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First Period.-In 1350, and for some time before, the average

price of the quarter of wheat in England seems not to have been

estimated lower than four ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal

to about twenty shillings of our present money. From this price

it seems to have fallen gradually to two ounces of silver, equal

to about ten shillings of our present money, the price at which

we find it estimated in the beginning of the sixteenth century,

and at which it seems to have continued to be estimated till

about 1570.