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Under the vigorous administration of the Tudors, who governed

England during the latter part of the fifteenth, and through the

whole of the sixteenth century, no baron was powerful enough to

dare to disturb the public security.

The reader will find at the end of this chapter all the prices of

wheat which have been collected by Fleetwood, from 1202 to 1597,

both inclusive, reduced to the money of the present times, and

digested, according to the order of time, into seven divisions of

twelve years each. At the end of each division, too, he will find

the average price of the twelve years of which it consists. In

that long period of time, Fleetwood has been able to collect the

prices of no more than eighty years; so that four years are

wanting to make out the last twelve years. I have added,

therefore, from the accounts of Eton college, the prices of 1598,

1599, 1600, and 1601. It is the only addition which I have made.

The reader will see, that from the beginning of the thirteenth

till after the middle of the sixteenth century, the average price

of each twelve years grows gradually lower and lower; and that

towards the end of the sixteenth century it begins to rise again.