square furlongs = 160 acres, but sometimes 120 acres or less, varying
according to the arable on it; and usually divided into 4 oxgangs,
bovates or yardlands. In some parts the hide seems to have comprised
several ploughlands and to have coincided with the knight’s fee (see
Customs of Lancaster).
HUNDRED.—This division of a shire is supposed to have been originally
one hundred hides; more probably it was a hundred knight’s fees.
6. THE YARD AND THE VERGE
These cognate terms have many developments of meaning, running almost
parallel both in English and French. ‘Yard,’ the equivalent of A.S.
gyrd, geard, and perhaps gæd (gad), is cognate to ‘Rod’ and to Fr.
Verge. It may mean:
1. A rod from a tree; L. _virga_, Fr. _verge_.
2. A short measure of 4 to 6 spans; Fr. _verge_.
3. A pole of indefinite length, in various senses, naval, &c. Fr.
_verge_, _vergue_.
4. A long measure of 9 to 24 feet = rod, pole, perch. In France the
_perche_ may be from 9-1/2 feet (Burgundy) to 22 feet (French).
5. A measure of surface 9 to 24 feet square. Yard, Fr. _verge_.
6. A larger measure of surface 40 × 1 rod = a quarter-acre. Yard-land,
rood, Fr. _vergée_.
7. A quarter of a still larger unit. Virgata, yard-land.
8. A holding of a rood when enclosed became a yard or garth, then a
cultivated enclosure of any size: tree-yard (Du. _boom-gaard_),
apple-garth, win-gaard (vineyard).[18]
Here the Fr. _verge_ parts company with ‘yard’; its place is taken by
_cour_ (L. _curtiferum_) and G. _hof_.
9. Any enclosed land attached to a house: Palace-yard, Fr. _cour_.
Farm-yard, Fr. _basse-cour_. Court-yard, G. _hof_. Court = farmyard in
Somerset.
Fr. _verge_ reappears in the English form of ‘verge’ in the sense of a
circle or ring, AS. gyrd, now ‘girth.’ The gyrd was a geard or yard bent
into a hoop. Fr. _verge_ = ring was a verge or rod bent into a hoop or
ring. Cf. Fr. _bague_, ring made by bending a rod or baguette into a
hoop. The English sense of ‘verge’ = circle is seen in:
O would to God that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal that must round my brow.
_Rich. III_, iv. 1.
To the furthest verge
That ever was survey’d by English eye.
_Rich. III_, i. 1.
The ‘verge’ of the King’s palace or court, sometimes stated as twelve
leagues (of 1-1/2 miles), a circuit equal to about 3 miles in radius.
Footnote 18:
Orthodoxly A.S. _gaard_ is considered to be unconnected with _geard_,
a yard or rod.
7. HOW THE ROD CAME TO BE 5-1/2 YARDS
The Roman pertica was 10 feet; though it seems probable that there was
also a customary rod of 12 feet.
The French perche was 6 ells of 4 Roman feet, double the presumed
customary perch of Rome.
The Scots rod was 6 ells of 3 Rhineland feet.
The German and Norse ruthen are nearly always either of 12 or of 16
feet.
How came it that the English rod was fixed, about the time of Edward I,
at 5-1/2 yards = 16-1/2 feet?
There is reason to believe that it was originally 5 yards, at first in
Roman feet, then in Rhineland feet.
A length of 5 yards and 1 or 2 inches (= 1/(8 × 40) of the Roman mile)
survives in the Dorsetshire ‘goad’ or ‘lug.’[19]
Footnote 19:
Whence the term ‘lug’ = rod? I venture a derivation:
1. Lug, the ear.
2. Luggie (Sc.), a milking vessel with handles or lugs.
3. Lug, lugge, of land, that can be metely sown with a luggie of
seed-corn.
4. Lug, the rod-length of the lug of land.
5. Lug, a rod, as for ‘waling’ fruit trees.
The Cornish rod or yard is 2 staves of 3 yards = 6 yards. There was, as
late as 1540, a rod of 6 yards, ‘every pole containing eighten footes of
the kinges standard.’
The rod of Guernsey, of Lancashire and of Ireland is 7 yards; it is the
French perche of 20 pieds = 21·36 feet taken roughly at 21 English feet;
this, and the Cheshire rod of 8 yards = 4 fathoms, are probably of
Norman origin.
The English rod of pre-Norman and early Norman times was probably the
Teutonic rod of 16 feet, as seen in the Roll of Battel Abbey. How did it
become 16-1/2 feet?
I cannot absolutely solve the question; I can only offer the possible
hypotheses:
1. That 5-1/2 yards was a compromise between a Southern rod of 5 yards
and a Northern of 6 yards. But the former length only survived in the
Dorsetshire lug, probably from Roman times, and 16 feet is the probable
length of the Southern rod. And such a compromise is most improbable. I
know of no measure established as a mean of two different measures.
2. That the length of the 5-1/2-yard rod was taken from that of the
medieval lance. Certainly in France there is some evidence of the
spear-length being used as a rough land-measure, ‘un hanst’ or ‘une
hanstée’ de terre. ‘Hanste,’ in modern French _hampe_, a shaft, is from
L. _hasta_. Doubtless very long lances have been used by infantry. The
Macedonian phalanx had lances of 8 yards, so that five rows of spear
points projected from its front. The Scots lance was 6 ells, the Scots
rod, ‘That in all, Spears be six Elns in length, under the pain of etc.’
(James III); but this length, = 18-1/2 feet, was ordered two centuries
later than Edward I, at a time when infantry were brought to resist the
onslaught of cavalry. Two centuries later still, it was ordered by 13
Chas. II that a pikeman was to be armed with a pike not under 16 feet in
length. It is improbable that in Edward I’s time foot soldiers were
armed with pikes anything like that length, while the knights’ spears
could not have been longer than 10 feet. Those shown in the Bayeux
embroidery are about 7 feet.
It is possible that the length of the ox-goad may have been used as a
rough land-measure, but English ox-goads appear to have usually been
only about the length of the Cornish goad, not more than 3 yards long.
Inclined myself to this second hypothesis—for was not Hector’s spear of
11 cubits = 22 spans, and are not 22 spans = 16-1/2 feet?—I yet
acknowledge that it is scarcely tenable.
3. The most probable hypothesis is that the Rod was originally a North
German Ruthe of 16 Norse or Rhineland feet brought over by Saxons or
Danes, and that, established as is seen by the Roll of Battel Abbey
‘pertica vero xvi pedes,’ it was afterwards adjusted to the standard of
the King’s foot. Thus 16 Rhineland feet = 16 feet 5·7 inches; which
would make the statute rod practically 16 feet 6 inches. In North
Germany the Ruthe is usually of 16 local feet, originally, it may be
presumed, Rhineland feet, displaced by the local foot = 11·23 to 11·5
inches. Sometimes this fall in the length of the foot is compensated by
an increase in the number of ruthen to the ‘morgen’ or acre, sometimes,
as in Holland, by making the _roede_ 13 Amsterdam short feet (of 11
inches) instead of 12 Rhineland feet.
It seems likely that the North German acker of 160 square ruthen came to
Northern France with the Franks and the Normans, that it became the Acre
de Normandie of 160 square rods, the length of the rod becoming changed
by the influence of the French standard of 6 _aunes_ = 24 Roman feet.
This length of 24 feet passed, under Norman influence, to Cheshire,
becoming the local rod of 8 yards or 24 English feet.
The rod of 6 _aunes_, French ells, passed to Scotland as 6 ells, but 6
Scots ells = 18 Rhineland feet.
8. HOW THE ACRE CAME TO BE 160 RODS
The North German acker or morgen is 160 ruthen. Why? It may be presumed
that, on the sexdecimal system dear to the bucolic mind throughout the
world, it was 16 times an original unit of 10 square ruthen, of 16 feet
square, analogous to the Greek plethron of 10 square kalamoi and to the
Provençal _cosso_ of 10 square fathom-rods. There is still extant, in
North Holland, the _snees_, snick, or score, of land, = 20 square roede.
The Austrian joch is 1600 square ‘klafter’ of 6 feet = 1·42 acre.
There are 1600 square rods in our square furlong, the original square
unit of which the acre is a one-tenth slice.
In Provence, the people, long under Roman influence, are yet much more
Greek than Roman, and there is not a trace of any Roman standard among
their weights and measures. There the greater land-unit is the saumado
of 1600 square cano of 6 feet. It is divided in two ways: (1) on the
sexdecimal system,[20] (2) into 160 cosso, each of 10 square cano.
Footnote 20:
Concordantly with the sexdecimal system of corn-measures into 4
sesteirado, or 8 eiminado. See Seed-measures in Section 10.
It seems as if the 1600 small units in our square furlong, in the
Austrian joch, in the Provençal saumado, come from an extension of the
sexdecimal multiple 16 to 160 and 1600.
9. CUSTOMS OF LANCASTER
‘Customs of places doe differ; for in the Dutchy of Lancaster a knightes
fee containeth foure hides of land, every hide foure ploughlands called
in latine carucata terræ, and that is quantum aratrum arare potest in
æstivo tempore, and that is (as I take it) which is in the North parts
called an Oxegange. And every ploughland or carue is foure yard land
which in latine is called quatrona terræ; every yardland thirty acres,
halfe a yard land in some places in the West is called a Cosset, half a
Cosset is a Mese which containeth about 7-1/2 acres. But commonly a
carue or plow-land containeth a hundreth and twenty acres; a hide of
land 480 acres and every knightes fee 1920 acres. But after some
computations, a knights fee containeth five hydes of land, every hyde
foure yard land, and every yard land twenty foure acres.’ (‘The
Surveior’s Dialogue,’ by J. Norden, ‘at my poore house at Hendon, 27
Martis 1610.’)
So in Domesday Book it will be found that ‘inter Ripe et Mersham,’
between the Ribble and the Mersey, the hide was not synonymous with the
carucate. The series of feudal measures appears to have been there:
Acre, of Lancashire standard = 1·62 statute acres.
Bovate or Virgate of about 15 acres, paying about 4 pence
‘relief’ to the king.
Carucate or Ploughland, of 8 bovates, paying about 32 pence.
Hide of 6 carucates, paying about one pound.
These feudal measures were evidently vague and variable. The King’s
assessment was very much the same as it was in Upper Burma fifty years
ago. There no survey was required; the land-tax (very light, as the
king’s revenue was derived, as in medieval England, from forest and
other monopolies and from fines) was one rupee a plough, that is for a
plough and a yoke of cattle. The Norman kings’ assessment was for the
common plough of the whole carucate, 4 oxgangs.
10. SEED-MEASURES OF LAND
When men, emerging from the pastoral stage, took to agriculture, land
was plentiful and would roughly but conveniently be estimated by the
quantity of seed-corn required for it. Thus seed-units of land were the
earliest, and many survive to this day.
It was ordered in Israel (Lev. xxvij.) that land should be ‘estimated
according to the seed thereof, an homer of barley-seed shall be valued
at fifty shekels of silver.’ Taking the homer at 8 bushels, a homer of
land = 3 or 4 acres, was worth 50 shekels, or half-crowns, of silver.
The Romans had the modius of land, sown with a modius, about 1/4 bushel,
of corn.
In Northern France there is still the _bonnier_ of land, about 4 acres,
sown with a _boune_ or _bounie_ of seed, about 8 bushels.
Throughout the greater part of France the land is reckoned in _seterées_
or _sesteirado_, units now fixed but originally named after the variable
_setier_ of seed-corn.
Smaller units are the _mine_ or _eiminado_, and _boisselée_, all
seed-units.
In North Germany the Scheffel, or Schepel (Du.), corn-measure is also a
land-measure of about half an acre. The Schepel passed from Holland to
New England as the Skipple, a bushel-skip. In North Germany and Norway
there is the Tunn or Tonde, a barrel of about 4 bushels, corresponding
to the Tondeland of about 1-1/3 acre (roughly equal to the French
_estrée_).
To the Salma of Italy, to the Saumado (she-ass load) of Provence,
corresponds the old English Seam, the Quarter of corn. The word seam
hence got the general meaning of a quarter. So although the Seam of Corn
would sow 4 acres, a seam of an acre meant a quarter-acre.
‘A Sester or Sextarius was what we call a Quarter or a seam containing 8
bushels (Sauma, quod unius equi fit sauma, i.e. sarcina)’ (Bishop
Fleetwood, 1707).
There are still traces of seed-measures to be found in some parts of
England. But in ‘A pek of londe’—‘Half a pek and a nayle of londe’
(Rolls of Parliament, 1442),[21] it is doubtful whether the peck of land
was really a seed-measure or a quarter-acre, as the peck is a
quarter-bushel. A nail of land would be 1/16 acre.
Footnote 21:
Quoted in the _New English Dictionary_, a treasury of quotations,
which has often put me on the track of valuable information.
There were seed-measures of land in Scotland. Thus: ‘15th Cy. Chart
Aberd. Als mekill land as a celdr of aits will schawe,’ i.e. a Chalder
of land, as much as a chalder = 64 firlots = 55 bushels, will sow, about
25 acres. There was also the Lippy of land, that which took a lippy,
1/16 firlot of seed. It was usually about 100 square yards.
In many parts of Southern Europe there are no other kinds of
land-measure than those derived from the corn-measures of seed required.
Thus in Provence, the earliest civilised country in medieval times, the
whole series of corn-measures and land-measures have names in common.
Corn-measures Land-measures Sq. cano
Saumado 4·4 bushel. Saumado 1·58 acre 1600
Sestié 1·1 „ Sesteirado 0·4 „ 400
Eimino 4·4 gallon. Eiminado 0·2 „ 200
Quartiero 1·1 „ Quarteirado 0·05 „ 50
Pougnadeiro 1/4 „ Pougneirado 0·01 „ 12-1/2
Cosso (Sc. Luggie) 1/5 „ Cosso (Sc. Lug.) „ 10
These land-measures would correspond to Coomb-land, Bushel-land,
Peck-land, &c. The Cosso of land is 1/160 of the Saumado, as our square
rod is 1/160 acre.
