Chapter IV.

The Cano or fathom, = 79·24 inches, was 8 pán or spans each = 9·904 inches; the span was of 8 menut or inches, also divided into 8 parts.[47]

Footnote 47:

In Provençal, the principal idiom of the Occitanian language, nouns take no plural form; so pán, cáno, &c., do not change. The Provençal words in this chapter are pronounced—páng, cánn, saomádd, eymīnn, escandáo, panáo, cárrg, miyeyròl.

The basis of the Southern system, typically that of Marseilles, was then the Cargo, a corn-measure = 34·73 gallons (the equivalent of 154·79 litres, the official metric value), which was the cubic cubit of Al-Mamūn:

21·28 inches cubed = 9639 c.i. = 34·73 gallons.

Now what water or wine measure would be produced from the Cargo, decreased in wheat-water ratio?

Dividing the measure of the cargo by 1·22 we have:

34·73/1·22 = 28·46 gallons.

A fluid measure of this capacity is not in use at Marseilles, but we find its half, almost exactly, in the Mieirolo = 14·19 gallons, a wine and oil measure used extensively in Mediterranean ports.

The word Mieirolo, in which _mié_ means half, corresponds to the name of the first in an Italian series of wine-measures:

Mezzaruola, Terzaruola, Quartaruola, fractions of a 28-gallon measure now apparently obsolete.

The standard of the Mieirolo is now at—

Marseilles, 64·384 litres = 14·19 gallons. Tripoli, 64·386 „ „ „ Tunis, 63·347 „ 13·97 „ Spain, 64·55 „ 14·23 „

One-fourth of the Mieirolo, or one-eighth of the obsolete wine-cargo, is the Escandau, equal to the Spanish arroba (a word meaning ‘quarter’), and containing, at the present Marseilles standard, 16·096 litres = 3·54 gallons. To this Escandau or standard corresponds, in water-wheat ratio, the Panau = 4·34 gallons, 1/8 of the Cargo = 4·34 bushels or 34·73 gallons.

The correspondence of this series of wine and corn measures, in southern water-wheat ratio, is perfect, even after many centuries, probably since the tenth century. The Escandau and the Panau or Eimino correspond then to about 4 wine-gallons and 4 corn-gallons.

The Escandau has always been understood to be a cubic pán. Escandau[48] means a standard; Pán means a side, pane or panel, and it is the measure of the side of a ‘quadrantal’ containing an Escandau of water, as our foot is the measure of one containing an English talent of 1000 Roman ounces of water. The cube root of 16·096 litres is 25·24 centimetres, a length differing by less than a millimetre from the standard of the Marseilles pán = 25·16 centimetres or 9·9 inches.

Footnote 48:

Escandau is to gauge, to sound depths, to standardise. This word is from the same root as ‘scandalise’ applied to moral tripping, and then to the use of the ‘stiliard,’ the lever-balance that trips with any inequality of weight.

_Land-measures_

The ancient system of seed-measures, fixed geometrically, survives to this day in Southern France, indeed throughout most of France. I shall make no apology for dwelling on it, for the linear land and cubic measures of Southern France show a perfectly concordant system of measures, more so even than those of England; indeed they are the type of a perfect system.

The largest unit of land is the Saumado, of 4 Sesteirado, each of 2 Eiminado; these being originally the ground that could be sown with a Saumado (or Cargo), with a Sestié, with an Eimino, of wheat.

These seed-measures of land corresponding to our Coomb, Bushel and Peck land, became fixed respectively at 1600, at 400, and at 200 square cano or fathoms.

To the Sestié and the Sesteirado correspond the _boisseau_ and _boisselée_ of Poitou and other provinces, the _boisselée_, or bushel-land, being 400 square toises.

But the surveyor’s measuring-rod is the Destre, a double cano, of 16 pán = 13 ft. 2-1/2 in. In Languedoc, west of the Rhone, the square destre = 4 square cano is the smallest unit, so that the Saumado of land is 1600 square cano or 400 destre. But in Provence the destre of land is 2 square cano, so that the Saumado is 1600 square cano or 800 destre; the reason probably being that the destre should be 2 cano superficial as it is 2 cano linear, and also that the Eiminado or peck-seedlip of land should be 100 destre.

The Eiminado is divided into quarters and sixteenths, corresponding to the gallon and quart divisions of the Eimino or peck. It is also divided into 20 Cosso, the ground corresponding to a cosso (= quart, wine-measure) of seed.

It is interesting to observe that the Saumado of 4 Sesteirado of 40 Cosso, corresponds, in division, to our Acre of 4 roods, of 40 square rods.[49] And the Cosso = 1/100 acre or 1/10 sq. chain.

