FLEETWOOD, William, Bishop of Ely . Chronicon Preciosum: or, An account of English gold and silver money; the price of corn and other commodities; and of stipends, salaries, wages, jointures, portions, day-labour, &c. in England, for six hundred years la…

FLEETWOOD, William, Bishop of Ely . Chronicon Preciosum: or, An account of English gold and silver money; the price of corn and other commodities; and of stipends, salaries, wages, jointures, portions, day-labour, &c. in England, for six hundred years la…FLEETWOOD, William, Bishop of Ely. Chronicon Preciosum: or, An account of English gold and silver money; the price of corn and other commodities; and of stipends, salaries, wages, jointures, portions, day labour, &c. in England, for six hundred years last past illustrated with several plates of gold and silver coins. London: T. Osborne. 1745. 8vo. Contemporary calf, gilt double fillet border to covers, sometime rebacked with raised bands and paper

FLEETWOOD, William, Bishop of Ely. Chronicon Preciosum: or, An account of English gold and silver money; the price of corn and other commodities; and of stipends, salaries, wages, jointures, portions, day-labour, &c. in England, for six hundred years last past … illustrated with several plates of gold and silver coins. London: T. Osborne. 1745.

8vo. Contemporary calf, gilt double-fillet border to covers, sometime rebacked with raised bands and paper label to spine, edges sprinkled red; pp. [10], 147, [3], 30, [2], with 12 engraved plates of coins; loosely inserted an additional engraved portrait of Bishop Fleetwood; extremities a little worn, endpapers renewed; occasional light spotting but overall a very good, clean copy; ownership inscriptions “H. L. 1760” “D. A. 1834” in ink to title; occasional marginal annotation in ink and pencil.

Second edition, first published 1707. Bishop Fleetwood had been asked by a correspondent whether it was fair that a man should have to surrender his fellowship at Oxford for having an estate worth more than £5, when that limit had been set in 1440. Fleetwood's ensuing effort to work out how much £5 was worth in the fifteenth century led him to create this book, the first major historical survey of prices and wages. "Although in his price comparison Fleetwood did not go so far as to think of weighting his individual items according to their importance in a shopping basket, he did see the need to have a single magnitude, however approximate, as an index of change" (Stone). The book's significance did not gain recognition until the nineteenth century, although Adam Smith used some of Fleetwood's data in The Wealth of Nations.

ESTC T145226.

SKU: 2124128