In Italy and Spain there are similar series of land-measures named after
corn-measures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
ENGLISH COMMERCIAL WEIGHTS
I. THE STORY OF AVERDEPOIS
The story of our Imperial system has hitherto been utterly obscure. The
origin of our foot, our gallon, our pound, indeed of all our measures,
was quite unknown. That of the pound, which gives the key to the whole
system, had been obscured by statutes which ignored any but the royal
pound used at the mints. Yet these statutes, often purposely obscure,
can be made to show the hidden sources of our system.
Our pound, settled at its present Imperial standard in the time of Queen
Elizabeth, was then found to have risen slightly since the time of
Edward III. It was found to have increased by about 8 grains. The ounce,
now = 437-1/2 grains, had been 437 grains, the same weight as the ounce
of Egypto-Roman pound, the Roman libra.[22] There is every reason to
believe that this Roman standard passed to Britain, and that the libra,
raised to 16 ounces, became the commercial pound, afterwards known as
Averdepois, and now the Imperial pound.
Footnote 22:
The modern _libbra_ is 12 ounces = 436·27 grains in Rome, 436·66 in
Florence.
When the Romans took the Alexandrian talent as the standard of their new
libra-system, they divided it into 125 libræ, which were 1500 ounces or
double-shekels, each ounce = 437 grains.
When the Arab Caliphs conquered the southern and eastern Mediterranean
countries, they found in Egypt the Egypto-Roman pound, 1/125 of the
Alexandrian talent; they adopted it, and divided it for coin-weight
purposes into 72 mithkals, just as the Roman Emperors had divided the
old As pound into 72 aurei; so 6 mithkals = the libra-ounce of 437
grains, just as 6 aurei = the As-ounce of 420-2/3 grains. It is not
improbable that the survival of the Roman commercial pound in Saxon
England was strengthened by commercial and scientific relations with the
Moors of Spain. King Offa of Mercia struck a gold coin with an Arabic
inscription, dated 157 of the Hejira = A.D. 774.
However this may have been, there seems no doubt that the Roman pound,
raised to 16 ounces, was the standard of England before as after the
Norman conquest, and there is no evidence of it having ever been in
abeyance. In early Plantagenet times there was a sexdecimal series of
weights:
The Stone of 16 lb.
The Wey of 16 stone = 256 lb.
There was also the Hundredweight, of which 20 made a ton of 2000 lb.;
and 20 weys made a Last of approximately 5120 lb. or 2-1/2 tons.
The pound was divided into 16 ounces, each = 437 grains, and the ounce
into 16 drams or drops = 27·3 grains.
Both before and after the Conquest there was another pound used in the
mints, like the As in Rome. It was of Tower, or Cologne-marc, standard.
There were doubtless many local variations of commercial standard,
especially in measures of capacity, and it was the necessity of checking
these which made King John and his successors declare that ‘there should
be one standard throughout our kingdom, whether in weights or in
measures.’
But the king had a mint-pound of his own, and he had to reconcile the
existence of the coinage-pound and of the commercial pound with the
customary declaration of unity of weight made in each reign. The king’s
councillors evaded the difficulty by pretending that the measures of
capacity were based on the mint-pound and, in statutes where a
commercial pound had to be mentioned, by pretending that this was equal
to 25 shillings weight or 15 ounces of the mint-pound. This deception
led to others, so that, to make out the meaning of a statute of weights
and measures, one must be able to read between the lines, and to be
prepared for misleading and contradictory statements. I will take as an
instance, Act 51 Henry III (1267):
An English peny called a Sterling, round and without clipping,
shall weigh 32 wheat corns in the midst of the ear; and 20 d. do
make an Ounce, and 12 Ounces one Pound, and 8 Pounds do make a
gallon of wine and 8 gallons of wine do make a London Bushel
which is the eighth part of a Quarter.
This declaration may be thus interpreted:
In the Tower there is a standard pound. An English silver penny should
weigh 1/240 of this pound and 1/20 of its ounce, and the penny-weight
may be divided into 32 aces or little grains. But there is another
old-established pound used for all goods but gold and silver, bread and
drugs. Our regard for the unity of weight forbids us to describe this
pound otherwise than by mentioning that a wine-gallon contains 8 of
these pounds weight of wine or of water, that 8 larger gallons each
containing 8 pounds, not of wine, but of wheat, make a Bushel; and that
8 of these bushels make a quarter of a Chaldron containing a ton or 2000
lb. of wheat.
That this is correct is easily proved.
The Bushel is 1/8 of the Quarter, which was the quarter of a chaldron,
the measure of a ton of 20 true hundredweight. The quarter was 500 lb.
of average wheat, and the bushel weighed 500/8 = 62-1/2 averdepois lb.
of wheat or, in wheat-water ratio, 78 lb. of wine or of water, the
specific gravity of which differs but little. But 8 × 8 Tower lb. of
wine = (5400 grs. × 8 × 8)/7000 = 49·4 averdepois lb. or, to be quite
accurate, 49·5 lb. of early Plantagenet averdepois weight, when the
ounce was of Roman standard, 437 grains; how then could the bushel = 78
lb. of wine, be the measure of 49·5 lb. of wine?
That there were two different gallons, the one for wine, the other for
corn, is shown in the Ordinance 31 Edw. III, where it is ordered that ‘8
lb. of wheat shall make a gallon.’ It is true that this is continued by
‘the lb. shall contain 20 s.’; but very soon after the ordinance states
that, for everything except groceries, each lb. shall be of 25 s., and
we know that the 25 s. was merely a subterfuge to show the averdepois
pound as 15 ounces Tower, afterwards 15 ounces Troy, neither of which it
ever was: we may therefore dismiss this statement, and recognise that
the wine-gallon held approximately 8 averdepois lb. of wine, and that
the corn gallon, about one-fourth larger, held 8 averdepois lb. of
wheat.
Further evidence is to be found in 12 Henry VII (1496).
This statute, after the usual preamble about ‘one weight and one
measure,’ orders:
That the measure of a Bushel contain 8 gallons of wheat, and
that every Gallon contain 8 lb. of wheat of Troy weight, and
every Pound contain 12 ounces of Troy weight, and every Ounce
contain 20 sterlings and every Sterling be of the weight of 32
Corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear of wheat
according to the old law of the land.
While the bushel is now described as containing 8 gallons of wheat and
each gallon 8 pounds of wheat, the old fiction is kept up that these are
royal pounds. Only these pounds are now Troy, of 5760 grains, instead of
Tower, of 5400 grains; 64 Troy pounds were equal to 52-2/3 lb.
averdepois, a weight still far from the 62-1/2 lb. averdepois of wheat
contained in the extant bushel-measure of Henry VII. And though the
mints were coining 420, instead of 240, pennies from the 5760
grain-pound of silver, so that these were little more than half the
weight of Henry III’s pennies, yet they were still of the weight of 32
wheat-corns.
The substance of this statute was embodied in a State-document adorned
with a picture of the King’s Steward presiding over the gauging of
bushels and weighing of wheat-corns, surmounted by a picture of two
entwined wheat-ears with the inscription:
THE CONAGE OF THE MYNTE.
The whete eare. Two graynes maketh the xvi p^{te}. of a penny,
ffower graynes maketh the viij p^{te}. of a penny.
After this impudent assertion one is not surprised to read that it was
‘the same tyme ordeired that xvi uncs of Troie maketh the Haberty poie a
pounde for to buy spice[23] by,’ nor by the statement that ‘the C is
true at this daye, ffyve score for the hundred as appeareth in Magna
Carta.’
Footnote 23:
Probably in the meaning of the Dutch _spijs_, food.
Comment on these ingenious statements seems hardly necessary.
The only changes in English weights since the time of Henry III, or
indeed much earlier times, have been:
1. The raising of the hundredweight to 112 lb.
2. The lowering of the stone from 16 lb. to 14 lb. to make it one-eighth
of the new hundredweight.
3. The rise of the averdepois pound from 16 Roman ounces of 437 grains
to 16 ounces of 437-1/2 grains; a difference of 8 grains, so as to make
it 7000 grains of the Tudor Troy pound.
4. The re-legalising of the 100 lb. or cental weight in 1879.
I may observe that the octonary series of measures of capacity, also of
the 14 lb. stone and new Cwt., is quite in harmony with the sexdecimal
system, however objectionable be those units.
_The Recognition of Averdepois Weight_
It is not until 1485 (Ripon Ch. Acts, quoted in the ‘New English
Dictionary’) that we find mention of averdepois, though there had been
standard weights of it from temp. Edw. III, ‘per balance cum ponderibus
de haberdepase,’ and those standards were extant in the time of
Elizabeth.
The document embodying 12 Henry VII (1496) mentions, as has been seen,
the Habertypoie pound, with the assertion that it was 16 Troy ounces, an
assertion causing confusion for centuries afterwards.
In Arnold’s ‘Customs of London,’ _c._ 1500, there is mentioned ‘the
Lyggynge Weyght, by which is boughte and solde all maner of marchaundise
as tynne, ledde ... and al maner of specery ... and such other as is
used to be solde by weyght; and of this weyght xvj uncis make a pound,
and C and xij li. is an C, and x C make a M of all suche marchaundises
... except wulle.’
This ‘lying weight’ was by the balance, the weight lying in one scale,
and not hanging or sliding on the beam of a stilyard as in Auncell
weight. The stilyard, very portable, as not requiring heavy weights, yet
admitted of fraud. Arnold says ‘this weight is forboden in England by
statute of parlement, and also holy church hath cursed in England all
that beyen or sellen by that auncel weyght.’
In 1532 it was ordered by 24 Henry VIII that meat ‘shall be sold by
weight called Haver-du-pois,’ and in 1543 Recorde (‘Ground of Artes’)
says, ‘But commenly there is used an other weyght called haberdyepoyse
in which 16 onces make a pounde.’
In 1545 the Custom-House notified that ‘thys lyinge and Habardy peyse is
all one.’
Having cleared away, as I hope, the obscurity which so long hung over
the commercial weight ignored by the statutes, it may be well to mention
that ‘Averdepois’ is the best spelling of this word, and is so accepted
by the ‘New English Dictionary.’ ‘Aver’ is an old-established English
word for ‘goods,’ and the earlier form ‘Haberdepase’ shows the original
pronunciation. The spelling of the last syllable in ‘Averdepois’ is a
sufficient concession to an incorrect modern custom.
The term originally applied to heavy goods, such as came from beyond
sea; if the word was sometimes spelt, as in 25 Edw. III, ‘bledz,
avoirdepois, chars, pessons’ (corn, heavy goods, meat, fish), it does
not follow that the _oi_ diphthong was pronounced as in ‘boy.’ The word
_pessons_, now written _poissons_, shows the sound-value of the
diphthong. The sound now given to it in modern French is a corruption.
Up till 1700, even in Paris, _oi_ was pronounced _é_ or _wé_.
‘Averdepez’ is the true pronunciation. However, the influence of ‘poise’
prevents any improvement on the word being written and pronounced as
‘Averdepois.’
Though measures of capacity had always been on an averdepois basis, the
admission of averdepois weight to statute recognition only dates from
the time of Elizabeth. In her reign light begins to appear in our system
of weights and measures. In 1574 she ordered a jury to examine the
standard weights (many of Edward III and succeeding kings), to report on
them, and to construct standards ‘as well of troy weight as of the
avoirdupois.’
The standards made by this jury were as unsatisfactory as their report.
Little could be expected from persons who could, with Edward III’s
standard weights before them, report that ‘the lb. weight of avoirdepoiz
weight dothe consiste of fiftene ounc troie.’ This was in accordance
with the old fiction that the averdepois pound must be a commercial
offshoot of the royal pound, that it was 15 ounces Tower = 6750 grains,
and afterwards in Tudor times 15 ounces Troy = 7200 grains, or even 16
ounces Troy = 7680 grains.
Elizabeth and her advisers were not deceived by this obsequious report,
so, the standards made being found very erroneous, in 1582 a second and
more intelligent jury of goldsmiths and merchants was appointed, and the
result of their work was the production of 57 sets of standard Troy and
averdepois weights, which were distributed to the Exchequer, to cities
and towns. Some of these averdepois weights are still extant and do not
now differ by more than one grain in each pound from Imperial standard.
The Proclamation for Weights of December 16, 1587, established
averdepois weight, and ordered that ‘no person shall use any Troy weight
but only for weighing of bread, gold, silver and electuaries and for no
other thing.’
It seems probable that, in the two centuries before Elizabeth, the
standard of the commercial pound had risen by about 8 grains. This may
have occurred when the Troy pound superseded the Tower pound. In the
adjustment, which I assume as probable, of the Troy and Averdepois
pounds so as to obtain a ratio of 5760 to 7000, the latter standard,
raising the ounce from 437 to 437-1/2 grains, and the pound by 8 grains,
may have been adopted so as to avoid or diminish the cutting down of the
new Troy pound.
Thus was established by Elizabeth the English standard of weight.
Excellent standards of capacity and of length were also made; and she
established our silver coinage on its present basis.
And yet, well into the nineteenth century, even into the twentieth, went
on the puzzledom of our weights and measures, left to arithmetic book
and almanack makers blinded by the glamour of the royal pound.
No official utterance came to clear the darkness, for it was not till
1855 that the pound, then established as an Imperial standard, was
really defined.
2. THE IMPERIAL POUND
It is the weight in vacuo of a certain piece of platinum kept in London.
It is divided into 16 ounces, approximately Roman ounces. The ounce may
be divided into 16 drams.
The pound is also divided into 7000 grains, the ounce being 437-1/2
grains.
It may be well to anticipate or remove any uncertainty about the grain.
The averdepois pound was only divided into ounces and drams (just as the
yard is only divided, as a yard, into quarters and nails), but on its
adjustment with the troy pound as = 7000 grains of which the latter =
5760, it became divisible into grains. These were long called Troy
grains, in consequence of the superstition about the noble Troy weight.
This word seems to have paralysed the intelligence of many persons
doubtless sensible enough in other matters; thus Rees’ ‘Cyclopædia’
(1819) informed its readers that ‘the pound or 7680 grains avoirdupois
equals 7000 grains troy, and hence 1 grain troy equals 1·097
avoirdupois.’
