Chapter III). Acre-lengths, cordes, and other popular measures supplied

the want, more or less well. In some districts (also in Mauritius) there were milestones at intervals of 1000 toises, called a mille. In South France the mille was divided into centenié of 100 toises or perhaps local cano. This was probably the length of the sesteirado, the rood, 100 × 4 cano.

The corde, a field-measure used before the surveyor’s chain, was of variable length. In Burgundy the league of 3000 toises was divided for roadwork into 50 portées, of 12 cordes; these would thus be 5 toises or 30 feet. But there seems also to have been a corde of 33 feet, perhaps reduced feet, and thus = 30 royal feet, and this, doubled, was used as the rough measure of a ‘cord’ of firewood = 4 × 4 feet, in 4-foot logs. This is the probable origin of our ‘cord-wood’ as applied to stacked logs for fuel.

_Land-measures_

The units are the square toise = 4·543 sq. yards, the perche and the arpent, with other units in local usage.

There were three different perches officially recognised, and still in common use.

1. _Perche d’ordonnance_ or of the _Eaux et Forêts_ administration, 22 royal feet = 23·466 English feet; the square perch of 484 sq. feet = 13·44 sq. toises = 2 sq. rods.

The approximate coincidence of the quarter-aune with the reduced royal foot, i.e. of 12 Roman inches with 11 royal inches, was the probable reason of the standard perch being fixed at 22 feet = 24 Roman feet or 6 aunes.

The standard arpent was 100 square perches = 1344 sq. toises = 200 rods or 1·26 acre.

2. _Perche commune_, 20 royal feet = 21·3 English feet, the square perch of 400 sq. feet = 11·11 sq. toises = 50·47 sq. yards.

The _arpent commun_ was 100 of these square perches = 1111 sq. toises = 1·04 acre.

3. _Perche de Paris_, 18 royal feet = 19·83 English feet, the square perch of 324 sq. feet = 9 sq. toises = 40·9 sq. yards.

The _arpent de Paris_ was 100 of these square perches = 900 sq. toises = 0·844 acre.

The arpent commun is that of Quebec.

The arpent de Paris is that of Mauritius.

The acre de Normandie varies according to its perch, but it is always 160 sq. perches, and if these be standard it is equal to 2 acres. But the usual unit is the vergée or rood, of 40 perches = 1/2 acre.

It has been seen that the Jersey vergée is 40 perches of 22 reduced English feet square, the foot being 11 inches. This is an adaptation of a very general Normandy perch, 22 feet of 11 French inches. It is = 0·44 acre.

Local French land-measures varied considerably, from different standards of perch, from different lengths taken for the foot of the perch. But the size of the unit, Journal, Estrée, &c., &c., is very generally = 1400 to 1600 square perches or roughly about 1-1/2 acre. These measures, so irrational to the Parisian, are dear to the peasant’s heart; he understands them, and as people do not buy land as they would apples or eggs, no one is deceived.

The Estrée or Seterée (Setier seed-land) might be divided into 12 Boisselées (small-bushel lands).

_Weight_

The royal pound, _livre poids de marc_, the double-marc of Troyes, was one of several pounds current in Northern France. It was, like the royal foot, ascribed to Charlemagne, but his standard of weight, as known by his silver pennies, nearly always much above 24 grains, 1/20 of some ounce heavier than that of the Troyes marc, was probably altered later on. The royal pound, = 5570 grains, was raised for commercial purposes (about 1350) to 16 ounces = 7554·1 grains, the ounce = 472·13 grains.

The weight of the 12-ounce pound coincides very closely with that of the Bosphoric miná, 100 drachmæ of 56·66 grains; this is perhaps the origin of the story that it was sent to Charlemagne by Harūn al Rashid. Its ounce is also approximately the Tripoli ukyé of 10 dirhems × 470-3/4 grains, and nearer still to 471 grains, the weight of 10 of the dirhems of which 8 made the Provençal ounce.

It is probable that the French pound was one of the lighter pounds of the variable Northern Troy series, all with an ounce of 10 dirhems of 48 grains more or less.

