WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 165 



ranged from the Isle of Wight to Yorkshire. Similarly, the 

 estates of Merton College are scattered in Oxfordshire, Kent, 

 Surrey, Bucks, Warwick, Wilts, Leicester, Cambridge, Hunts, 

 Hants, Durham, and Northumberland. The best part of the 

 endowment of Maiden Bradley priory lay in the possession of 

 estates near Kidderminster, and in the farm of that town. 

 In short, the most superficial glance at the Inquisition es post 

 mortem will prove how seldom medieval estates possessed 

 that compactness which characterizes great properties in 

 modern times. 



Scattered, however, as these estates commonly were, the 

 accounts of each were collected for a simultaneous audit. In 

 Bigod's case, the examination was generally done by John 

 Bigod, the earl's younger brother, a wealthy clergyman. The 

 Merton College audit was taken by the warden and subwarden. 

 In order, however, to an intelligible schedule of profit and loss, 

 it was plainly essential that a uniform system of measures 

 should be adopted. It is indeed highly probable, that local 

 measures were coexistent with the statutable or legal quan- 

 tities, though they rarely appear in the accounts, and did not, 

 it would seem, supersede the standard till after the Reforma- 

 tion, when estates became more aggregate and insulated. In 

 the period before us, therefore, there was every reason on 

 grounds of public policy and private convenience for the 

 establishment of a uniform metrical system. 



The weights and measures of the English standard from the 

 Conquest to the close of the fifteenth century were founded on 

 a rude natural system, the weight, namely, of 32 grains of 

 average wheat taken from the middle of the ear. The selec- 

 tion of this number seems to have been determined by the fact 

 of its being the multiple of 8 and 4 two quantities which 

 constantly occur in the English metrical system. It has been 

 found that 32 grains of such wheat weigh, as a rule, 22.5 troy 

 grains. This was the legal weight of the penny, and 240 such 

 pence made the Saxon pound of 5400 grains. This pound 

 stood to the troy pound of 5760 grains in the proportion of 