The weight of the standard pound in a vacuum (that is, its weight not
diminished by the buoyancy of the air) being 7000 grains, a commercial
brass pound exactly equal to the platinum standard when weighed against
it in air at 62°, would weigh 7000·6 grains in a vacuum.
_The Dram_
This, 1/16 of an ounce = 27-1/3 grains, is principally used as a unit
for powder in the cartridges of sporting guns. In Scotland it was called
a ‘drop.’
1673. A quech weighing 18 unce and 10 drop.
1805. An arrow of from 20 to 24 drop weight (‘N.E.D.’).
The dram was possibly so called from its corresponding to the quentchen,
1/8 of the German Loth or half-ounce (1/16 of a marc) as the drachm was
1/8 of a medicinal ounce.[24] Or it may merely have been called a dram
as being the part of the ounce, in the same way that the drachm was the
next lower part of the apothecaries’ ounce.
Footnote 24:
The dram of spirits is a measure probably so called from its being 1/8
of a pint, i.e. half a quartern.
3. SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICINAL DIVISIONS OF THE POUND
For scientific purposes the pound is considered as of 7000 grains. It
may be divided into tenths, hundredths, thousandths; this last division
being called a Septem, as = 7 grains. The tenth of this might be called
a Septula = 0·7 grain, and the hundredth a Septicent = 0·07 grain. This
small weight would be one 100,000th of the gallon, the same proportion
as the centigramme to the litre. In analyses of water the solid
constituents are usually stated in centigrammes to the litre, or parts
in 100,000; and as grains to the gallon or parts in 70,000 they have to
be divided by 0·7 to get that ratio. Septicents to the gallon would be
the English equivalent of centigrammes to the litre.
An Apothecaries’ Troy ounce lingers in the Board of Trade list of
standards, for a permissive use utterly unrequired by medical
prescribers or by druggists; the British Pharmacopœia only recognising
Imperial weight, the ounce and the grain. For convenience, a weight of
60 grains is called a Drachm, and one of 20 grains is called a Scruple.
It is most rare for prescriptions to contain an ounce of any solid
medicine; and when an ounce of such a medicine is most exceptionally
prescribed, it might be an Imperial ounce, just as ounces of fluid
medicines prescribed are Imperial ounces.
4. THE LONG HUNDREDWEIGHT
The multiples of the pound were originally, like its divisions, in a
sexdecimal series, with an alternative series to bring in the
hundredweight, i.e. the true Cwt.
16 lb. 1 stone
16 stone 1 wey = 256 lb.
2 weys 1 quarter = 500 lb. approximately
8 „ 1 ton = 2000 lb. „
16 „ 1 last = 4000 lb. „
The approximative relation of the quarter, strictly speaking of 512 lb.,
mattered but little, as it applied to corn-measure, in which the
measured quarter, 8 bushels, varied from 500 lb. for wheat of 62-1/2 lb.
to the bushel, to 512 lb. for heavy wheat of 64 lb. to the bushel. The
arrangement was convenient for the corn-trade and could not give rise to
fraud; and the main object of all laws on weights and measures should be
to prevent fraud, especially in retail trade.
This convenient arrangement was altered in the times of Edward I and
Edward III. The former King found the Cwt. of 100 lb. with a quarter of
25 lb. and a sixteenth = 6-1/4 lb. as its nail or clove. In his Acts
there is mention of the 100 weight, the 1000 weight, the 2000 weight.
But by the Ordinance of Measures 31 Edw. I, 1302, a distractingly
obscure statute, no less than three different weights are ordered for
the stone:
A stone for lead of 12 lb.
A London stone of 12-1/2 lb., one-eighth of the true Cwt.
A stone for groceries of 8 lb.; and 13-1/2 stone to make a Cwt. of 108
lb.
And the ‘fotmal’ of lead is to be 6 stones of 12 lb. but less 2 lb.,
‘which are 70 lb. making 5 stones.’
Here then we see, besides a 12 lb. stone for lead,
(_a_) The true Cwt. of 100 lb. divided into quarters and nails.
(_b_) A transitional Cwt. of 108 lb. in 13-1/2 old half-stones
of 8 lb.
(_c_) A new Cwt. of 112 lb. in 8 stones of 14 lb.
The Cwt. (centena) of 108 lb. seems to have been preparatory to the Cwt.
of 112 lb. mentioned in this Ordinance (if it be not a later
interpolation) and established later by Edward III. It preserved, for a
time, the ancient half-stone of 8 lb., but by the inconvenient process
of making 13-1/2 of these as the Cwt.; probably to prepare the merchant
for a new Cwt. of 112 lb. first in 14 stones of 8 lb. and then in 8
stones of 14 lb.
This is the Cwt. which has come down from Edward III to the present day,
against which trade has had to struggle more or less successfully ever
since, and which torments the schoolboy with sums in tons, cwts., qrs.
and lb.
To this day the old Stone of 16 lb. or its half, the Clove of 8 lb.,
still continues in use. The butcher’s and fishmonger’s stone is 8 lb.,
and cheese is sold, in most parts of England, by the 16 lb. stone, as it
was five or six centuries ago. In 1434, by 9 Henry VI, it was ordered
that the Wey of cheese should contain 32 cloves, yet we learn from
Arnold (1500) that the weight of Suffolk Cheese is xij score and xvj
lb., the same weight as the wey (16 × 16 = 256 lb.), and Recorde (1543)
says that for butter and cheese ‘a clove containeth 8 lb. and a wey 32
cloves which is 256 lb.’ By 10 Anne (1712) a barrel of soap is to
contain 256 lb., i.e. a Wey.
The Plantagenet 14 lb. stone is used for flour and potatoes, &c., but
the load, the modern form of the wey, is 18 stone of 14 lb. = 252 lb.,
evidently an approximately near substitute for the 16 × 16 lb. = 256 lb.
of the Wey, there being until quite recently no lawful weights allowed
above 7 lb. but in multiples of that weight. The load, like the wey, has
the advantage of being equal to 4 bushels of heavy corn at 63 lb., so
that it is half of the Quarter and an eighth of the wheat-chaldron or
ton-measure.
What was the reason for the Plantagenet Cwt.? for the inconvenient unit,
rightly rejected by our brethren in North America, and in several
colonies?
Edward I’s intermediate Cwt. of 108 lb. seems to show that it was
intended to bring our Cwt. up to that of foreign countries using Troy
pounds, 108 lb. being very close to the French and Flemish quintal
(Arabic cantar) of 100 Troy lb. The wool-trade with Flanders, the
dominion of the Plantagenets in France, may have been the motives for
this increase.
The hypothesis that the Cwt. was made 112 lb. so as to be equal to 100
long Troy lb. of 16 Troy ounces, is excluded by the ratio of averdepois
to long troy being 100 to 109·7 and also by the new Cwt. dating at least
from the time of Edward III, when the royal lb. was still Tower, not
Troy, with a ratio to averdepois of 100 to 128; and it was certainly not
of 16 ounces.
The only lawful multiples of the Imperial pound were, until quite
recently, those of the stone series:
7 lb. . . a clove.
14 lb. . . a stone.
28 lb. . . a quarter-Cwt.
56 lb. . . a half-Cwt.
112 lb. . . a Cwt.
2240 lb. . . a ton.
And the only lawful weights were those of 56, 28, 14, 7, 4, 2, and 1 lb.
I have had some personal experience of the inconvenience of these
weights. For years I had to weigh recruits and other soldiers, recording
their weights in pounds with this inconvenient set of weights. To get
the weight of a man of 152 lb. I had to reckon 2 × 56 lb. + 28 + 7 + 4 +
1 lb. Errors were necessarily frequent when many weighings had to be
rapidly done, so I had a set of decimal weights made—20, 10, 5 lb.—and
all trouble ceased. But these weights were not lawful, at least for
trade purposes.
There was, however, another lawful unit, the Cental, that is, the
original English Cwt., brought back to England from North America by the
corn-trade. Commerce demanded the recognition of the Cental and got it
in 1879.
In 1902, the tobacco-trade in Liverpool, annoyed at the inconvenience of
the lawful units of weight, as inconvenient for the wholesale
tobacco-warehouse as for my military purposes, moved the Liverpool
Chamber of Commerce to get the Board of Trade to allow them to use a
half-cental weight; a whole cental, the only lawful unit of the kind,
being too heavy for handling. In reply to this request, it was suggested
that a nest of weights, 28 + 14 + 7 + 1 lb. = 50 lb. might be used. To
this the tobacco-trade objected, and after correspondence, the use of a
50 lb. weight was granted. Then they requested permission to use smaller
fractions of the cental, in fact a decimal series of 20, 10, 5 lb. And
they obtained it. So, thanks to the perseverance of the Liverpool
tobacco-merchants and Chamber of Commerce, the decimal fractions of the
Cental are now lawful weights, and no one need use the inconvenient 14
lb. stone series.
5. WOOL AND LEAD WEIGHT
_Wool Weight_
The revenue of the Plantagenet kings being largely derived from duties
on the export of wool, the weight of the sack was fixed by statute. By
31 Edw. I ‘the sack of wool ought to weigh 28 stone of 12-1/2 lb.’ = 350
lb. By 14 Edw. III ‘the sack shall contain 26 stone and each stone 14
lb.’ = 364 lb., i.e. 2 weys of 13 stone. This regulation was supported
by other statutes, in 1389 and 1496, and appears to have had due effect,
for it is the standard at the present time: 26 stone or 13 ‘tods.’
Why was this particular weight ordered?
Possibly because the sack thus corresponded nearly to the skippund
(ship-pound) of the Baltic trade and of Scotland, a weight of 20 lispund
each of 16 Norse Troy pounds or of 20 pounds of light standard = 352 to
375 lb. The Baltic skippund at the present day is about 350 lb.
In Scotland the sack of wool was ordered to be 24 stone, which was
equivalent to 26 English stone, in proportion to the heavier weight of
the Scots pound.
The Plantagenet domination in France caused the stone to pass there,
though not always at English weight; and there being no regular weight
in France between the pound and the quintal, local stones came into use.
‘Les laines vend on par sacs et par pois, par pierres, par claus et par
livres,’ the French terms for the sack, the wey, the stone, the clove
and the pound.[25] Sometimes the stone was called ‘gal’ (stone, _galet_,
shingle) and the clove ‘demi-gal’ (Livre blanc de l’hotel de ville
d’Abbeville). The French stone was of variable weight. One record gives
the sack of wool (= 4 Montpellier light quintals) as of 25 pierres,
which would make them 9 lb. each. Another record gives it as 36 stone of
9 standard pounds (= 10 English pounds).
Footnote 25:
See section on the Nail and the Clove, Chap. XX.
The stone appears to be extinct now in France; I find that as late as
1579 wool was sold in Burgundy by the wool-stone (_la pierre de laine_)
= 12 French or about 13 English pounds.
While the old English wey or load was 16 × 16 = 256 lb., the wey ordered
for wool was half a sack = 182 lb. It would seem that, once the King’s
dues paid, the shipper was free to make up his sacks or sarplers of wool
as most convenient to him. The customary wey or weigh (Sc. waugh or
wall) seems to have been 32 cloves or nails of 7 lb. = 2 cwt. A ‘poke’
of wool ‘weand 4 C. 15 nallis,’ i.e. 4 cwt. and 105 lb. A sack might be
‘6 wall and 25 naill,’ i.e. 12 cwt. and 175 lb.
The wey or weigh became, in statute French, _poids_, _pois_; but the
scribes took the wrong _pois_ and thinking it meant ‘pease’ made it
_pisa_ in their Latin, just as they took the wrong ‘nail’ and made it L.
_clavus_, and in French _clau_, through L. _clavis_, meaning a ‘key.’
_Lead Weight_
While the fother is 17-2/3 cwt. for coal, it is 19-1/2 cwt. = 2184 lb.
for lead. This peculiar unit, also called the char or load, is the
consequence of a statute 31 Edw. I, perhaps the most confused and
bewildering of the many confused medieval statutes on weights and
measures, and one in which subsequent interpolations may be suspected.
It ordered two stones, one of 12 lb. and another of 12-1/2 lb., and to
keep up the pretence of there being no weight other than of Tower
standard, it declared that a pound shall contain 25 shillings. This
shilling standard may be put aside.
The 12 lb. stone is ordered apparently either as a double of a customary
‘lead-pound’ of 6 lb. or to make the customary fotmal or ‘pig’ of lead,
70 lb. weight, ‘contain 6 stones (of 12 lb.) less 2 lb.’ It also says
that the deduction of 2 lb. leaves ‘70 lb. making 5 stones.’ This
passage appears to be a subsequent interpolation after the institution
of Edward III’s 14 lb. stone.
The fother of lead, of 30 fotmals, would thus be = 2100 lb. But the
stone of 12-1/2 lb., evidently intended to be 1/8 of the true
hundredweight, and to pave the way for the coming 14 lb. stone, is also
applied to lead. How it is not said; but the present fother, = 2184 lb.,
is almost exactly equal to 30 fotmal, each of 73 lb. = 2190 lb.; and 73
lb. is just 6 stone of 12-1/2 lb. less 2 lb.
The 70 lb. fotmal seems to have disappeared by the seventeenth century,
but in the meantime the uncertainty of the fother led to the use of
Boole-weight, meaning the weight used at the lead-boles or natural bowls
in which lead ore was smelted. The fother, boole-weight, was 30 fotmals
of 6 stone of 14 lb. Sometimes it was of 24 fotmals = 2016 lb., that is
18 cwt.
The meaning of Fother is given in Chapter XX.
6. TRADE-UNITS OF WEIGHT
It is unnecessary to describe or even name the various weights peculiar
to trade or local custom. Everyone in the trade knows them; out of it no
one need know them. If a person not in the trade buys a cask of wine, a
barrel of beer, a sack of flour or a load of potatoes, commonsense
prompts him to ask how many gallons or pounds are contained in these
units. It is the same in France and other countries of the metric
system, where the cask, the sack, the churnful, &c., are trade-units
with their peculiar equivalents of litres or kilogrammes. It is indeed
by the use of trade-units that manufacturers evade the rigour of the
metric system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
ENGLISH MEASURES OF CAPACITY
I. THE OLD WINE MEASURES
It has been seen that a cubic foot of water is very approximately = 1000
Roman ounces = 62-1/2 lb. of water at the early averdepois standard.
