754 PROF. W. H. MILLER ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW STANDARD POUND. 
used and occupied, but al maner of golde and sylver shall be wayed by the pounde 
Troye, which maketh xii oz. Troye, which excedith the pounde Towre in weight 
iii quarters of the oz.’ Hence it follows that the weight of the Tower pound was 
5400 troy grains, and that of the ounce or the twelfth part thereof 450 like grains. 
He quotes a passage taken from the Register of Accounts in Paris, to prove that the 
Tower pound was also known in France, where it was called the Rochelle or English 
weight. The difference of the several pounds then made use of in France is there 
computed, and the proportion between the troy and English weights is thus estimated : 
‘ Ou royaume souloit avoir iv marcs : c’est assavoir le marc de Troyes, qui poise 
xiv sols, ii den. Esterlins de poix le marc de la Rochelle, dit d’Angleterre, qui 
poise xiii s. iv den. Esterlins de poix.’ It is supposed that this account was taken 
about the beginning of the reign of Edward III., not long after 1329*. Since the 
sol=12 esterlings, the ratio of the standards of Troyes and Rochelle is as 17 to 16; 
whence, supposing the weight of Troyes to be the same as the English troy weight, 
the Rochelle ounce =451’76 troy grains. Fie refers to a statute of the 51st of 
Henry HI., called ' Assisa panis et cerevisise,’ to show that the weights in use at that 
time, though commonly taken to have been troy weights, were not really so, but the 
money weights: ‘By consent of the whole realm of England the king’s measure 
was made, that is to say that an English pennie, which is called a sterling, round 
without clipping, shall weigh xxxii graines of wheat dry in the middest of the eare ; 
and XX pence make an ounce, and xii ounces make a pound.’ For otherwise the 
pennyweight here described, could never be, as the statute plainly implies, the true 
weight of the English coined penny. 
Folkes determined the weights of a number of silver coins well preserved, or but 
little impaired, in troy grains (p. 159). Five pennies of Henry III. weighed 22’5 
grains each, and one 22'25 grains. Of four pennies of Edward I., two weighed 22’5 
grains each, and two others 22 grains each. Assuming the true weight of the penny 
at this time to be 22*5 grains, which was also that of the Saxon penny-f-, the weight 
of the pound will be 5400 grains. It is, however, just possible that the weights were 
adjusted in conformity with the words of the Act, but that the coin called the ster- 
ling fell F5 grain short of the full weight of 32 corns of wheat, or 24 grains troy, 
the weight of 4 corns of wheat being usually considered equivalent to 3 grains troy. 
On this supposition the pound defined in the statute of the 51st of Henry III., and 
in the 31st of Edward I., in precisely the same words, would be the pound of 5760 
troy grains. 
That another pound, the libra rnercatoria, was in use at this time, is shown by the 
following extract from the Treatise on Arithmetic, by Dr. Peacock, in the Encyclo- 
paedia Metropolitana, Art. 166: — ‘Though this weight was the favourite of the legis- 
lature, there was another pound, one-fourth greater, which was in more general 
* Clarke, p. 15. 4 Ibid. p. 428. 
