"In urban and rural communities alike, a consumer consciousness preceded other forms of political or industrial antagonism. Not wages, but the cost of bread, was the most sensitive indicator of popular discontent. Artisans, self-employed craftsmen, or such groups as the Cornish tin miners (where the traditions of the "free" miner coloured responses until the 19th century), saw their wages as regulated by custom or by their own bargaining. They expected to buy their provisions in the open market, and even in times of shortage they expected prices to be regulated by custom also. (The God-provided "laws" of supply and demand, whereby scarcity inevitably led to soaring prices, had by no means won acceptance in the popular mind, where older notions of face-to-face bargaining still persisted.) Any sharp rise in prices precipitated riot. An intricate tissue, of legislation and of custom regulated the "Assize of Bread", the size and quality of the loaf. Even the attempt to impose the standard Winchester measure for the sale of wheat, in the face of some customary measure, could ensue in riots."