There is reason to believe that this cubic foot was our original
wine-unit, the wine-bushel, 1/8 of it = 216 cubic inches, being the
wine-gallon; and that the cubic foot, increased in water-wheat ratio
1728 × 1·25 = 2160 c.i., was the corn-bushel. The corn-gallon, 2160/8 =
270 c.i., remained at this standard for centuries, 268·8 c.i. being the
London measure, and 272-1/4 c.i. the Winchester measure, the slight
differences being due to difficulties in casting and gauging shallow
metal pans.
That the wine-gallon was originally 1/8 cubic foot is rendered very
probable by the existence in Ireland of a gallon of almost exactly that
capacity. This gallon was legalised for ale, beer and spirits by George
II (1735) at a capacity of 217·6 c.i.
The rise of the wine-gallon in England to 219 c.i., to 224 c.i., and
finally to 231 c.i. under Henry VIII, seems due to two influences:
1. The desire to make it hold 8 lb. of wine = about 222 c.i., that
weight being mentioned in statute.
2. The influence of wine-measures used at the ports whence wine came.
The principal unit of wine-measure at Bordeaux, and some other
continental ports, was the Velte, the equivalent of the German viertel
which was 1/4 Rhineland cubic foot = 471·6 c.i. So our gallon tended to
increase towards the measure of 235·8 c.i., the half-velte. It could not
increase further than 231 c.i. without deranging its water-wheat ratio
with the corn-gallon, already increased, temporarily at least, under
Henry VIII to 282 c.i. But the principal reason for 231 c.i. was that
this was the capacity of a cylinder 7 inches in diameter and 6 inches
deep. It has always been desirable that market-measures should be of
dimensions easily remembered and readily gauged with a foot-rule. The
wine-gallon of 231 c.i., confirmed by the new measures made by
Elizabeth’s order, was afterwards known as Queen Anne’s gallon. It is to
this day the fluid gallon of the United States, Canada and Ceylon.
The half-velte was the French _galon_, a word connected with _galloie_,
_jallaie_, _jalle_, _jarre_, with our ‘jar’ and with ‘gauge,’ Fr.
_jauge_. It may be mentioned that ‘velte’ sometimes meant a gauging-rod
for wine-casks.
The wine-gallon was divided into 2 pots, or 4 quarts or 8 pints. The
wine-pint = 16·57 fluid ounces = 5/6 Imperial pint.
_Cask Measures_
By 2 Henry VI (1423)—
The wine-Hogshead was 63 gallons
The Pipe „ 126 „
The Tun (tonnel) „ 252 „ (12 score and 12).
Thus the hogshead (Flemish _okshoofd_, ox-head) was approximately 1/4 of
the tun or fluid ton.
252 wine-gallons of 8 lb. = 2016 lb.
The customary beer-barrel contained, and still contains, 36 gallons (now
Imperial gallons). It is probable that it was originally a half-hogshead
= 31-1/2 or 32 gallons, and that it rose as an indirect consequence of
the statutory rise of the Cwt. and Ton. (This will be explained under
Corn Measure.)
The half-barrel of 18 gallons was called a Kilderkin, from the old
Flemish word _kinderkin_, a little child. To it corresponded the Runlet
of 18-1/2 wine-gallons (1483), the German Eimer or double Anker.
The quarter-barrel of 9 gallons is a Firkin, a word in which _vierde_, a
fourth, replaces _kinder_; so that in the fifteenth century it was a
Ferdekyn.
But the ale-barrel remained nominally at 32 gallons, its kilderkin at
16, its firkin at 8 gallons. This counterbalanced the increase of the
ale-gallon to 282 c.i. How did this rise come about? The probable
explanation is that the ale-gallon was really a corn-gallon of Henry VII
and VIII; it disappeared for corn, but it remained for ale.
2. THE ALE-GALLON
Henry III proclaimed on his accession that, according to Magna Charta,
there should be but one standard of measure and of weight throughout the
realm, one measure of wine, one measure of ale, and one measure of corn.
There seems to be no information extant about the second of these
measures; it was presumably the same as the corn-gallon. A statute of
Henry VIII ordered the barrel of beer to be 36 gallons and that of ale
32 gallons, whence it may be presumed that the former were wine-gallons
and the latter corn-gallons, 32 and 36 being taken as the whole numbers
nearly proportionate to wine and corn measure, and admitting of the
quarter-barrel being 8 gallons of ale and 9 of beer.[26]
Footnote 26:
For a long time the difference between ale and beer was that beer was
hopped.
In 1496 (temp. Henry VII) a new corn-bushel was made = 2240 c.i., its
gallon being 280 c.i. While it is possible that this increase was due to
inaccurate casting, yet it might be that the new corn-gallon was
intended to be on a water-wheat ratio with the wine-gallon, then = 224
c.i. (224 × 1-1/4 = 280), in the same way that the usual corn-gallon of
270 c.i. was in that ratio to the original 1/8 cubic foot gallon of 216
c.i. (216 × 1-1/4 = 270).[27]
Footnote 27:
It has been suggested that the 280 c.i. corn-gallon was constructed so
as to have Averdepois-Troy ratio to the 231 c.i. wine-gallon
(1·215 : 1). But the latter had not at the time risen to 231 c.i., and
it is more probable that the ratio was that of water to wheat, the
pound-pint ratio.
In 1531 the corn-gallon was increased to 282 c.i. But under Elizabeth
the corn-gallon was restored to its old standard of 1/8 bushel =
2150·4/8 c.i. = 268·8 c.i. and the wine-gallon fixed at 231 c.i. At
these standards both gallons stood until their unification in 1824.
Confirmed by Queen Anne, they are known by her name.
But the corn-gallon of Henry VIII, = 282 c.i., remained as the
Ale-gallon, probably because it had become the standard measure for
malt.
_The Quart and Pint_
While the wine-pint was an eighth of a wine-gallon the common pint of
England was the Ale-pint, an eighth of the Tudor Ale-gallon, which was
280 or 282 cubic inches and differed little from the Imperial gallon =
277·27 cubic inches. So the pint of ale in Tudor times differed little
from an Imperial pint.
The Quart and Pint of Elizabeth preserved at the Standards Office are
larger than Imperial measure, the Quart holding 40·53 ounces as compared
with the 40 ounces of the Imperial quart; it is one-fourth of a gallon
of 280 cubic inches, the Tudor ale-gallon.
3. CORN MEASURE
It has been seen that Henry III’s statute defined the gallon as
containing 8 lb. of wine, and Edward I’s as containing 8 lb. of wheat.
It is probable that the Magna Charta principle of ‘one weight, one
measure’ prevented the mention of two different gallons, as it prevented
the mention of two different pounds. But we know that there were two
gallons. In England as in ancient Greece the unit of corn-measure was
the fluid measure of the Talent increased in water-wheat ratio; so our
cubic foot, taken as a wine-bushel of 8 wine-gallons, and increased
one-fourth, gave the corn-bushel of 8 corn-gallons.
1728/8 c.i. = 216 c.i., the original wine-gallon,
1728 c.i. × 1·25 = 2160 c.i., the corn-bushel,
of which 1/8 = 270 c.i. was the corn-gallon.
It has been seen that the wine-gallon increased to 231 c.i., but the
corn-standard remained for centuries (excepting a vagary temp. Henry VII
and VIII) at very nearly its original value. It must be remembered how
difficult it must have been to cast accurately a shallow brass pan
18-1/2 inches in diameter and only 8 inches deep; and this is probably
the cause of the slight difference between the two standards of
corn-measure, the London bushel and the Winchester bushel. These were
simply variants, inevitable in making standard measures of the
calculated capacity of the bushel = 2160 cubic inches = 1-1/4 cubic
feet.
The London bushel = 2150·42 c.i.; the gallon = 268·8 c.i.
The Winchester bushel = 2178 c.i.; the gallon = 272-1/4 c.i.
The latter standard was so called, it is said, because its standard had
been kept at Winchester since the time of King Edgar; it was, by 22
Chas. II (1670) and 10 Geo. III (1769), the standard measure for corn
and other dry goods.
But by 13 Wm. III (1702) and by 5 Anne (1707) the London bushel was the
standard, and this is the present corn-bushel of the United States. It
is, however, commonly called, but inaccurately, a Winchester bushel.
4. THE QUARTER AND THE CHALDRON
When the Cwt. was raised to 112 lb. and the Ton to 2240 lb. the Chaldron
or ton-measure of wheat was increased by statute from 4 × 8 = 32 bushels
to 36 bushels. One would think it would follow that the Quarter would be
raised from 8 to 9 bushels. No, it was not raised, by law at least; so
the corn-trade raised it themselves, thinking that evidently if a
chaldron is now 36 bushels, for the quarter of it we must ask or give 9
bushels.
But this practice was apparently held to be an offence against the
repeated royal declarations beginning with the 32 wheat-corn weight of
the penny and ending with the ‘bushel which is the eighth part of the
Quarter.’ While one statute raised the Chaldron to 36 bushels, another
declared that its quarter was to remain at 8 bushels. In 15 Rich. II
(1391) it is declared that ‘8 bushels striked should make the Quarter of
corn nevertheless that divers people will not buy but 9 bushels for the
Quarter.’
As statutes of 1436 and 1496 repeated this prohibition of any increase
of the quarter one may presume that the forbidden practice continued,
the increased quarter being called a Vat. But there was another way of
evading these statutes; the old story with bad legislation; _Fatta la
lege, trovato l’inganno_. It became in many parts customary to give, not
a long-quarter, but a long-bushel of 9 gallons, so that 8 long-bushels
would make the new quarter-chaldron. It was possibly a relic of this
practice which caused the Chester corn-measure to become 70 lb., roughly
62-1/2 lb. × 9/8 = 70·3 lb. Cheshire perhaps benefited by its
neighbourhood to Lancashire, which was specially exempted by 13 Rich. II
from the penalties for offences against the unity of weights and
measures, ‘because in that county it hath always been used to have
greater measure than in any other part of the realm.’[28] Yet
long-bushels are sometimes the striked equivalents of heaped measure.
Footnote 28:
Curiously Lancashire still uses the Cheshire acre, and in some parts a
pound of butter is a pound + the weight of 2 pennies, formerly the
heavy Georgian ounce-pennies, now the lighter bronze coins.
But in most parts of the country the attempts to correct stupid
legislation were abandoned, and so the Chaldron of 36 bushels fell
almost out of use and the Quarter ceased to be a quarter of any measure.
In 1707 Bishop Fleetwood (‘Chronicon preciosum’) could only say
‘doubtless a Quarter is a quarter or fourth part of some load or
weight.’ And there is a story that Lord Kelvin, asking the head of the
Standards Office (giving evidence before a Royal Commission on Weights
and Measures) of what a Quarter was the quarter, failed to obtain any
light on the subject. And he himself did not know.
But since the corn-trade brought back from North America the old ton of
20 centals, the quarter has found its long-lost father. The freight-ton
of ships, 40 cubic feet of cargo, contains 32 bushels (at 1-1/4 cubic
feet to the bushel), that is 4 Quarters or 2000 lb. of average wheat =
20 centals.
5. COAL MEASURE
The Chaldron of 36 bushels is used for the sale of coke and in
Northumberland for coal.
A ‘keel’ of coal, i.e. the load of the Tyneside lighter known as a
‘keel,’ was, up till the fifteenth century, 20 ‘chaldres,’ the measure
of 20 old tons:
The old chaldron of wheat, 32 bushels of 62-1/2 lb. = 2000 lb.
„ „ „ „ coal, 25 „ „ 80 lb. = 2000 lb.
When the old Chaldron became illegal it gradually gave place to the new
ton and to the new chaldron. The Newcastle chaldron was 2 statute
chaldrons = 72 bushels. The modern keel of coal is 21·2 tons = 16
statute chaldrons of 36 bushels = 8 Newcastle chaldrons. This double
chaldron is then 72 bushels, or, as 1/8 of the keel, = 21·2 tons, it is
53 cwt., and it is divided into 3 Fother of 17-2/3 cwt. = 1966 lb. or
nearly the old ton of 2000 lb. Thus the Newcastle fother is nearly the
old ton, and the keel of 24 fothers or old tons has taken the place of
the sixteenth-century keel of 20 old tons.
In the eighteenth century the coal-bushel was slightly changed from
London or Winchester standard. 12 Anne (1714) ordered a special
coal-bushel. It was defined as containing a Winchester bushel and a
quart, 33 instead of 32 quarts = 2218 cubic inches, and coal was to be
sold by the chalder of 36 such bushels, heaped.
This new bushel was 1/8 inch more in diameter and in depth than the old
standard; it arose probably from a faulty casting. It is remarkable,
inasmuch as its capacity is almost exactly that of the Edinburgh firlot
and also of the Imperial bushel instituted a century later.
The Chaldron survives for coke. When coal is coked at the gas-works it
swells, so that a ton of coal, = about 3/4 chaldron, yields about a
chaldron of coke.
_Heaped Measure_
It has been seen that in 1392 the bushel was to be measured ‘striked’
and not heaped. Yet the love of extra weight or measure is so ingrained
in human nature that it persisted, at least in retail transactions. With
a pan-shaped bushel more than twice as broad as deep, heaping increased
the measure by not less than one-fourth. With a drum-shaped bushel, its
depth equal to its diameter, the increase of heaped over striked measure
would be about an eighth, so that a bushel of wheat would weigh about 70
lb. instead of 62 lb. Heaped measure was made illegal in 1835.
It is possible that some long-bushels (as that of Chester = 70 lb.) were
originally, or actually, heaped bushels.
