WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. I'Jl 



are incapable of interpretation, because they may depend on 

 the different goodness of soils for agricultural purposes. The 

 carucate is said to contain as much as would occupy one plough 

 with its team of oxen or affri. 



- The linear measures are the ell (ulna) and yard (virga). 

 The latter is almost invariably used for cloth, the former for 

 linen. Cloth was generally sold in the pannus, or piece, con- 

 taining 24 yards. Occasionally the ell and yard are treated 

 as identical- and there was not, I imagine, in early times any 

 great difference between the two measures. The foot is not 

 used as a subdivision of the yard. 



Solid or cubical measures are rarely used, and then almost 

 invariably for masons' work or stone-breaking. 



The tey or toise, the modern fathom, is employed as a 

 measure of rope. This article employed for cart-loading, and 

 for fishing-nets, is frequently quoted in the accounts. But I 

 have collected only a few entries of rope sold by this measure j 

 partly because I was not able to interpret the weight at first, 

 partly because, even when I did interpret it, it gave but little 

 real information, in the absence of any knowledge as to the 

 quality and thickness of the article. 



There are certain measures by tale. The hundred, generally 

 containing i2O f , and occasionally specified as of such a quan- 

 tity, is used to measure such articles as eggs, nails, and the 

 cheaper kinds of fish. Herrings are generally sold by the 

 thousand of 1200, which made a barrel, or by the last of 

 10,000. The slighter kinds of nails are also reckoned by the 

 thousand. The dofcen is also found, but chiefly for game and 

 rarer fish. The stick is employed for eels, and contained 

 twenty-five. The dicker, or daker, was ten, and is found, 

 though generally at later times than the period before us, as 

 a measure for hides and gloves. 



Liquid measures are the tun, the pipe, the barrel, the sex- 

 tary, the gallon, the pottle, and the quart. The latter measure 

 is used in two senses, for the quantity familiar to us at present, 



f In vol. ii, p. 514. ii., the hundred yards of canvas arc the great hundred of 120. 