The ounce was divided into 8 gros, groats or drachms, of 3 deniers or dwt., each of 24 grains. So the livre was 16 × 24 × 24 = 9216 French grains. These were light grains, not the heavy grains, 20 × 24 to the ounce, of English and other mint-weights.

There was a Quintal of 100 livres = 107·7 lb.

The Tonne or tonneau was 2000 livres = 2154 lb.

_Value_

The French coinage-system, probably instituted by Charlemagne, was the same as ours. The original unit was the silver penny, _estelin_ (sterling) or denier (L. _denarius_) of 24 French grains; 12 deniers made a sol or sou (L. _solidus_, shilling) and 20 sols made the livre or pound, originally a livre d’estelins, a 12-ounce pound of sterlings. But the silver coinage shrank and was debased, until, by the eighteenth century, the pound, livre or franc was a silver coin worth tenpence, the sol a copper halfpenny, and the denier had shrunk, even as copper, to so minute a size that its place was taken by the _liard_, a small copper coin of 3 deniers, a quarter-sou; even the _double_ of 2 deniers had disappeared. Accounts were kept in livres and sols and deniers, our £ _s._ _d._, but at 1/25 the present value of our coin.

The _écu_ of 3 livres, that is of 60 sous, was largely used; wages of farm-servants are often at the present day reckoned in écus. This was properly a _petit-écu_ or half-crown, but the real écu of 6 livres was so little used that the smaller coin took its name. And, as our half-crown has the great convenience of being one-eighth of a sovereign, so the écu had that of being one-eighth of a louis, the gold piece of 24 livres. This was the value of the louis at par, for it varied as did that of the guinea when England was a silver-standard country.

_Measures of Capacity_

These measures, both the wine-series and the corn-series, were quite discordant and had no relation to the measures of length. That this was caused by an incoherent system of factors is shown by there being in each series a unit derived from the perfectly concordant measures of the South:

The wine-velte = 1·76 gallon, half of the Escandau.

The corn-setier = 34·32 gallons, the Marseilles Cargo.

The former, when increased in water-wheat ratio, is almost exactly 1/16 of the latter. So, had the former, increased in this ratio, been multiplied sexdecimally, concordance would have been preserved. But there was a customary Muid = 63-1/2 gallons, our hogshead, with its quarter, our kilderkin, the Quartaut = 15·8 gallons, and not to derange these measures the velte was made one-ninth of the Quartaut. And in the corn-series the Setier was divided and multiplied duodecimally. So the concordance was entirely deranged.

1. _Wine-measures._—The Velte (the origin of which is given in Chapter XIX) was divided into 2 gallons (our wine-gallon), 4 pots (our pottle), 8 pintes. The last of these, = 1·76 pint, was about our old wine-quart, = 32 oz., its half was a chopine or setier, = our wine-pint, and the half of this was the demi-setier, a name still current, the French equivalent of our popular ‘half-pint.’

2. _Corn-measures._—The standard unit was the Setier = 34·32 gallons, or 4·29 bushels, differing very slightly from the Marseilles Cargo = 4·34 bushels. As the Setier was an isolated measure, while the Cargo was from early medieval times the basis of the complete system of Southern measures, it may confidently be inferred that the Paris unit of corn-measure was taken from that of Marseilles, which was the Egyptian Rebekeh, the cubed Arabic cubit.

The term Setier is the L. _sextuarius_, but it had lost its original meaning and become a general-utility term in measures. The Setier = the Marseilles Cargo of 4 Sestié, must not be confused with this sestié. It was divided into 12 boisseaux of variable standard, but usually estimated to hold 20 French pounds of wheat. As 1/12 setier, the boisseau was = 2·86 gallons, and it was divided into 16 litrons = 1·43 pint.

There were intermediate divisions of the Setier; it was of 2 mines (a term taken from the Southern _eimino_), 4 minots, 12 boisseaux.

There was also a Muid for corn and salt. The corn-muid was 12 setiers.