6. THE IMPERIAL GALLON
In 1824 some of our measures were reorganised, and among the changes was
the unification of wine and corn measure. The better concordance of
capacity with weight by a single gallon containing exactly 10 lb. of
water at ordinary temperature has been a great advantage. It has
enlarged the decimal capabilities of our system without impairing its
convenient and popular series of capacity units. It is indeed an
advantage that the slight increase of the corn-gallon now gives a weight
of 64 lb. good wheat to the bushel, so that the pint corresponds very
exactly to a pound of wheat.
Yet it must be remembered that our brethren of the United States, not
usually deemed unprogressive, get on very well with Queen Anne’s
wine-gallon and corn-gallon.
The new gallon holds exactly 10 lb. of pure water at 62° or 277·274
cubic inches.
The bushel is of the capacity of 2218·19 cubic inches. It holds 80 lb.
of pure water.
The change from the old corn-gallon was very slight, increasing it by
only 3 per cent., from 268·8 to 277·27 c.i. (and rather less from the
Winchester gallon of 270 c.i.), so that the bushel formerly holding
62-1/2 lb. of wheat now holds 64 lb.
Wine-measure was increased by almost exactly 20 per cent., from 231 c.i.
to 277·27 c.i., so that a gallon of wine is contained in 6 customary
bottles, instead of 5 as formerly, or as at present in the United
States.
Bushel measures are of two shapes: the drum-shape, 15 inches diameter by
12-2/4 inches deep, and the standard shape (that of the old
corn-measure), 18-1/2 inches diameter by 8-1/4 inches deep.
Nothing has been changed in the excellent octonary series of measures,
pint, gallon, bushel, quarter (eight of the first making one of the
second and so on), with binary sub-units—some of them general, as the
quart; others local, as the coomb; and some more or less obsolete, as
the tuffet, famous in nursery rhyme.
MEASURES OF CAPACITY
─────────────────────┬───┬─────────────────────────────────────────
2 Noggins 1 Gill │ │ (In the South 4 gills to a pint)
2 Gills 1 Pint │ │20 oz. water│1 lb. wheat
│ │ │
2 Pints 1 Quart │⎫ │ │
2 Quarts 1 Pottle │⎬ 8│ │
2 Pottles 1 Gallon │⎭ │10 lb. water│8 lb. wheat
│ │ │
2 Gallons 1 Peck │⎫ │ │16 lb. wheat (old stone)
2 Pecks 1 Tuffet │⎬ 8│ │
2 Tuffets 1 Bushel │⎭ │80 lb. water│62-64 lb. wheat
│ │ │
2 Bushels 1 Strike │⎫ │ │
2 Strikes 1 Coomb │⎬ 8│ │256 lb. wheat (16 old stone)
2 Coombs 1 Quarter │⎭ │ │500-512 lb. wheat
│ │ │
4 Quarters 1 Corn-ton│ │ │40 cubic feet
─────────────────────┴───┴────────────┴────────────────────────────
These measures can be used for either dry goods or fluids. The smaller
measures below a pint are used for fluids.
_Fluid Measures_
The institution of the Imperial gallon, while increasing corn-measure by
3 per cent., had less effect on Ale-measure. The Ale-pint, being 1/8 of
the Ale-gallon of 282 cubic inches, was somewhat larger than the new
Imperial pint, holding about 20-1/4 ounces; so the change to the
Imperial pint of 20 ounces was practically imperceptible.
The Gill is officially, according to southern custom, a 1/4 pint; but in
Lancashire and the north it is a half-pint. The name Gill, like the Jug
synonym for Pint, is part of a popular series of names for beer or
spirit measures. Jug is the feminine of Jack, with which name Gill is
familiarly associated.
Pint or Jug 20 ounces
1/2 „ „ Gill (in the north) 10 „
1/4 „ „ Jack (or Noggin) 5 „
1/8 „ „ Jock (a dram) 2 1/2 „
1/16 „ „ Joey 1 1/4 „
The customary capacity of wine-bottles is 1/6 gallon = 26-2/3 ounces. So
six customary bottles go to the gallon, and a customary ‘dozen’ of wine
or spirits = 2 gallons.
In India the gallon of canteen-spirit, rum or arrack, is reckoned as 48
drams, each 1/8 bottle or 3-1/3 fluid ounces.
7. MEDICINAL FLUID MEASURES
The Imperial gallon, as 10 lb. of water = 160 fluid ounces, each of
437-1/2 grains of water at standard temperature.
Its eighth part, the Pint, contains 20 ounces weight or 20 fluid-ounces
measure. It is so divided on druggists’ glass measures. The fluid ounce
is divided into 8 fluid drachms, each of 60 minims, approximately fluid
grains.
In the United States, where the old wine-gallon of 231 cubic inches is
retained, the old wine-pint of 16 fluid ounces is used. 231 c.i. ×
252·458 (grains of water in 1 c.i.) gives—
58,317·8 grains for the gallon
7,289·7 „ „ „ pint
455·6 „ „ „ ounce
The fluid ounce is divided as in England into 8 fluid drachms, of 60
minims.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
THE MINT-POUNDS
1. THE SAXON OR TOWER POUND
At some time before the Norman Conquest the Marc of Cologne was brought
to England, probably only as the mint-standard of the later English
kings, for the 16-ounce Roman pound was already long-established as the
commercial weight.
The standard of the Cologne marc has never varied much.
Its mean weight = 3608 grains; when doubled it made a pound = 7216
grains, with an ounce = 451 grains. This pound is almost identical with
the greater rotl of Al-Mamūn, 1/100 of the cantar = 102·92 lb.; and the
old Prussian pound of Cologne standard was 1/100 of the Prussian centner
= 103·11 lb.
The Norman Conquest made no change; the Saxon pound became the Tower
pound, the King’s treasury or mint being in the Tower of London. The
Tower pound of standard silver was coined into 240 silver pennies,
which, at 22-1/2 grains, their weight down to the time of Edward III,
gives 5400 grains for the pound and 450 grains for the ounce. An actual
weight = 5404 grains was found in the Pyx chamber in 1842.
The shilling, of 12 pence, was until Tudor times only money of account.
But it was also a weight of account, the pound being either 12 ounces of
20 pennyweight, or 20 shillings of 12 pennyweight.
‘When a quarter of wheat is sold for 12 pence, the wastel-bread of a
farthing shall weigh 6 li. and 16 s. But bread cocket of a farthing
shall weigh more by 2 s.’ (Assize of Bread, 51 Henry III.) That is, the
farthing loaf shall weigh 6-16/20 Tower lb. = 5-1/4 averdepois lb., and
the second sort 24 dwt. or 1-1/5 Tower ounce more.
Here is an instance of the confusion caused by making bread, like gold,
silver and medicines, saleable only by the royal pound. This system of a
peculiar pound for bread lasted till the eighteenth century.
Under Edward I the halfpenny loaf weighed 40 s., that is 2 lb. Tower = a
little more than 1-1/2 lb. averdepois.
Moneyers and goldsmiths divided the dwt. or original weight of the
silver penny, for fine weighing, on the Dutch system, that is into 2
mayles, 4 ferlings 8 troisken, 16 deusken, 32 azen (aces). This would
account for the 32 wheat-corns which the silver penny was always
supposed to weigh, however many pence the mint struck from the pound of
silver.
The mayle and ferling (Fr. _maille_ and _felin_) were the mint-names for
the silver halfpenny and farthing.
Under the gradual influence of Troy weight the dwt. Tower was also
divided into 24 parts or grains. It was so divided in the time of Edward
III.
It must be remembered that there was absolutely no definition of Tower
weight, nothing but the usual proclamation about the 32 wheat-corns, a
convenient definition, as they still appeared to balance the penny when
it had fallen to half its original weight.
2. THE TROY POUND
The pound of Troie is mentioned in the time of Henry IV, and in the next
reign goldsmiths were ordered to use _la libre de Troy_, though by 9
Henry V mint-rates were still stated in _la libre de Tour_. By 2 Henry
VI the price of standard silver is fixed at 30_s._ la livre du Troie,
which means that 12 × 30 pennies of 15 grains were being coined from a
pound of 5400 grains, evidently still a Tower pound. Notwithstanding the
change of name, the Troy pound was not proclaimed as the royal pound
until 1527, when by 18 Henry VII ‘the pounde Towre shall be no more
used, but all manner of golde and sylver shall be wayed by the pounde
Troye which excedith the pound Towre in weight 3 quarters of the ounce.’
But the Troy pound had been used concurrently with the old mint-pound
for a long time, and there had been two standards at the mint.
According to an anonymous writer in 1507 (quoted in Snelling’s ‘View of
the Silver Coin and Coinage,’ 1762) ‘it is a right great untruth and
deceit that any such pound Toweres should be occupied, for that thereby
the merchant is deceived subtilly and the mint master is thereby
profited.’
There is no doubt that after the conquest of England by Henry Tudor a
cloud of deceit came over the coinage, deceit only ended by Elizabeth’s
establishment of the coinage on an honest basis. Comparing the
declaration of weights, measures, and coinage by Henry III in 1266 with
that of 12 Henry VII in 1496, the latter does not show to advantage. It
orders—
That every Pound contain 12 ounces of Troy weight and every
ounce contain 20 sterlings and every Sterling be of the weight
of 32 corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear according
to the old law of the said land.
Meanwhile the Troy ounce of silver was being coined, not into 20, but
into 40 sterlings or pennies. But each of these was supposed to weigh 32
wheat-corns just as they did when they were really 20 to the ounce,
albeit a Tower ounce.
_Whence came the Troy Pound?_
It is probable that the name of the King’s Troy pound came from the marc
of Troyes, but it is certain that the English Troy pound no more came
from Troyes than the ‘pound Toweres’ came from Tours.
There were four principal marcs in France:
Marc de Troyes its oz. = 472·1 grains
„ „ La Rochelle „ = 443·4 „
„ „ Limoges „ = 436·5 „
„ „ Tours „ = 430·9 „
The marc of Troyes doubled made the livre poids de marc, the Paris
standard = 7554 grains.
That of La Rochelle, the marc d’Angleterre, would appear from its name
to have been, originally at least, the marc of Cologne, Tower standard,
but its standard corresponds almost exactly to the marc of Castille. I
make inquiries at La Rochelle, and am informed that the La Rochelle mint
had at one time been coining for Spain, perhaps at the time of
Plantagenet dominion in the South.
The marc of Limoges coincides nearly exactly with 8 ounces averdepois of
Plantagenet times; it will be remembered that Limoges was for a long
time an English Plantagenet city.
The marc of Tours is of southern rather than northern type.
None of these marcs seem to have any relation with the Troy weight of
England.
There appears to have been in Northern France, England and Scotland,
about the eighth century, a heavy 16-ounce pound of nearly 8500 grains,
possibly related, through the Russian pound, with the miná of the
Greek-Asiatic talent = 8415 grains. This was probably the heavy pound
which survived in Guernsey up till the eighteenth century; and perhaps
other pounds said to be of 18 ounces, such as that of Cumberland up to a
generation ago, were really survivals of this heavy northern pound.
Whether this pound dwindled spontaneously, or whether it was superseded
by the pound derived, either directly from the lesser Arabic rotl with
an ounce = 480-1/4 grains, or indirectly from an ounce of 10 dirhems, of
about 48 grains, is difficult to say. All that is known is that there is
a family of pounds usually known as Troy with an ounce varying between
483 and 472 grains; that the pennies of Charlemagne averaging 25 grains
correspond to an ounce of about 500 grains, possibly more, which is
certainly not modern French Troy, and that many Saxon pennies of about
that time were much heavier than those of the times nearer to the
Conquest. The Northern Troy pounds show the following variations:
Swedish mark-weight pund, its ounce = 483·3 grains
Danish solvpund „ = 481·5 „
Scots Tron pound „ = 481·1 „
Bremen pound „ = 480·8 „
Norwegian skaalpund „ = 477·4 „
Amsterdam pound „ = 476·6 „
Scots Trois „ „ = 475·5 „
Dutch Troy „ „ = 474·7 „
French Troy „ „ = 472·1 „
The variation in these Troy pounds seems due to their ounces being 10
dirhems of 48 grains, more or less; the lightest ounce, that of French
Troy, being 10 dirhems of 47·1 grains, the same as the dirhem of which
the Provençal ounce, 377 grains, contained 8.
Our Troy pound, while taking its name, like the Scots and Dutch pound,
from the Troyes marc, took its standard from some pound of full weight,
possibly from the Bremen pound, introduced by the Hanse merchants. Its
exact standard appears due to the influence of the averdepois pound, and
this would explain—
_How the Averdepois Pound was of 7000 Grains._
This division into 7000 grains was not arbitrary, but it was due to the
desire to give it as simple a ratio as possible to the new Troy pound.
It was found by a Parliamentary Committee in 1758 to weigh 7000 of those
grains into which the Troy pound had always been divided, necessarily
into 5760 of them (12 oz. × 20 dwt. × 24 grs.). Now it seems probable
that when the Troy pound was adopted for mint purposes its weight might
be modified, on the advice of goldsmiths and merchants, so as to give it
a convenient relation to the old-established averdepois pound. Supposing
the new pound were of the Bremen standard, 7693 grains, of which 12
ounces = 5769·6 grains, then its weight would be to that of averdepois
as 5769·6 to 7000, or as 5760 to 6987·8. To make the proportion 5760 to
7000 it would be necessary to decrease the weight of the Troy pound by
about 8 grains or to increase that of the averdepois pound by about 10
grains. It is probable that the latter alternative was adopted, and that
the averdepois pound was raised in such proportion that it now weighed
7000 grains of the Troy pound = 5760 grains. This accounts for the rise
in the weight of the averdepois standard between Plantagenet and
Elizabethan times, making the ounce = 437-1/2 grains instead of the 437
grains of the Roman ounce.
It is not improbable that the change of mint-standard from Tower to Troy
was due to the very inconvenient ratio of the Tower pound to the
averdepois pound. The mint-pound being necessarily divided into 12
ounces of 20 pennyweight of 24 parts or grains = 5760 parts, the ratio
of the Tower and averdepois pounds was 5400 to nearly 7000, or
5760 : 7453, the latter figure being about the number of Tower grains =
0·937 grain, contained in the original averdepois pound. The
introduction of a new pound, which by slight modification in either it
or the averdepois pound would give the simpler ratio of 5760 to 7000,
would probably be most welcome to the mercantile community.
