NK - Free Time

[Addington, Debbie, A]

NO?

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Marc Carlson [SMTP:marc-carlson at utulsa.edu]
> Sent:	Friday, August 06, 1999 11:34 AM
> To:	Northkeep at Ansteorra.ORG
> Subject:	RE: NK - Free Time
> 
> >For period, wasn't it more a matter of the size of the merchants body
> parts?
> >*this could easily be taken out of context*  :)
> 
> Don't worry, it probably will be.
> 
> I think it was whoever was doing the measuring, for the most part (i.e.,
> my
> keyboard
> is about 2 palms tall, by 5 wide, more or less).  There *were* standard
> measurements
> (usually based on the old Roman measures), but these were often governed
> by
> local
> practice (in England, the Crown determined the standards, while in France
> and Germany
> and Italy every region determined their own.  That's why an English inch
> is
> one thing,
> and a Paris inch is something else.
> 
> OTOH, let's say that your order enough fabric from a draper to make a new
> dress (in modern 
> terms - let me see 3.5 yards of 60 inch wide = 17,280 sq inches of
> cloth/24" wide loom = 
> 16 ells (English)) and the only place he can order this fabric from is
> from
> over in Calontir
> he knows the fabric width is about the same, but they use Flemish ells
> which are a bit over
> half as long, so he's going to need to order at least 28 ells (actually
> 26.67) from them. 
> 
> So, does that make sense?
> 
> Marc/Diarmaid