| corn and other victualls from beyond the sea; and the | Aldermen each of them layd out twenty pound to the like | purpose of buying corn; which was bestowed in divers | places, where the poore might buy at an appointed price, | and such as lacked money to pay doune, did put in surity | to pay in the yeare following: in which yeare, when | Harvest came, the fields yielded plentifull increase, and | so the price of Corne began to decrease,” p. 68. | 1427 | England. Famine from great rains. | 1429 | Scotland. Dearth. | 1437-38 | England. Wheat rose from its ordinary price of 4s. to 4s. | 6d. per quarter to 26s. 8d. | | Bread was made from fern-roots.—Stow. | | Rains and tempests.—Short. | 1438 | England. “In the 17th yeere of Henry the Sixt, by meanes of | great tempests, immeasurable windes and raines, there | arose such a scarcitie that wheat was sold in some places | for 2 shillings 6 pence the bushell.”—Penkethman. | 1439 | England. (18 Hen. VI.). “Wheat was sold at London for 3s. | the bushell, mault at 13s. the quarter, and oates at 8d. | the bushell, which caused men to eat beanes, peas, and | barley, more than in an hundred years before: wherefore | Stephen Browne, then maior, sent into Pruse (Prussia), | and caused to be brought to London many ships laden with | rye, which did much good; for bread-corne was so scarce | in England that poor people made their breade of ferne | rootes.”—Penkethman. | 1440 | England. A scarcity. Scotland.—A famine. | 1486 | England. “Famine sore.” | 1491 | England. Considerable scarcity. | 1494 | England. Great scarcity and high prices. | 1521 | England. Famine and mortality. “Wheat sold in London for | 20s. a quarter.” | 1523 | England. Severe famine. | 1527 | England. (19 Hen. VIII.). “Such scarcitie of bread was at | London and throughout England that many dyed for want | thereof. The King sent to the Citie, of his owne | provision, 600 quarters: the bread carts then coming from | Stratford (where nearly all the bakings were, probably on | account of proximity to Epping Forest) towards London, | were met at the Mile End by a great number of citizens, | so that the maior and sheriffes were forced to goe and | rescue the same, and see them brought to the markets | appointed, wheat being then at 15s. the quarter. But