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Rh as I have said, in the houses of their employers; this, however, was not the case with all, and if we can satisfy ourselves as to the rate at which those among the poor were able to live who had cottages of their own, we may be assured that the rest did not live worse at their master's tables.

Wheat, the price of which necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the fourteenth century tenpence the bushel; barley averaging at the same time three shillings the quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive; a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging from eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings; the average, however, being six and eightpence. When the price was above this sum, the merchants might import to bring it down; when it was below this price, the farmers were allowed to export to the foreign markets. The same scale, with a scarcely appreciable tendency to rise, continued to hold until the disturbance in the value of the currency. In the twelve years from 1551 to 1562, although once before harvest wheat rose to the extraordinary price of forty-five shillings a quarter, it fell immediately after to five shillings and four. Six and eightpence continued to be considered in parliament as the average; and on the whole it seems to have been maintained for that time with little variation.