ancient times the raising of corn,
especially wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity
always bore a higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our
times [g]. The Saxon Chronicle tells us [h], that in the reign of
Edward the Confessor, there was the most terrible famine ever known;
insomuch that a quarter of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen
shillings of our present money. Consequently it was as dear as if it
now cost seven pounds ten shillings. This much exceeds the great
famine in the end of Queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold
for four pounds. Money in this last period was nearly of the same
value as in our time. These severe famines are a certain proof of bad
husbandry.
[FN [q] LL. Aelf. Sec. 40. [r] Fleetwood's Chron. Pretiosum, p. 27,
28, &c. [s] LL. Inae, Sec. 69. [t] Wilkins, p 66. [u] Ibid. p. 126.
[w] Ibid. [x] LL. Inae, Sec. 38. [y] p. 121. [z] Hist. Rames, p.
415. [a] Hist. Eliens. p. 473. [b] Ibid. p. 471. [c] Wilkins, p.
126. [d] Ibid. p. 56. [e] Monast. Anglic. vol. ii. p. 528. [f] Mat.
Paris. [g] Fleetwood, p. 83, 94, 96, 98. [h] p. 157.]

On the whole, there are three things to be considered, wherever a sum
of money is mentioned in ancient times. First, the change of
denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of
its ancient weight in silver. Secondly, the change in value by the
greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver
to ten times less value compared to commodities; and consequently a
pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the ancient value. Thirdly,
the fewer people and less industry, which were then to be found in
every European kingdom. This circumstance made even the thirtieth
part of the sum more difficult to levy, and caused any sum to have
more than thirty times greater weight and influence, both abroad and
at home, than in our times; in the same manner that a sum, a hundred
thousand pounds, for instance, is at present more difficult to levy in
a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce greater effects on
such a small community, than on England. This last difference is not
easy to be calculated: but allowing that England has now six times
more industry, and three times more people than it had at the
Conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that
supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum
of money mentioned by historians, as if it