ABSTRACT
X has already been mentioned, the static or falling pricelevels which persisted for something like IS0 years beforethe accession of the Tudors gave way round about the beginning of the sixteenth century to a gradual increase. Between 1500 and 1540 prices rose by a half; they then more than doubled
in the next twenty years; thereafter the curve flattened, but by the end of the century prices were about five and a half times what they had been 100 years earlier. 1 Of course, this rise must not be thought of as a straightfonvard advance along a consistently climbing line. Occasional sharp lifts must still be ascribed to the ancient causes of famine and dearth; there were bad harvests in the 1530S and 1590S which produced perfectly natural sudden increases in prices. At times prices might even drop again a little. But despite local and temporary differences it is plain that they were constantly on the upgrade, that better harvests after a famine did not reduce the price of wheat to its former level, and that contemporary accounts of hardships reveal a persistent though uneven and not altogether calculable inflation.
