THE WEA1.T1I OK NATIONS.
181
this faulty transcription, very naturally concluded that themiddle price, or six shillings the quarter, equal to about eigh-teen shillings of our present money, was the ordinary oraverage price of wheat at that time.
In the statute of Tumbrel and Pillory , enacted nearly aboutthe same time, the price of ale is regulated according to everysixpence rise in the price of barley, from two shillings to fourshillings the quarter. That four shillings, however,was not con-sidered as the highest price to which barley might frequentlyrise in those times, and that these prices were only given asan example of the proportion which ought to be observed inall other prices, whether higher or lower, we may infer fromthe last words of the statute: “ Et sic deinceps crescetur veldiminuetur per sex denarios.” The expression is very slovenly,but the meaning is plain enough ; “ That the price of ale isin this manner to be increased or diminished according toevery sixpence rise or fall in the price of barley.” In thecomposition of this statute the legislature itself seems to havebeen as negligent as the copiers were in the transcription ofthe other.
In an ancient manuscript of the Regiam Majestatem, anold Scotch law book, there is a statute of assize, in which theprice of bread is regulated according to all the different pricesof wheat, from ten-pence to three shillings the Scotch boll,equal to about half an English quarter. Three shillingsScotch, at the time when this assize is supposed to have beenenacted, were equal to about nine shillings sterling of ourpresent money. Mr. Ruddiman seems to conclude from this,*that three shillings was the highest price to which wheat everrose in those times, and that ten-pence, a shilling, or at mosttwo shillings, were the ordinary prices. Upon consulting themanuscript, however, it appears evidently, that all theseprices are only set down as examples of the proportion whichought to be observed between the respective prices of wheatand bread. The last words of the statutes are, “ reliqua judi-cabis secundum prsescripta habendo respectum ad pretiumbladi.” “ You shall judge of the remaining cases accordingto what is above written having a respect to the price ofcorn.”
Thirdly, they seem to have been misled too by the very lowprice at which wheat was sometimes sold in very ancienttimes i and to have imagined, that as its lowest price was