In Teutonic countries the usual system of dividing the pounds was as
follows:
Mint-marc of 8 oz. × 20 dwt. × 24 grs. (or 32 azen). Oz. of 480 grains.
Medicinal lb. of 12 oz. × 24 scruples × 20 grs. Oz. of 480 grains.
Commercial ⎧ Marc of 16 loth × 16 ort (German).
⎩ lb. of 16 oz. × 16 drams (English).
The Latin nations followed the ancient Roman system of dividing the
ounce:
Mint-pound of 12 oz. × 6 sextulæ × 24 siliquæ = 1728
siliquæ, the ounce being of 6 × 24 = 144 siliquæ or
carats, and the carat of 4 grains, giving 576 grains in
an ounce.
Medicinal lb. of 12 oz. ⎧ × 8 drachmæ × 3 scrupuli × 24 granæ,
⎩ × 8 drachmæ × 3 scrupuli × 2 oboli × 12
granæ.
In Southern France:
Pound of 16 oz. × 8 ternau × 3 denié × 24 gran.
There we see the scruple becomes a pennyweight, and the obolus or
half-scruple becomes a halfpenny.
In Northern France:
Mint-marc 8 oz. × 8 gros × 3 deniers × 24 grains.
Medicinal lb. of 12 oz. × 8 drachmes × 3 scrupules × 24 grains.
Commercial lb. of 16 oz. × 8 gros × 72 grains.
In this system, common to France, Spain, Portugal, Florence, and Rome,
the ounce is divided into 576 parts or grains, while the Troy ounce of
the rest of Europe is of 480 grains. This makes the Latin grain lighter.
In the medicinal pound, more or less international throughout the West,
the 24 Scruples of the ounce are grouped into 8 drachms of 3 scruples.
It may be concluded that the English Troy pound was a Northern weight
with its ounce of 480 instead of 576 parts. It has no direct connexion
but in name with the marc of Troyes. It probably came to us as an
apothecary’s and goldsmith’s pound, and in the latter, the Latin factors
24 scruples × 20 grains were transposed for mint purposes so as to
preserve the ancient pennyweight 1/20 ounce of the Tower pound. But in
the apothecary’s Troy pound the ounce remained divided into 24 scruples
(8 drachms of 3 scruples) each of 20 grains as in other countries except
France, &c.
The story of the goldsmiths’ Carat and Grain will be found in Chapter
XX, that of the Provençal weights, from which the French Troy was
derived, in Chapter XVIII.
3. THE PRIDE AND FALL OF TROY
The myth of the 32 wheat-corns which formed the basis of the Tower pound
= 5400 grains, passed to the Troy pound = 5760 grains, and this
deliberate fiction lasted till the time of Elizabeth and perhaps later.
It did little harm as regards these mint-pounds, but its application to
the Averdepois pound, alleged to be an offshoot of the royal pound,
either as 25 shillings, that is 300 pennyweights of 32 wheat-corns, or
as 15 ounces Troy, or at a later period as 16 ounces Troy, produced a
mental obliquity which is most lamentable.
The jury of merchants and goldsmiths appointed in 1574 to examine the
ancient standards, and construct a new set, declared that ‘the one sorte
of weight nowe in use is commonlie called the troie weight and that
other sorte thereof is also commonlie called the avoir de poiz weight,
and further they say that both the saide consiste compounded frome
thauncient Englishe penye named a sterling rounde and unclipped which
penny is limeted to waie twoo and thirtie grains of wheate in the midest
of the eare and twentie of those pence make an oz. and twelf of those
ounc make one pound troie.’ They go on to ‘saie that the said twoo
sortes of weights doe differ in weight the one from the other three
ounces troie at the pounde weight, for the pounde weight troie doth
consiste onlie of xii oz. troie and the lb. weight of avoir de poiz
weight dothe consiste of fiftene ounc troie.’
Thomas Hylles, in his ‘Arte of Vulgar Arithmeticke’ (1600), showed
himself emancipated from the superstition of troy weight so far as to
say:
‘15 ounces of Troy weight should by the statute make 1 pound of
haverdepoise, but the same pound weyeth commonly but 14 ounces 1/2 Troy,
14 ounces 3/5 at the uttermost.’
(14-1/2 oz. troy = 6960 grs.; 14-3/5 oz. = 7008 grs.)
But he unfortunately went on to say that ‘of things liquid and dry 1
pound of Troy weight maketh a pinte in measure,’ not seeing that 12 oz.
troy = only 13·16 oz. averdepois, while a wine-pint contained 16-2/3
ounces of water, and a corn-pint close on 16 ounces of wheat or 20 of
water.
But the ignorance and superstition engendered by troy weight was just as
bad in 1702 as in 1600 or even in 1500, as shown by the following
utterance of an eighteenth-century scientist:
Troy weight, whereby bread, gold, silver, apothecaries’ wares
etc. are weighed containing only 12 ounces in the pound, each
ounce 20 pennyweight each pennyweight 24 grams. This seems to
have been the most ancient weight by its name, as derived from
the famous city of Troy, from whence Brutus and his people are
said to have descended and to have called London Troy-Novant or
New Troy.
So said J. Ralphson, F.R.S., in his ‘Mathematical Dictionary’ (London,
1702). And then he continued:
The second and more common weight is called Avoirdupois, being
fuller and larger weight than the other, for it contains 16
ounces or 128 drams, viz. 384 scruples, viz. 7680 grains, by
this are weighed all kinds of grocery ware and base metals, as
iron, copper and brass, as also hemp, flax, rosin, pitch, tar
&c.
A century later we find not much improvement in the idea of the pounds
Troy and Averdepois.
‘The pound or 7680 grains avoirdupois equals 7000 grains troy and hence
1 grain troy equals 1·097 avoirdupois’ (Rees’ ‘Encyclopædia,’ 1819).
This is an example of the utter muddle the Troy pound had made in the
minds of otherwise intelligent people.
Similar pedantic efforts were continued, well into the nineteenth
century, to represent the Troy pound as the sole standard of England and
the averdepois pound only respectable as an offshoot of the royal pound
used for vulgar purposes.
_The Assize of Bread_
Such fictions were helped by the old statutes which compelled the sale,
first by Tower and then by Troy weight, of bread as well as of gold,
silver, and medicines. And confusion was made worse by the use for a
long period of a third weight for bread, the Amsterdam or Scotch troy
pound.
The peck loaf, supposed to be that produced from a peck of flour (16
pints), was to weigh 16 of these pounds = 17 lbs. 6 oz. averdepois, the
quartern loaf 4 = 4 lb. 5 oz., and the pint loaf (to be sold at a penny
when wheat was 4_s._ a bushel or 32_s._ a quarter) was to weigh one
pound = 17 oz. 6 drams averdepois. The periodical Assize of Bread fixed
the price of the peck loaf.
It appears then that the pound of bread was = 7600 grains, its ounce =
475 grains, which was about the Scottish (and Dutch) troy standard. It
was probably adopted as coinciding with the weight of bread supposed to
be produced from a pint of flour and as keeping up the old superstition
that bread must be sold by troy weight. As some persons in authority did
not share the stupidity of those who considered the averdepois pound to
be 16 troy ounces, the Scottish 16-ounce pound of troy standard was
imported for the purpose.
This weight was abolished by 8 Anne (1710) and the sliding scale was put
in the averdepois equivalent.
The Assize of Bread was abolished in 1815, but traces of it remain in
the name ‘quartern loaf,’ although this now means a loaf of 4 imperial
pounds. It may also mean a loaf weighing the quarter of a 16-lb. stone.
_The Disappearance of the Troy Pound_
In 1841 a Royal Commission on Weights and Measures recommended the
abolition of the Troy pound as ‘wholly useless,’ retaining its ounce
provisionally for the use of bullion merchants, pending ‘the removal of
the troy scale.’ This recommendation was not carried out until 1878,
when the Troy pound disappeared, except of course in almanacks and books
for the instruction of youth—but the Troy ounce still survives at the
mint, and consequently in the bullion market; and it is virtually forced
on druggists in spite of the Medical Council. Troy weight was abolished
by the Pharmacopœia Committee in 1864, Imperial weight being alone
recognised; yet the Board of Trade keeps up the Apothecaries’ ounce of
480 grains. Troy weight has fallen; but, like many other superstitions,
it dies hard.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X
THE CUBIC FOOT AND THE TON REGISTER
The cubic foot and the cubic inch are the usual measures of solidity.
The cubic yard is used as a measure of masonry, earthwork, or reservoirs
of water.
The cubic foot has many points of concordance with weights and with
measures of capacity, and is the basis of ship and cargo measurement.
The definition of the Imperial gallon as 277·274 cubic inches, the
volume of 10 lb. of water at 62°, a pound of water measuring 27·7274
cubic inches, led to attempts to determine accurately the weight of a
cubic inch and of a cubic foot of water. These experiments are
interesting in consequence of the recognition, in 1685,[29] that the
cubic foot of water weighed approximately 1000 ounces, and of the
probability that this weight of water in Roman ounces, = 437 grains, was
the source of our Imperial system. It has already been shown how
difficult it is either to construct accurately a measure containing a
certain weight of water or conversely to determine the weight of water
in a standard measure.[30]
Footnote 29:
‘Some Gentlemen at Oxford in 1685 determined the weight of a cubic
foot of spring water, or 1728 solid inches, to be 1000 ounces
averdepois.’—Kelly, _Metrology_, 1816.
Footnote 30:
For this reason the custodians of the metric system have abandoned the
cubic decimetre of water as the basis of measures either of capacity
or of weight. The kilogramme is now, like our pound, a certain metal
standard, and the litre is a measure containing, more or less exactly,
a kilogramme of water. A perfect litre standard contains 1000 grammes
of water at 39·2°; but 1·1 gramme less at 62°, 2 grammes less at 70°,
and 3·3 grammes less at 80°, a very frequent summer temperature. For
exact correspondence of measure with weight, corrections are always
required whether on the imperial or on the metric system.
The statute definition of the cubic inch of water as = 252·458 grains at
62° corresponds to 62·326 lb., or 997·21 ounces, for the cubic foot.
Reduction of these weights to the standard of maximum density of water
at 39·2° increases the weight of the cubic inch by 0·29 grain, and of
the cubic foot by 1·1 ounce, making it = 62·4 lb. or 998·3 ounces. An
Order in Council of 1889 gives 252·286 grains as the weight of the cubic
inch of water. But the exact weight is uncertain, and the 1824 statute
definition seems to be as accurate as the more recent determinations,
all different.
It may be taken that the cubic foot of water weighs very approximately—
at 62° in air 997·2 ounces
at 39·2° in air 998·3 „ (+ 0·9 ounce)
at 39·2° in vacuo 999·6 „ (+ 2·4 „ )
And 1000 ounces of water at the original weight of the averdepois ounce,
of Roman standard = 437 grains, would weigh 999·5 of such ounces, at 62°
in air.
Practically measures of capacity need only approximate coincidence with
standards; they are used for convenience in order to avoid weighing,
especially in retail trade. Corn and many other kinds of produce are
more conveniently measured than weighed, the average weight being
ascertained, if desired, by a sample bushel.
Fluids may also require corrections for temperature when bought or sold
by measure. Water increases in volume 1 per 1000 between 39° and 61°;
and another 1 per 1000 between 61° and 70°; other fluids have their
peculiar coefficients of expansion.
Allowing then for small temperature-corrections, the cubic foot may be
taken as equal to 62-1/2 lb. or 1000 ounces of water, and at this
sufficiently approximate standard it becomes the basis of a series of
measures for ship and other purposes.
_The Ton Register_
The capacity of ships has for centuries been reckoned in tons. The term
arose from the custom, in French and other wine ports, to take as the
unit of cargo-bulk the tun of wine usually contained in four hogsheads,
each of 63 wine-gallons. The number of hogsheads divided by 4 gave the
tonnage to be charged.
This cargo-ton, the _tonneau d’encombrement_, was equal to 42 French
cubic feet = 51 English cubic feet.
The Ton Register appears to have arisen in the ports of Northern Europe.
There the unit was usually the skippund (ship-pound) of about 360 lb.
for wool and light goods. But the Last was also a wide-spread, though
variable, measure; in the Baltic trade it was usually reckoned at 11-1/4
quarters of wheat = 90 bushels or 5400 lb. In England it was usually 10
quarters = 80 bushels = 5000 lb. Now this bulk of wheat measures about
100 cubic feet, so 100 English cubic feet has become the unit adopted in
all maritime countries, as the Ton Register. In France it is called the
_tonneau de jaugage_ and is taken as = 2·83 cubic metres.
A ship of 2000 tons register is of a capacity = 200,000 cubic feet below
decks. The register tonnage is thus obtained:
Mean length × 0·94 of maximum beam × depth from upper deck to keel, the
measure being taken inside, and in feet. The product is cubic feet,
which divided by 100 gives register tonnage.
In France these measurements have to be made in metres; the product in
cubic metres is divided by 0·38 to get tonnage.
Net tonnage, as distinguished from gross tonnage, is the latter less the
space occupied by cabins below deck, by engines and bunkers, in short
all that is not ‘hold.’
This deduction gives the space available for cargo, a very large
proportion in a sailing-ship, a very small proportion in a steam-yacht
or tug.
The Cargo Ton is usually reckoned at 40 cubic feet; the space occupied
by 20 centals = 4 quarters of wheat, or 25 centals of water.
A steamship of 4500 tons register may be 3000 tons net; as each of these
net tons will contain 2-1/2 tons of cargo of about the same weight as
wheat, after allowing for cases, dunnage, &c., the ship may be described
as carrying 7500 tons dead-weight. Of course, this would only apply to
goods of medium weight; not to iron rails or to ore, which could only be
taken as a limited part of the cargo, the rest of the space being either
filled with light goods or remaining empty.
The ship-owner has the choice of charging freight by measurement,
usually at 40 c. ft. to the ton, or by the ton weight for metal and
other heavy goods.
