CHAP. XIX. IN ENGLAND. 79 



rather than real; because in the interval great 

 alterations had been made in the coin. In the 

 reign of Henry VII. the pound weight of silver 

 was coined into forty-five shillings, twenty of 

 which made a pound sterling. In that part of 

 the reign of Edward VI. in which Latimer 

 preached, for before his death an improvement 

 took place, the coin had been deteriorated, and 

 the pound of silver was coined into seventy-two 

 shillings. The pound of 1 497 was worth twenty- 

 six shillings and eight-pence in our present money, 

 and the pound of 1548 no more than seventeen 

 shillings and eight-pence, and consequently the ad- 

 vance of rent from four pounds to sixteen pounds 

 nominally, was really from five pounds six shillings 

 and eight-pence to fourteen pounds two shillings, 

 or little more than one hundred and sixty per 

 cent. This is a much more probable rate of ad- 

 vance than what would be inferred from the bare 

 words of the sermon. .It corresponds with the 

 contemporaneous increase in the quantity of the 

 precious metals, and with the general advance of 

 price in other commodities. 



The bishop was evidently unaware that the 

 influx of gold and silver from the new world was 

 producing a gradual increase of prices, and like 

 other persons in that age sought, with more zeal 

 than judgment, to find the causes of this ex- 

 traordinary phenomenon. He attributes this, 

 which he treated as a great evil, to enclosures, to 

 sheep walks, to regraters, forestallers, and to any 