There are still in France traces of an older system of corn-measures derived from the cubic foot. I found, in the Rouen Museum, the standard bushel of the town of Bolbec. It measures 16 inches diameter by 12·6 inches deep = 2533 cubic inches or 9·14 gallons. It appears to be the French cubic foot = 2091 cubic inches increased in water-wheat ratio to 2533 × 1·22 = 2551 cubic inches, a difference probably to be ascribed to the difficulty in measuring at all accurately.

There are also many local standards of capacity, well deserving of study. Some, as the bushel of La Rochelle, indeed of the west of France generally, = 56 lb. of wheat, are much larger than the Paris Bushel. There was a general rejection of the duodecimal division of the Setier.

TABLE OF OLD FRENCH MEASURES

Length Land Aune = 46·77 inches. Square Toise = 4·54 sq. yards. Toise = 76·73 „ Square Perche = 2 sq. rods. Pied = 12·789 „ Arpent (× 100) = 1·26 acre. Perche = 23·446 feet.

Wine-measure Corn-measure Bushels Muid = 63·5 galls. Muid = 51·6 4 Quartaut = 15·8 „ 12 Setier = 34·32 gall. = 4·29 9 Velte = 1·76 „ 12 Boisseau = 2·86 „ 8 Pinte = 1·76 pint. 16 Litron = 1·43 pint. 2 Chopine = 0·88 „

Weights Quintal = 107·7 lb. 100 Livre = 7554 grains. 16 Once = 472·1 „ 24 Deniers (dwt.) = 3 to a ‘gros.’ 24 Grains.

_Remarks on the French Measures of Capacity_

The fault of the Paris system was that there was little or no concordance between the different series.

In length, 6 aunes approximately coincided with 22 feet or 3-2/3 toises.

The measures of length had no concordance with those of capacity, and in the latter, wine-measure and corn-measure had lost their original concordance when they were brought from the south. They lost it by two faults:

1. By making the quartaut of 9 veltes instead of 8;

2. By dividing the setier into 12 boisseaux instead of 8.

Had this octonary division been substituted, it would have been quite satisfactory, and concordance with the linear standard would have been obtained.

A quartaut of 8 veltes, 8 × 1·76 = 14·08 gallons, would have been in water-wheat ratio with the corn half-setier = 17·16 gallons:

14·08 × 1·22 = 17·17.

And the setier divided into 8 parts would have given a larger boisseau = 4·29 gallons (a peck) corresponding in water-wheat ratio to the double velte of 4 gallons and measuring approximately 1000 cubic pouces (983 exactly); its side, when of cubic form, being almost 10 pouces, and thus affording an easily applied linear measurement as a check on the variation of the boisseau. The standard of this measure was most variable from want of such a check. Really, as 1/12 Setier it should have been 655·4 cubic pouces, but it varied between 644 and 677, its reputed capacity being 640 cubic pouces.

It would have been easy to have fixed the new boisseau at 1000 cubic pouces, raising the variable standard of the Setier to 8000 cubic pouces = 34·9 gallons instead of its reputed standard = 34·32 gallons.

By these slight alterations perfect accordance with the southern measures would also have been obtained.

Leaving the measures of length and surface which were sufficiently concordant, the measures of capacity would have been:

Wine-measure Corn-measure Muid = 56·32 gallons. Muid = 34·9 bushels = 4·36 qrs. 1/2 „ = 28·16 „ (8) Setier = 34·9 gallons Quartaut = 14·08 „ = 8000 c.p. (8) Boisseau = 4·36 gallons (8) Velte = 1·76 „ = 1000 c.p. (8) Pinte = 1·76 pint. 16 Litron = 2·18 pint.

A water-wheat ratio of 1 : 1·24 would have been preserved between the two series, and their connection with linear measures through a cubic boisseau of 10 pouces each side (or a cylindrical one of 10 pouces diameter and 11·4 pouces in height) would have been most advantageous.

It may seem futile to make these proportions 120 years too late, but they may be useful in showing how unnecessary was the revolutionary plan of uprooting the old measures.