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

WEIGHTS AND) MEASURES.

7

5400 grains Troy, and this weight of silver coins was. a pound
sterling. The pound of silver was always reckoned by account at
something more than the number of pennies which were struck out
of it at the mint. It was a Ioman as well as a Saxon custom.1 When
the Romans coined 8 denarii to the ounce, and 96 to their pound of
silver, they paid 100 in tale; and when the Saxons coined 4 shillings
to the ounce, and 48 to their pound, they paid 50 in account. And
it may be noted that the Saxon laws always reckoned their pound in
the round number of 50 shillings, when it is evident they really
coined out of it only 48. Mr. Foulkes's discovery of the old Tower
pound being the same as the Anglo-Saxon pound of the moneyers,
lias made out the pound of 48 shillings.
When William the Conqueror had ratified the laws of Edward
the Confessor, he decreed that the weights and measures which had
been established by his predecessors should be continued in use,
and ordered that the measures and weights should be true, and
stamped in all parts of the kingdom.2 The same regulations were
continued by his successors. Richard I., who ascended the throne
in 1189, not only enforced an uniformity of measures, but also ordered
that the vessels employed for measuring should be edged with hoops.of iron, and that standards should be kept by the magistrates in the
different counties and towns of the kingdom. And this uniformity of
weights and measures was confirmed by the Magna Charta in 1225.
The Act 5 Henry III., c. 9, ordained that " One measure of wine shall
be throughout our Realm, and one measure of ale, and one measure
of corn, that is to say, the quarter of London; and one breadth of
dyed cloth, that is to say, two yards within the lists. And it shall be
of weights as it is of measures." And by the statute of 51 Henry III.,
1266, they were defined in the following form:-" By the consent of
the whole Realm of England, the measure of our Lord the King was
made; that is to say, that an English peny, called a sterling, round
and without any clipping, shall weigh 32 wheat corns in the midst of
the Oar,3 and 20 pennies do make an ounce, and 12 ounces one pound,
and 8 pounds do make a gallon of wine, and 8 gallons of wine do
In the times of the later Roman emperors, there appears to have been a custom
of making allowances in the payment of money by tale. This is evident from a law
of the elder Valentinian, by which lie enforced a law of Constantine for paying by
weight; and he observes that it was usual to take two or three solidi in the pound
as the common allowance in tale. "Facile enim eos provincie rector a dispendio
vindicabit, qui binis ceu ternis solidis necessitudinem solutionis adimpleverit."
It may be added, that both during the Republic and under some of the emperors,
the Romans coined 84 denarii out of a pound weight of silver, though the pound
by tale was always reckoned at 100.
2 On the accession of William I. to the throne of England, the pound in tale of
the silver coins current was equal to the pound weight of standard silver, that is, the
moneyer's pound, afterwards called the Tower pound. The pound in tale was divided
into twenty shillings, and each shilling into twelve pennies, or sterlings.' The pound
in weight was divided into twelve ounces, and each ounce into twenty pennyweights,
so that each penny weighed one pennyweight. The only coins made at this period
were pennies. This simple system of coinage, by which the pound in tale was made
equal to the pound in weight, and was divided in the manner before mentioned, is
supposed to have been first introduced into France towards the end of the eighth
century. As the Norman princes for a long time before had considerable intercourse
with England, it may have been introduced from France in the times of our AngloSaxon ancestors. This system of silver coinage continued without any alteration in
the weight of the silver coins until the year 28 Edward 1.
~ The grain of barley and the seed of the Abru s p1recatorisds were assumed by the