Elementary arithmetic, with brief notices of its history... by Robert Potts.

6

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

The Anglo-Saxon weights and measures were established throughout the whole of England. The weight of the Saxon pound was not
likely to be changed, as the same pound and the same division of the
pound prevailed at that time over the greater part of Europe. This
is certain of the common pound of Italy as early as A.D. 958, if not
much earlier; for one of their records makes mention of an estate
sold in that country for 60 pounds of 240 pennies to the pound. In
the time of King Alfred the Saxon pound weight was 240 pennies, and
was estimated by the mancus, making 8 to the pound, each of 30
pennies; and also by 48 shillings, each of 5 pennies. The mancus
(manue cusum) was probably derived from Italy, in the intercourse
between that country and England after the friendly reception by
Ethelbert of the mission of Augustine in 597. It appears the mancus
was a name applied to a weight. Archbishop.Elfric, at the end of
the tenth century, states that the mancus was equal to 30 pennies or
6 shillings.
It is recorded that King Edgar, 975 A.D., with the consent of his
council, decreed "that one and the same money should be current
throughout his dominions, which no man must refuse; and that the
measure of Winchester should be the standard, and that a weigh of
wool should be sold for half a pound of money, and no more."
The Saxon coins were regulated by the pound weight brought from
Germany, and afterwards known by the name of the Cologne pound
weight.1 The precise weight of the Saxon money pound cannot be
exactly ascertained from positive evidence, but there is strong presumptive evidence, first shown by Mr. Foulkes ("Tables of Silver
Coins," p. 3, note), that it was of the same weight as that known for
some centuries after the Conquest by the name of the Tower pound,
and was so named from the fact of the principal mint of England
being in the Tower of London. The Saxon pound was, like the Tower
pound, divided into 12 ounces. If the supposition of the identity of
the Saxon and Tower pound be correct, the Saxon pound contained
1 Mr. Clarke has given in his "Connection of Roman, Saxon, and English Coins,"
p. 24, the following weights of the ounce:
Grains, Troy.
The Strasburgh ounce from standards made 1238 A.D......... 451'38
The present Strasburgh ounce.................. 454-75
The old Saxon ounce, from the Chamber of Accounts in Paris, about
the time of Edward III., after 1327, A.D................ 451-76
The present Cologne ounce..................... 451 38
The old Tower ounce, as taken from the accounts in the English
Exchequer, 1527, A.D...................... 450-00
The small differences of these several ounces seem to suggest that all of them had
the same origin. The immemorial usage of the Cologne or Strasburgh pound in
Germany, and in Britain from the first arrival of the Saxons till the time of Henry VII.,
is evidence of its great antiquity.
Dr. Arbuthnot makes the Greek ounce to consist of 455'33 grains Troy, which is
nearly identical to the present Strasburgh ounce. The Saxon writers refer the
origin of their nation to the Getse, to whom the Goths and Germans were related
as kindred clans. The near agreement of the Greek ounce and the German ounce
may form a ground for the presumption that the Greeks and the Germans may have
descended through different branches from the same people. This presumption
derives some probability from the similarity of usage in the Greek and Saxon languages of the article, the double negative, and the formation of proper names.
Ovid, in some pieces written during his exile in Pontus, noted an affinity
between the Greek and and Getic tongues, and remarked that though the Getic
tongue was disguised by a barbarous pronunciation, there were evident marks of
its Greek original.-Ovid, Trist., v. 7, 10.