the following valuable remarks.
“The generality of readers when they look into the records of antient times, are forcibly struck by the seeming lowness of the prices of every article of common demand, when compared with the modern prices. When they find that an ox was formerly sold for a few shillings, and the price of a quarter of corn calculated in pence, they are led to envy the supposed cheapness of those ages, and to bewail the distressing dearness of the present. Nothing however can be more absurd than the whining complaints founded upon such facts; for since the cheapness of living depends not so much upon the price given for every article of prime necessity, as upon the means by which, to use a common expression, the purchase may be afforded, we must, if we wish to form a proper judgment on the subject, rightly compare these means as they existed in different ages, otherwise our conclusions will be not only idle, but sometimes mischievous.
“It is very certain that money is a commodity, no less than the articles it is employed to purchase, and like them, its absolute value is depreciated or lowered by abundance. Since the discovery of America, the quantity of gold and silver brought into general circulation, and of late, the general and extensive use of paper money which represents real specie, produces the same effect as would arise from a still greater encrease of it. From this natural depreciation alone of the value of coin, it follows that were all other circumstances to have continued the same, the relative value of money would have decreased, or a greater number of pieces of the same denomination would be now required to produce the same effect as formerly, and therefore that it will be necessary to multiply any sum of money of the present age, into some certain number, in order to learn the effect of the same sum in an assigned preceding age.”
From this multiplication it is demonstrated that the price of the dozen of Ale, for which the Trinity Guild paid 20d. is equivalent to something more than 6d. a quart;—the fat sheep at 2s. 4d. to 1l. 11s. 4d.—the seven lambs at 7s. to 16s. each;—the thirty chickens at 23d. to rather more than 2s. 6d. the couple;—the two gallons of cream at 8d. to 2s. 8d. a quart;—the half quarter of malt at 2s. to 3l. 4s. the quarter;—the fourteen
geese at 4s. 3d. to nearly 5s. each.
In the reign of the Norman kings, articles, but especially corn, were dearer than at present. In Henry the sevenths reign meat was cheaper, but other articles dearer than at present. We now return to the church of St. Mary.
In the year 1783, the spire which had several times been injured by lightening, was so much shattered by a fresh stroke as to require to be taken down to the battlements. It was rebuilt under the direction of an architect, of the name of Cheshire at an expense, exclusive of the old materials, of 245l. 10s. the height of the spire from the ground 61 yards. In this church, in which for many years he officiated as curate, is interred the Rev. W. Bickerstaffe, a man of great simplicity of manners, and urbanity of disposition;
who by his laborious and minute researches materially assisted the Topographers of Leicester.
Near the north door of this church is a passage leading under an old fashioned building forming a gate-way into an area called the castle yard. That the present structure was the gate-way of the castle when it was tenable as a place of defence, cannot, for a moment be imagined; but that there was always an entrance at this place we are well assured, for the adjoining building on the left is known by the name of the Porter’s Lodge, and it must therefore be concluded that the present was built upon the scite of the antient gate-way, and that it was constructed with the timbers and other materials taken in later ages from some part of the castle which had been taken down.
At this gateway was preserved, till within a few years past, an antient ceremony expressive of the homage formerly paid by the magistrates of Leicester, to the feudal Lords of the castle. The mayor knocking for admittance at the gate was received by the constable of the castle, while the mace was sloped in token of homage; he then took an oath of allegiance to the king as heir to the Lancastrian property; the latter ceremony, agreeable to one of the corporation charters, is still performed, but in private. The office of constable of the castle, which in the beginning of the reign of Mary, was held by Henry duke of Suffolk, with the annual fee of sixty shillings and eight pence, is now retained only nominally.
Opposite the gate-way stands a building most probably erected by the first