CONCORDANCE OF CAPACITY, WEIGHT AND MEASUREMENT
┌──────────────────┬───────────────────┬───────┬───────────────┬──────┐
│ │ Weight of Water │ Cubic │Weight of Wheat│ Cubic│
│ Capacity ├─────┬────────┬────┤Inches │ Lb. │ Feet │
│ │ Oz. │ Lb. │ Oz.│ │ │ │
├──────────────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────┼───────────────┼──────┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ 1│ 1·73 │ │1/1000│
│ (1/2 Quartern) │2-1/2│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ 10│ │ │ 1/100│
│× 8 = Pint │20 │= 1-1/4│ │ 34·6 │ 1 │ │
│ │ │ │ 100│ │ 5 │ 1/10│
│× 8 = Gallon │160 │= 10 │ │277-1/4│ 8 │ │
│ │ │ 62-1/2│1000│ │ 50 │ 1│
│× 8 = Bushel │ │ 80 │ │ 2218 │ 64 │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ Cental 100 │ 2│
│× 8 = Quarter │ │ │ │ │ 500 │ 10│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│× 4 = Ton-cargo │ │ │ │ │ 2000 │ 40│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ = Ton-register│ │ │ │ │ 10 Qrs. 5000 │ 100│
└──────────────────┴─────┴────────┴────┴───────┴───────────────┴──────┘
With the Corn-bushel (U.S.) = 62-1/2 lb. of wheat, 1 Quarter = 500 lb.
„ „ Imperial bushel = 64 lb. „ 1 „ = 512 lb.
TABLE OF VOLUME AND WEIGHT OF WATER
AT DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES
┌───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬─────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ │Expansion │ Density │ Weight of │ Corrections │
│Temperature│ ———— │ ———— │1 Cubic Foot.│ from 1000 ozs. │
│ Fahr.° │1000 Units│1000 Units│ Ounces │in 1 Cubic Foot. │
│ │of Volume │of Weight │ │ │
├───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────┤
│ 32 │ 1000·13 │ 999·8 │ 998·1 │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 39·2 │ 1000 │ 1000 │ 998·3 │ -1·7 oz. │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 45 │ 1000·1 │ 999·9 │ 998·2 │ -1·8 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 50 │ 1000·25 │ 999·7 │ 998 │ -2 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 55 │ 1000·55 │ 999·4 │ 997·7 │ -2·3 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 60 │ 1000·9 │ 999·1 │ 997·4 │ -2·6 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 62 │ 1001·1 │ 998·9 │ 997·2 │ -2·8 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 65 │ 1001·5 │ 998·6 │ 996·8 │ -3·1 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 70 │ 1002 │ 998 │ 996·3 │ -3·7 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 75 │ 1002·6 │ 997·4 │ 995·7 │ -4·3 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 80 │ 1003·3 │ 996·7 │ 995 │ -5 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 85 │ 1004 │ 996 │ 994·3 │ -5·7 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 90 │ 1004·8 │ 995·2 │ 993·5 │ -6·5 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 95 │ 1005·7 │ 994·3 │ 992·6 │ -7·4 „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ 100 │ 1006·8 │ 993·2 │ 991·5 │ -8·5 „ │
└───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────┘
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI
SCOTS, IRISH, AND WELSH MEASURES AND
WEIGHTS
1. SCOTLAND
The Scots system was distinctly North German, influenced by English
measures.
_Linear Measures_
The standard of length was the Scots Ell = 37·06 English inches.
Originally three Rhineland feet at 12·353 inches, it was always
described as containing 37 inches. The inch, at 1/37 of the ell, was
slightly longer, by less than 2 in 1000, than the English inch. The
penalty edicted in 1685 against the use of any other foot but that of 12
inches, while ‘three foot and an inch’ were a Scots ell, seems to show
that a foot equal to one-third of an ell may have been used.
The rod or ‘fall’ was 6 ells; the acre was 160 square rods = 1·26 acre,
and very nearly equal to the French arpent, which was equal to the Roman
heredium. This is, however, a mere coincidence. The Scots acre comes,
like the English acre, from North Germany. The type of the Scots acre is
seen in the Jück (yoke) of Oldenburg; this field-measure is 160 square
ruthen; each ruthe is 18 feet square, presumably 18 Rhineland feet = 6
Scots ells, originally; though now of a lower standard which makes the
Jück = only 1·12 acre instead of the 1·26 acre of Rhineland standard.
_Weights_
There was an ancient weight, the Tron pound, of variable standard, about
20 Scots ounces. But its actual weight appears to have been 9622 grains,
which is exactly 20 ounces of the original Arabic ounce = 481·18 grains.
This was abolished by the Act of 1618, which ordered ‘that the standards
be kept, two firlots by Linlithgow, the stone weight by Lanark, the ell
by Edinburgh, and the pint by Stirling, as of old.’
The Lanark stone was 16 lb. of Scots Trois weight. An inscription on the
standard still extant states that it was equal to 15 lb. 14 oz. English
Troy, that is to the fictive long Troy pound of 7680 grains. The Scots
pound, = 7609 grains, was divided into 16 ounces = 475·5 grains, divided
into 16 drops.
The stone was blunderingly described (1618) as ‘the French Trois Stone
containing sixteen Trois ounces.’ But it had nothing to do with French
weight (in which the ounce = 472·12 grains); its standard was of the
Dutch Troy (Trooisch) class, coinciding very closely with that of the
Amsterdam pound = 7925 grains, the ounce = 476·5 grains.
When the 7600-grains lb. came to England as the standard of the Assize
of Bread, it was known as the Scots or Dutch pound.
An Act of James I (1410), ‘That a Stone be made for weighing fifteen
Trois pounds and divided into sixteen Scots pounds,’ leads to a
suspicion that there was another Scots pound, of Rhineland standard; for
16 pounds or double marks of Cologne are very approximately equal to 15
long Troy pounds of English standard.
Troy oz., 480 grs. × 16/15 = 450 grs. = Tower oz.
One may thus surmise that the royal pound of Scotland, like that of
England up to Tudor times, was of Cologne or Tower standard, and was
superseded in course of time by the Amsterdam or Scots Trois pound.
_Measures of Capacity_
In 1410 it was ordered:
That the Boll be divided into 4 Firlots, and contain 29 inches
within the boords, and above 27 and an half-inch even over, and
in deepness 19 inches; that the Firlot contain in breadth even
over 16 inches under and above within the boords, and in
deepness 9 inches; that the Firlot contain 2 gallons and a pint,
and the Pint to weigh, of the water of Tay 41 ounces or 2 pounds
9 ounces; so the Gallon weighs 20 pounds 8 ounces, the Firlot 41
pounds and the Boll 164 pounds.
This seems as clear as the water of Tay; unfortunately the three firlots
mentioned in the first half of the quotation are three different
firlots.
There is also a difficulty about the pint. An Act of James VI gives ‘the
pint of Stirling two pounds and nine ounces Trois, of clear water,’ the
same weight as above. But another and previous Act of the same king
(1618) orders ‘that the Pint weigh three pounds seven ounces Trois of
the running water of the Water of Leith’; and this pint is also called
the Stirling Pint, Jug or Stoup, so there were two pints, as well as
several firlots.
Of the two pints, the standard of one is still extant, which we will
call the Stirling Jug or larger pint. It contains 104·2 cubic inches =
60·1 ounces of water, almost exactly 3 Imperial pints, and was 55 ounces
or 3 lb. 7 oz. Scots of water. It was not an aliquot part of any of the
firlots, but was itself a standard basis of measure, of which the firlot
might be 18, 19, 21-1/4, &c. There is little doubt that it was one of
the ‘Kanne’ of North Germany (Du. _stoop_); these kanne vary at the
present day between 2·83 pints in Bremen and 3·2 pints in Hamburg. There
was in Prussia until quite recently the Metze of 6 pints or 120·8
ounces, almost exactly twice the larger Stirling Jug.
The other pint, of 41 Scots ounces = 44-1/2 English ounces or 2-1/4
pints, was not a standard measure. It was merely a divisional unit,
one-sixteenth of the above-described wine firlot containing 41 lb.
Scots, or 44-1/2 English pounds, of water. This firlot was divided into
2 gallons = 20-1/2 lb. Scots, or 22-1/4 English pounds; and the gallon
into 8 pints of 41 ounces Scots.
What was the origin of this firlot, or rather of the Boll, of which it
was a fourth? There is only one measure with which it has any affinity:
the half-Cargo of Marseilles,[31] divided like it, sexdecimally. The two
series run thus:
SCOTLAND MARSEILLES (original Standard)
Imp. Gall. Imp. Gall.
Boll 164 lb. Scots = 17·8 Half-Cargo = 17·76
Firlot 41 „ = 4·45 Panau, Eimino = 4·43
Gallon 20-1/2 „ = 2·22 Half-Eimino = 2·21
Pint, Jug 41 oz. = 2·2 Pechié (Pitcher) = 2·21
Footnote 31:
There was considerable intercourse between Marseilles and Scotland.
The Scots custom of eating grey peas with oil on Carlin’ Sunday is
taken from the Provençal custom of eating chick-peas on Palm Sunday;
and the traditional reason, the arrival on that day, in famine-time,
of a ship laden with pulse, is the same at Leith as at Marseilles.
In the next reign, that of James II, about 1450, another Firlot
appeared. It was to be ‘a general Mett, according to the Pint and Quart
formerly given to the Burgh of Stirling for an universal standard,
whereof each Firlot to contain eighteen Pints ... and that none use
another measure.’
Which of the Stirling pints was the Standard? The smaller pint of 41
Scots ounces of water, or the Jug, the larger pint, of 55 ounces?
In this case it was certainly the larger pint; for 18 pints of this
standard are very nearly equal to a firlot containing a Rhineland cubic
foot of water, 1000 Troy ounces = 1886 cubic inches. Except the slight
difference between Amsterdam and Scots Troy weight, this firlot was
62-1/2 lb. Scots, just as the English cubic foot was 62-1/2 lb.
averdepois. It was 18 pints of 104·2 cubic inches = 1875·6 cubic inches
= 54 Imperial pints or 6·76 Imperial gallons. This corresponds very
closely to the Himt or cubic Rhineland-foot measure of North Germany,
actually = 6·85 gallons.
This was a corn-firlot, and I recognise in it the firlot mixed up with
the wine-firlot and only rescued by its stated dimensions corresponding
to a capacity so different from the calculated contents of the latter.
The dimensions given correspond to a capacity of 1809 cubic inches, a
considerable divergence, but the old custom of ordering the gauge of
bushel-measures in inches either whole or with simple fractions often
caused considerable divergence from the calculated standard of capacity.
Progress through the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland reveals to us
more firlots, with the same anxiety which has been seen in English
statutes for unity of standards, with the same attempts to conceal their
plurality beneath plausible wording. Under James VI (and I of England)
the Parliaments were anxious ‘that the measure and firlot of Linlithgow
should be the only firlot for all his Majesty’s liedges.’ It was
therefore ordered that the Pint of Stirling be 2 lb. 9 oz. Trois of
clear water, and the Firlot of Linlithgow 19 pints.
It has been seen that the Act of James I which ordered the wine-firlot
to be 41 lb. in 2 gallons of 20 lb. 8 oz. also stated that it was to
contain 2 gallons and a pint; thus making it in one line 16 pints (of 41
ounces), in another 17 pints. The Act of James II ordered the firlot
(presumably a corn-firlot) to be 18 pints, of 55 ounces. And then the
Act of James VI made the firlot 19 pints, of 41 ounces = 48-3/4 lb.
Scots or 53 English pounds. This capacity corresponds approximately to
the Schepel of Oldenburg, now = 50 lb.
Yet another Act of James VI (1616) finds the Linlithgow standard of the
Firlot to be true and to contain ‘twentie are pincts and ane mutchkin of
just Sterline Jug and measure,’ but, in order to put an end to heaped
measure, it orders a new firlot for malt, barley and oats, containing 31
pints Stirling Jug, and that the pint weigh 3 lb. 7 oz. Trois of the
running water of the Water of Leith. Thus different Acts order firlots
of 16, 17, 18, 19, 21-1/4, 31, pints; sometimes the pint is to be 41
ounces Scots, sometimes 55 ounces, and sometimes it is not mentioned
which.
The firlot of 21-1/4 pints was probably an imported measure found to
contain that number of pints; 21-1/4 × 104·2 gives 2214 cubic inches, =
7·98 Imperial gallons, for its capacity, a measure coinciding very
closely with the Anker, which varies between 7·83 gallons in Oldenburg
and 8 gallons in Lubeck (and 7·95 gallons in the Cape Colony). The Boll
of 4 firlots = 4 bushels was equal to the Lubeck Ohm; and the term Anker
was used in Scotland for the potato-firlot.
This firlot of 21-1/4 pints became the Edinburgh firlot; and it happens
to coincide almost exactly with the Imperial bushel. It being fixed at
21-1/4 Stirling pints (of 104·2 c.i.) when 20-1/2 pints would have made
it 2136 c.i., almost exactly the old English bushel (2150 c.i.), shows
that it was not influenced by the latter; it was clearly an independent
measure imported by trade. Its series was quaternary:
Boll (of 4 firlots) = 4 Imperial bushels.
Firlot = 1 „ „
Peck = 2 „ gallons.
Lippy (or forpit) = 4 „ pints.
The lippy, as its sixteenth, came to mean a sixteenth generally. The
word is a diminutive of the O.E. ‘leap,’ a basket, e.g. ‘seed-lip.’
The barley and oats firlot of 31 pints = 3230 cubic inches is the real
Linlithgow firlot. It was the Edinburgh firlot increased to contain the
same weight of malt, bear (barley) and oats as that contained of
wheat.[32] Its capacity was 11·6 gallons, and its Boll contained 46-1/2
gallons or 5·8 bushels. It was probably a Boll of about this capacity
the dimensions of which, giving a capacity of about 43 gallons, were
roughly stated in the Act of 1410 as those of the wine-boll.
