Adam Smith：The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI, Paragraph 496

Thus, in the assize of bread and ale, of the 51st of Henry III. the price of bread was regulated according to the different prices of wheat, from one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter of the money of those times. But in the manuscripts from which all the different editions of the statutes, preceding that of Mr Ruffhead, were printed, the copiers had never transcribed this regulation beyond the price of twelve shillings. Several writers, therefore, being misled by this faulty transcription, very naturally conclude that the middle price, or six shillings the quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present money, was the ordinary or average price of wheat at that time.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Locator：Book I, Chapter XI, paragraph 496 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Exact match

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