[Sca-cooks] period measures

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear replied to me with:
> Troy weights are based on the average weight of a grain of wheat.  24 grains
> = 1 pennyweight (the weight of a silver penny),  20 pennyweights = 1 ounce
> troy, 12 troy ounces = 1 pound troy.  In practice, the city fathers of
> Troyes kept a set of standard weights and all weights in use at the great
> fair were tested against the standards.  The rigid enforcement of the
> standard made it a popular measure across Europe and the maintenance of the
> weights at Troyes made it possible to produce matching weights for other
> authorities to test scales in their jurisdiction.

Thank you! Yes, this makes sense. The "average weight of a grain of wheat" is
hard to quantify and repeat. But it makes a reasonable starting place, at
least compared to the length of particular king's foot. And once a standard
set of measures has been created, that becomes the "standard". I assume that
unless made of gold, most of those wieghts might oxidize, but probably not
enough to be evident with the tools they had. And unlike with coins, there
really is no incentive for anyone to quietly change the standard. If you make
it lighter or heavier, you are as likely to cheat yourself as another. You
just need something that everyone can agree on.


> As nation states became more powerful in Western Europe during the late
> Middle Ages, most kept the form of the Troyes measure but established their
> own standards.


Do you mean they didn't use a one troy ounce measure? Using something else that was standardized to X troy ounces? Or something else?

It is interesting that we still use the troy ounce and that it can be traced
to the average wieght of a particular type of wheat at a particular time. Much
as the railway guage used today can be traced to the spacing of the Roman
chariot wheels. Or why much of the world uses a technically inferior computer
operating system or the qwerty keyboard.


Stefan

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas         StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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