208 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



oats is occasionally, as before it was not infrequently, used for 

 the double quarter. The celdra or chaldron is employed in 

 some places, especially at Finchale or Wearmouth. It appears 

 to contain four quarters or thereabouts, and is perhaps the 

 original measure of which the quarter is a fraction. Some- 

 times, as in 1477, the quarter is distinguished as chapman's 

 measure, in one case, 1483, as Manningtree measure. In the 

 Derby household book of 1561, wheat, malt, and oats are sold 

 by the quarter and the windle, in which the quarter clearly 

 contained sixteen windles, and must have been a wholly 

 different measure from that with which we are familiar 1 . I 

 have inserted these particulars, not because I thought they 

 would throw any light on the prices of the year in which they 

 occur, for they appear to be purchases in the Isle of Man, but 

 because it occurred to me that the record of a novel use of this 

 familiar measure was worth preserving. 



Cubic measures of quantity were employed for other articles, 

 as will be seen on inspecting the prices of goods purchased or 

 sold. In certain districts cubical measures are employed for 

 articles which are elsewhere valued by weight. Thus in tl 

 Eastern counties, butter was generally sold by the gallon, quai 

 and pint, as in modern times it is sold by a curious lin< 

 measure. Cheese and salt are purchased by the wey of two 

 hundredweight, or by the stone of fourteen pounds. The barrel 

 of butter, comparatively common in the later years, appears to 

 contain 240 Ibs. The barrel of honey, to judge from the price 

 of the same article by the gallon, appears to have generally 

 contained the quantity which was prescribed by the statute of 

 Elizabeth mentioned above. 



The pondus of wool at Alton Barnes and Stert is three 

 cloves or 21 Ibs. The former of these places affords nearly 

 continuous wool prices for the greater part of the first half 

 century. The ' wyghte ' or weight of Brixton Deverell appears 



1 The Derby quarter was probably a chaldron of 36 bushels. This interpretation will 

 be found below (corn prices, 1561-2) to give satisfactory results. 



