he changes that may take
place from the time when this is written [1816].

[720] I have sometimes been surprised at the facility with which prices
adjusted themselves to the quantity of silver contained in the current
coin, in ages which appear too ignorant and too little commercial for
the application of this mercantile principle. But the extensive dealings
of the Jewish and Lombard usurers, who had many debtors in almost all
parts of the country, would of itself introduce a knowledge, that
silver, not its stamp, was the measure, of value. I have mentioned in
another place (vol. i. p. 211) the heavy discontents excited by this
debasement of the coin in France; but the more gradual enhancement of
nominal prices in England seems to have prevented any strong
manifestations of a similar spirit at the successive reductions in value
which the coin experienced from the year 1300. The connexion however
between commodities and silver was well understood. Wykes, an annalist
of Edward I.'s age, tells us, that the Jews clipped our coin, till it
retained hardly half its due weight, the effect of which was a general
enhancement of prices, and decline of foreign trade: Mercatores
transmarini cum mercimoniis suis regnum Angliae minus solito
frequentabant; necnon quod omnimoda venalium genera incomparabiliter
solito fuerunt cariora. 2 Gale, XV Script. p. 107. Another chronicler of
the same age complains of bad foreign money, alloyed with copper; nec
erat in quatuor aut quinque ex iis pondus unius denarii argentii....
Eratque pessimum saeculum pro tali moneta, et fiebant commutationes
plurimae in emptione et venditione rerum. Edward, as the historian
informs us, bought in this bad money at a rate below its value, in order
to make a profit; and fined some persons who interfered with his
traffic. W. Hemingford, ad ann. 1299.

[721] These will chiefly be found in Sir F. Eden's table of prices; the
following may be added from the account-book of a convent between 1415
and 1425. Wheat varied from 4_s._ to 6_s._--barley from 3_s._ 2_d._ to
4_s._ 10_d._--oats from 1_s._ 8_d._ to 2_s._ 4_d._--oxen from 12_s._ to
16_s._--sheep from 1_s._ 2_d._ to 1_s._ 4_d._--butter 3/4_d._ per
lb.--eggs twenty-five for 1_d._--cheese 1/2_d._ per lb. Lansdowne MSS.,
vol. i. No. 28 and 29. These prices do not always agree with those given
in other documents of equal authority in the same period; but the value
of provisions varied in different counties, and still