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been reckoned a very moderate price of wheat, since it required a

particular statute to oblige servants to accept of it in exchange

for their usual livery of provisions; and it had been reckoned a

reasonable price ten years before that, or in the 16th year of

the king, the term to which the statute refers. But in the 16th

year of Edward III. tenpence contained about half an ounce of

silver, Tower weight, and was nearly equal to half-a-crown of our

present money. Four ounces of silver, Tower weight, therefore,

equal to six shillings and eightpence of the money of those

times, and to near twenty shillings of that of the present, must

have been reckoned a moderate price for the quarter of eight

bushels.