N.B.—1000 sq. cano = 1 acre.

The Saumado, of 1600 sq. cano = 1·6 acre.

Footnote 49:

The cosso is a wooden bowl, Sc. ‘luggie,’ used by shepherds. Our rod is in some districts a ‘lug.’

Such is the typical system of Southern measures, best preserved in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, but prevailing throughout the Southern half of France, though with local variations in the length of the cano and the names of the land-units.

_Measures of Capacity_

These have mostly been given in the story of the pán and in the seed-measures corresponding to the land-measures.

Throughout the system the divisions in each series are sexdecimal, even the Cosso, 1/20 Eiminado, being 1/160 Saumado.

_Weights_

There were three types of pounds in South France, local variations from these being very slight. The pound was always 16 ounces, each of 8 ternau. The Ternau, so called from its being divided into 3 pennyweights, was the Arab dirhem. The three types of pound were:

Languedoc lb. = 6400 grs. Ounce = 400 grs. Ternau = 50 grs.

Gascony „ = 6280 „ „ = 392 „ „ = 49 „

Provence „ = 6030 „ „ = 377 „ „ = 47 „

(See Chapter XVIII.)

The Quintal was 100 of these pounds, but long hundredweights were common. Its quarter was the Rub (Ar. _rouba_, four). These weights are nearly obsolete, as the possession of any weights not of the Republican system would be illegal. The measures of length and capacity are often slightly altered so as to be in metric units: the pán becomes a quarter-metre; groceries are often ticketed by the hectogramme, as this is known to coincide very closely with the old Southern quarter-pound.

We now pass to the Northern or Paris system, mostly taken from the South, and bearing evident traces of this origin.

2. THE NORTHERN SYSTEM

_Measures of Length_

The Roman foot survived in North France as the quarter of the Aune or ell, a measure = 46·77 inches. (Cf. the passetto or double braccio of Tuscany, of 4 palmi = 45·96 inches.) As a cloth-measure the Aune was divided, like our cloth-yard and ell, into eighths and sixteenths.

But there was also the pied de roi, the royal foot, one-sixth of the Toise, which = 76·73 inches = 1·949 metre.

The royal foot, = 12·789 inches, was divided into inches (pouces) of 12 lines, each of 12 points. Its standard was traditionally referred to Charlemagne, either to the length of his foot, or to a standard brought to him by the envoys of Harūn-al-Rashid. It coincides with half a Hashími cubit, 25·56/2 = 12·78 inches. This tradition must be dismissed; new measures are not introduced as standards in that way. It was simply one-sixth of the toise, which was a Cano from civilised South France, but its standard was so ill-kept as to be of doubtful exactitude. All that is known of its standard is that, about 1668, an iron rod was fixed in a wall of the Grand Chatelet in Paris and that the length of this rod was that of half the breadth of the eastern gateway of the Louvre-palace, which gateway was, according to the plans, 12 feet in breadth. This standard was, however, considered to be 5/12 inch short of the customary toise.

The Louvre standard, taking it at = 1·965 metre (which I find it by actual measurement), corresponds closely to the Cano of Beaucaire. This town on the southern Rhone, opposite Tarascon, had a great annual fair, and may thus have given its linear standard to trade in the same way that Marseilles passed the Cargo of its Egyptian corn-trade on to Paris as the Setier, and that Troyes passed the marc used at its great annual fair on to Paris as the standard of the French troy pound.[50]

Footnote 50:

There were relations between Burgundy and England. The former was, up to the fall of its powerful dukes in the sixteenth century, a state enjoying prosperity and independence, while France was mostly in a condition of misery. It had, and retained till quite recently, its system of measures and weights, derived from the southern system at the time when Arles was the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy. It had two toises, one = 7-1/2 French feet, the other, for field measure, = 9-1/2 French feet. Now the first seems to have passed to England, for a time at least, for the _Liber Albus_, 1419, contains an order for the City of London:

‘The Toise of pavement to be 7-1/2 feet in length, and the foot of St. Paul in breadth.’

The English wool-weights, the wey, stone (12 French lb.) and clove, were current in Burgundy and in Southern France.

But the royal foot was inconveniently long for popular use, and a practice arose of taking 11 inches of it as a customary foot = 11·7 inches. This reduced foot, coinciding almost exactly with the quarter-Aune, was much used in the districts north of Paris as the _pied de Ponthieu_, or _de Clermont_. The Brasse was a short fathom of 5 pieds = 5 ft. 4 in., probably an adaptation of the Roman pace. A _pas_ (pace), of half a brasse = 32 inches, is used in some districts for land-measurement.

_Measures of Distance_

There was no official measure of distance, such as our furlong and mile, between the toise and the league, and the league was very variable (see