are as deficient as other kinds 

 of grain. Altogether, the crop of this year must have been nearly 

 a total failure, and we shall find that at no time in English history 

 has a dearth of such magnitude occurred as at that immediately 

 before us. 



1316. The evidence in this year is wider than that in the year 

 preceding, the south-west, north, and part of the south-east of 

 England being represented. The average price of wheat will be 

 found to be higher, though the excessive prices of the past year were 

 not again realized : 20.?., however, is paid in several localities, the 

 highest rates, as before, being reached in the summer. The same 

 cause which raised the price of barley in the year before, the fact, 

 namely, that purchases, except during harvest-time, are rarely made 

 in this grain before the spring, gives the appearance of a lower 

 proportion to this kind of grain. It must, however, be observed, that 

 barley is never sold at such high rates as may be found in some 

 quotations for the year 1315. Oats, on the other hand, are in certain 

 places decidedly higher, a small quantity having been sold in Cam- 

 bridge at the unexampled price of io.y. 8d. Rye, again, is nearly 

 as dear as wheat, following its fluctuations, as might be expected, 

 closely. Beans and peas, are on the whole, dearer than in the pre- 

 ceding year, the rise being explained, as in other produce, by the fact 

 that the average is derived from continuous scarcity, for a fall is 

 established in some places which have contributed evidence for 

 the preceding year as well as this. Vetches are considerably 

 lower. 



Altogether, the circumstances of the two years, 1315, 1316, plainly 

 indicate an absolute dearth. It will be found that the scarcity was 

 not local but universal, the whole country having been similarly 

 affected. Nor will any parallel, it may be asserted confidently, be 

 discovered for these two years. We shall find, indeed, that the years 

 1321 and 1369 approach the famine which prevailed in the two years 

 before us, but at a considerable distance, whether we consider the 

 rate at which corn was purchased or the universality of the dearth. 

 The highest prices which have ever prevailed since the annual corn 

 returns of 1582, are, when we consider the proportion which the rates 

 of 1315-16 bear to the average price and the value of money, indica- 

 tive on comparison of almost a trivial increase. The highest quotation 

 of wheat in modern English history is that of December 1800, when 

 it is returned at 6 13^. ^d. This, however, was not much more 

 than double the ordinary price, while the scarcity of 1315 represents 



