334

LOW PRICES OF

CHAP. XII.

ox, 20s .; a fat sheep, 2s.; a fat goose, 6 d .; ayoung pig, 3d.; and six pigeons, 3d.

The wages of labour, or the rates allowed forthe subsistence of different classes of persons,may both be usefully employed to elucidate thevalue of the precious metals.

We find in the Chronicon Preciosum, that inthe year 1237 there were three chaplains whodid daily duty in the church of the Templars ,each of whom were paid a yearly salary of fourmarcs, each marc being eight ounces of silver,thus making their pay equal to ^£8 of our cur-rency.

By an act of 36th of Edward III . cap. 8., inthe year 1414, it is ordered that no man shallgive to a parish priest more than ten pounds ayear, or else his board and four pounds a year.In 1414, by the act of 5th Henry V. cap. 8., itis enacted that the yearly salary of chaplains shallbe nine pounds six shillings and eightpence, andthat of parish priests twelve pounds. In 1421,the archbishop of Canterbury, in convocation,confirmed a former order, by which each parishpriest was to content himself with eight marcs ayear, or with four marcs and his diet.

Fleetwood, speaking of the year 1439, ob-serves, that a clergyman could maintain himselfrespectably for ten pounds a year.

We find in the Chronicon, that workmen tooktheir wages in wheat at the price of sixteen-