CHAPTER X. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



FROM very early times, all the force which could be supplied 

 by proclamations, charters, and statutes was employed in order 

 to secure uniformity in weights and measures. An inspection 

 of weights seems, from documentary evidence, to have been 

 the occasional duty of the judges in eyre it was certainly 

 part of the regular functions of the coroner. It would appear 

 that a scrutiny into the exactness with which the standard 

 was kept was occasionally a condition on which market fran- 

 chises were secured to their possessors, it is clear that pre- 

 sentments for unfair measures, and the levy of fines for 

 transgressions of the law, formed a regular part of the 

 stringent and searching police of the manor courts. There 

 can be no doubt that very efficient means were taken for 

 protecting buyers and sellers from the frauds of dishonest 

 dealers, and that the advantages of a regular system of inspec- 

 tion were secured to the general public. 



Again, there was manifest convenience in establishing a 

 uniform standard. Either by accident or policy, the estates 

 of great proprietors were very scattered, and the annual audit 

 ordinarily embraced accounts from very distant parts of the 

 kingdom. Thus the earldom of Roger Bigod, the most com- 

 pact perhaps of all the estates whose records have been 

 preserved to the present time, comprised, besides lands in 

 Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, others in Sussex, Berkshire, Glou- 

 cester, besides some in Ireland. Those of Isabella de Fortibus 