Footnote 32:
It was a common custom formerly to measure corn by the shallow bushel,
striked for wheat, heaped for lighter corn. The oats firlot of 31
pints was ordered to end the practice of giving ‘three straiked for
two heaped measures [which] do exceed and are not just.’
The Chalder (of Culross) was 16 Edinburgh bolls.
I need scarcely do more than mention the smaller measures: to the
Choppin (Fr. _chopine_), half a wine-pint; to the Mutchkin (Du.
_maatje_), its quarter; to the Gill, its eighth, usually.
The measures of Scotland may be thus summarised: They appear to have all
come from North Germany, except one from Provence.
The Ell was a length of 3 Rhineland feet, divided into 37 inches,
approximately of English standard.
The Acre was a North German acker of 160 rods, each 6 Rhineland feet
square.
The Pound was the Amsterdam standard of Troy = 7609 grains, multiplied
and divided sexdecimally.
The old wine-boll = 17·8 gallons was the half-Cargo of Marseilles,
divided into 16 pints of 41 Scots ounces.
The larger Stirling Jug was a North German ‘kanne’ of 104·2 cubic inches
= 55 Scots ounces or 3 Imperial pints. It was the standard of
corn-measure; the corn-firlots were multiples of it.
The common corn-firlot was a Rhineland cubic foot = 1000 Troy ounces or
18 Stirling Jugs. It was the North German Himt.
Another firlot was 19 lesser pints = 48-3/4 lb. Scots.
The Edinburgh Firlot of 21-1/4 Stirling Jugs or 2214 cubic inches was
the North German Anker, become a corn-measure.
The Firlot of 31 Stirling Jugs was a wheat-firlot enlarged to hold about
the same weight of oats.
2. IRELAND
There are in Ireland many primitive Celtic measures worthy of study, if
merely as showing the ways of thought of the people; but apart from
these, the system of weights and measures, established for many
centuries, has been the English system introduced in early Plantagenet
times.
Some of these measures, relics of that time, long overlaid in England,
are of interest; for instance, the gallon of 217 c.i. is one-eighth of
the early wine-bushel = 1 cubic foot.
The Irish road and field measures, multiples of the seven-yard rod, have
been noticed.
3. WALES
The general unit is the Cibyn (kibbin) = 4 gallons or 32 lb. of wheat,
the English half-bushel or tuffet. It is divided into 4 quarts, and 16
cibyns make a Peg = 8 bushels or 1 quarter.
Measures on the English stone system are also used:
The Ffiol = 1 stone, 14 lb.
„ Peck = 3 „
„ Hobbet = 12 „ about 2-1/2 bushels.
There is a Hobbet in England, but this is about a bushel.
The 5-span Ell survived in Wales for a long time as the Hirlath.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII
MEASURES AND WEIGHTS OF SOME BRITISH
DOMINIONS
1. THE CHANNEL ISLANDS
These measures are the connecting links between those of old France,
through Normandy, and those of England, especially in land-measures.
Normandy had a system of measures kept in fair unity by the English
dukes of Normandy.
‘Thanks to their firm administration the English system was generally
marked by a scientific regularity which, notwithstanding its
complication, is in remarkable contrast with the barbarous French
system.’[33]
Footnote 33:
_Etudes sur la condition de la classe agricole en Normandie au moyen
age_ (Leopold V. Delisle, 1851).
For England had already, at the Norman Conquest, a good system in which
weight, wine-measure, corn-measure, and linear measure were co-related;
albeit this co-relation, under the influence of the royal mint pound,
was forgotten for many centuries, and is indeed scarcely known at
present.
But Northern France and Normandy had no such co-related system. Southern
France had an excellent system, indeed that of Marseilles was perfect;
while Paris, taking its measures from the South, destroyed their
co-ordination and was careless of their standards.
None of the Paris series had any simple relation. So it was in Normandy,
where the systems of North and South were mixed with Teutonic measures.
The original Norman perch, like that of England,
_et est la mesure 16 pies la perque_,
probably Rhineland feet, but perches of 20, 22 and 24 Paris feet, often
of reduced Paris feet, superseded it. The Acre was always 4 Vergées or
roods, nearly always of 40 square perches, and divided into quarters.
The charuée, caruée or ploughland was usually 60 Normandy acres, divided
into 12 bouvées or oxgangs, each of 5 acres or 20 vergées.
Corn-measure had for principal unit the Bushel, 8 of which made a
Quarter, a quarter of a horse-load or, if large, of a cartload. The
bushel was, or appeared usually to be, a multiple of the Pot; this led
to divergencies according to the number of pots taken; yet it seems
probable that the Pot was itself a fraction, an eighth, a tenth, a
twelfth, or a sixteenth of some bushel either wine-measure or
corn-measure.
While the weights and measures of Paris had established themselves in
Rouen and Caen, local measures more in agreement with Norman customs
were in general use. Thus the Paris bushel = 793 cubic inches was
scarcely used. A typical Norman measure was the _Boisseau étalon de
l’abbaye de Jumièges_, containing, as nearly as I could measure, 1648
cubic inches. Now this is very approximately a cubic foot of the reduced
Paris 11-inch standard usual in Normandy, akin to the 11-inch foot of
Jersey. This cubic foot was very nearly the Roman cubic foot or
Quadrantal; for the reduced Paris foot, = 11·72 English inches, was very
nearly the same as the quarter of the aune, which was 4 Roman feet very
approximately.
There was another standard Bushel—the _Boisseau étalon de la Ville de
Bolbec_—containing, as nearly as I could measure, 2534 cubic inches.
There is also a peculiar measure for apples, the _barattée_ or churnful,
usually of 25 pots.
In Normandy as in the rest of France weights were not related to
measures. It was always known what was the usual weight of corn in the
bushel; thus the Paris bushel was supposed to hold 20 French pounds of
wheat.
Some heavy pounds, brought possibly by the Normans, disappeared
gradually before the Paris Troy pound. Wool-weight brought from England
was used; the sack being 36 stone of 9 French pounds or about 350
averdepois pounds.
Such was the system of measures and weights used in Normandy, and
surviving there in great part. The slightly differing systems of the
Channel Islands are simply variants of this system, a rough sketch of
which I have given by way of introduction to them.
Jersey and Guernsey (the latter including Alderney and Sark in its
government) are each practically autonomous. The Islanders keep their
Norman laws, customs and dialects, and retain their systems of measures,
weights and currency. These are being gradually modified by increased
intercourse with England; and French influence tries hard, especially in
Jersey, to introduce the metric system.
_Linear and Land Measures_
1. _Jersey._—For ordinary linear measures the English standards are
used, the yard and the pied du roi; that is the English foot. There is
also an ancient ell of 4 feet.
For land measure the Jersey foot is 11 English inches (but divided into
12 land-inches); and 24 of these feet make a perch = 22 English feet.
This peculiar standard is evidently an adaptation of the Norman custom
(which prevailed in France) of making 24 short feet of either a quarter
aune, or 11 pouces, the perch or verge, which became officially the
_perche d’ordonnance_ of 22 French feet.
The Jersey Vergée or rood is 40 square perches = 0·44 acre.
2. _Guernsey._—The linear measures are based on the English standards.
They were, in 1611:
Cloth yard = 38-1/2 inches (= half a toise).
Sail Cloth yard = 44 „
English ell = 45-1/2 „
English yard = 36 (Verge d’Angleterre).
The perch or verge is 21 feet; probably an approximate adaptation of the
common perch of 20 French feet = 21·3 English feet. It is the same as
the Irish and Lancashire rod.
The verge or rood is 40 square perches = 0·4 acre.
The acre-unit is not used now in either island.
The bouvée (bovate) of 20 vergées, and caruée (carucate) of 12 bouvées
remain only in manorial records.
_Measures of Capacity_
1. _Jersey._—The standard ordered in 1754, and confirmed in 1771, is the
Cabot, defined as containing 10 Pots.
The Pot contains 123·56 cubic inches = 0·445 Imperial gallon. It does
not correspond directly to the Paris pot = 111 cubic inches or 0·41
gallon, nor apparently to the various Normandy pots, of which that of
Caen, about Paris standard, is the type. It is simply one-tenth of the
Cabot.
The Cabot, a common name in Normandy for a corn-measure, is for wheat
and for wine, cider, &c. A larger cabot, for barley and other light
grain, is one-third larger, containing 13-1/3 pots; another, for coal,
contains 14 pots. Lime and charcoal are measured by the cask of 120
Pots, i.e. 6 bushels of 20 pots. For a double cabot is usually called a
bushel.
The Cabot = 1235·6 cubic inches, and containing 4·456 gallons, coincides
nearly with one-eighth of the Paris Setier = 4·29 bushels, and also with
the Panau or Eimino, 1/8 of the Marseilles Cargo of 4·34 bushels.
It is divided into 6 Sixtonniers.
For wine, cider, &c., it is divided into gallons (double pots, 1/5
cabot), pots, quarts and pints.
A double cabot is the bushel. The duodecimal division of the Paris
Setier and the division (in the corresponding wheat-water series) of the
Quartant into 9 veltes, prevent the relations of the Jersey measures
with those of Paris being clearly seen. But the relations with the
Marseilles standards, corn and wine, from which the Paris standards were
taken, are evident. It will be seen in the chapter on the Old Measures
of France that the Paris Setier was derived, through the Marseilles
Cargo, from the Egyptian Rebekeh, which is the cubed cubit of Al-Mamūn.
The Cabot has been stated (Ansted, ‘Channel Islands,’ 1862) to contain
43 lb. 7 oz. of water. On this estimate = 4·344 gallons, it is exactly
the Marseilles Eimino.
MARSEILLES JERSEY
Gallons Gallons
Cargo 34·72 Quarter (8 Cabots) 35·6
Sestié 8·68 Bushel 8·91
Eimino, Panau 4·34 Cabot 4·45
1/6 „ 0·72 Sixtonnier 0·74
_Fluid Measures._
Escandau 3·54
Quartié 0·885 Gallon 0·89
1/2 „ 0·442 Pot (1/10 Cabot) 0·445
Pot, Pechié 0·221 Quarte 0·222
Fuieto 0·11 Pinte 0·111
N.B.—The Escandau is the Panau diminished in wheat-water ratio. The
Jersey pot is the fluid measure in wheat-water ratio with 1/8 cabot.
There seems no doubt that the cabot is the eighth of the setier (and of
the Cargo), slightly variant, as the Jersey pound is a variant of the
Paris pound.
There is also a measure for apples = 3·77 bushels or 30 gallons. The
ordinary barattée (churnful) of apples in Normandy is 25 pots = 10
gallons.
The larger Cabot for barley and other grains except wheat was to be =
1-1/3 of the wheat cabot, that is 13-1/3 pots; it was therefore = 5·933
gallons, very nearly 3/4 an imperial bushel = 1647 c.i. Was it fixed at
this size to hold approximately the same weight of barley, &c., as the
smaller cabot held of wheat, or was it the Boisseau de Jumièges = 1648
c.i. approximately? That I cannot say. But the question is of some
importance historically, for Guernsey adopted a bushel of about this
capacity, the lineage of which is a matter of considerable interest.
2. _Guernsey._—In 1582, also in 1611, the Guernsey bushel was ordered to
be 16 inches diameter and 8 inches deep; it was to hold 13 pots and a
quart. The pot was not defined: at the end of the seventeenth century it
is recorded to be equal to 121 cubic inches. On this basis the bushel
should be 1633 cubic inches, but according to the dimensions ordered it
contains only 1608 cubic inches. This is evidently one of the cases
where the wish to order a measure of simple dimensions has caused the
standard to deviate practically from its calculated value. There is
considerable doubt as to the capacity of the pot, the original standard
of which is not extant. But from the definition of the Guernsey bushel
as 13-1/2 pots of approximately 121 cubic inches, it would seem that
this was considered as roughly equivalent to the 13-1/3 pots, each
123-1/2 cubic inches, of the Jersey barley-bushel = 1647 c.i.
The bushel is divided, on its calculated capacity of 13-1/2 pots, = 1631
c.i., into
2 Cabotels
6 Denerels (Jersey sixtonniers) = 272 c.i.
30 Quintes = 54-1/2 „
The Denerel is thus, probably by mere coincidence, exactly the old
corn-gallon, and the bushel is 6 corn-gallons.
The word Denerel means ‘standard’ in the sense of the standard coin or
pattern piece, the Denerial or Deneral, to which the French moneyers had
to strike deniers or silver pence. We may confer with this term the
Marseilles Escandau, meaning ‘standard,’ a measure = 3·54 gallons, the
basis of a whole system of measures.
But if the bushel were based on another measure than the obsolete pot—on
a standard still extant in the Sheriff’s Office, the
_Quinte, grande mesure du marché de Guernesey 1615_,
it would be of larger capacity. For the Quinte, I found when I measured
it in 1885, is approximately 54·7 cubic inches, and it is stated to
contain fully 32 ounces of water. As it happens to be equal to a fifth
of the imperial gallon, the Denerel should be equal to an imperial
gallon, and the bushel to 6 gallons.
There are two other bushels:
The Coal-bushel (1611) of 18-1/2 inches diameter, by 8 deep, then stated
to be equal to 16-3/4 pots (an evident mistake, in Roman numerals, for
17-3/4 pots) and containing an English corn-bushel.
The Barley-bushel, 1625 and 1673, to contain 17-1/2 pots; of such size
that it should hold, striked, as much as the wheat-bushel held when
heaped. Its calculated capacity is 2117·5 c.i. = 7·63 gallons.
_Wine-Measures_
These have assimilated themselves in the course of trade to those of the
countries of exportation, but the fluid measures of the islands still
subsist for cider and other liquors. The Jersey gallon is, or was, 2
pots = 247 c.i. The Guernsey gallon is, or was, 1/8 of the bushel = 252
c.i. or perhaps 2 pots = 242 c.i.
Both are somewhat over the old English wine-gallon.
_Weights_
The Jersey pound, = 7561 grains, is 7 grains over the old French pound;
104 pounds make a cwt. = 112·3 lb.
The Guernsey pound, = 7623 grains, differs by only 2 grains from the
Amsterdam pound; 100 Guernsey pounds = 108·9 lb.