The Mass of the English Troy Pound in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

An examination of British and French weights exchanged between the Royal Society and the Académie royale des sciences in the 1730s has led to a re‐assessment of the Elizabethan troy standards from the Exchequer and the suggestion that the mass of the troy pound has been revised upwards. In turn this is used to support the idea of an evolutionary relationship between the early bullion ounces of England, France, and the Low Countries.

Notes

¹W. H. Chisholm, Seventh Annual Report of the Warden of the Standards … for 1872–73 (London, 1873), p. 18.

²The consequences for the interdependence of a number of principal medieval European weight series are discussed more fully in R. D. Connor and A. D. C. Simpson ( A. D. Morrison‐Low, editor). Weights and Measures in Scotland: a European Perspective (Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, forthcoming, 2004), ch. 4.

³[G. Graham], ‘An Account of the Proportions of the English and French Measures and Weights, from the Standards of the same, kept at the Royal Society’, Philosophical Transactions, 42 (1742–3), 185–88.

⁴‘Report from the Committee appointed to inquire into the Original Standards of Weights and Measures in this Kingdom; and to consider the Laws relating thereto [Carysfort 1st Report], 26 May 1758’, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, 3 vols (1715–1801), II, 411–51 (p. 437).

⁵Aside from the lost parliamentary standard, four additional matching pound weights dated 1758 were examined by William Miller in the 1850s. Miller quoted the 1824 report of the parliamentary Standards Committee, which had recorded that the weight retained by Harris for his use at the Mint was then in the hands of his successor as King's Assay Master, Robert Bingley. It was made available to Miller by Bingley's son and successor Henry, and was subsequently presented by him to the Mint. Bingley also had a second example, which had been in the care of Stanesby Alchorne, a former Master's Assay Master at the Mint and Harris's successor in the separate post of King's Assay Master. It was still considered Alchorne's property, but was purchased by Miller's committee at the sale of Alchorne's effects in 1851. Another, which had been entrusted to Samuel Freeman, then weight maker to the Mint, the Exchequer, and the Bank of England, was in the possession of the firm's successor, Vandome and Titford. Miller recorded that it had been stamped ‘SF’. A further example at the Bank of England was drawn to Miller's attention in 1855. For the provenance of these weights, see W. H. Miller, ‘The Construction of the New Imperial Standard Pound, and its Copies of Platinum’, Philosophical Transactions, 146 (1856), 753–946 (pp. 761–62, 792–804), and Chisholm (note 1), p. 39–40. For the Mint's officials, see A New History of the Royal Mint, ed. by C. E. Challis (Cambridge, 1992).

⁶Patrick Kelly, The Universal Cambist and Commercial Instructor: …, 2nd edn (London, 1821), p. 140n. The error was noted by Denys Vaughan, whose standard account of Kelly's significant and extended work is ‘Patrick Kelly and the Castlereagh Collection’, in Science Museum Review, 1989, ed. by A. L. Nahum (London, 1989), pp. 40–42.

⁷The text of the handbook is printed as Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La Pratica della Mercatura, ed. by Allan Evans (Cambridge, MA, 1936). It was first published by G.‐F. Pagnini, Della decima e di varie alter gravezze imposte dal commune di Firenze, Della moneta e della mercatura de'Fiorentini fino al seco XVI …, 4 vols (Lisbon and Lucca, 1765–66), III.

⁸See, for example, Peter Spufford, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1988), and J. Williams, ‘Mathematics and the Alloying of Coinage 1202–1700: Part I’, Annals of Science, 52 (1995), 213–34.

⁹A. D. C. Simpson and R. D. Connor, ‘Weighing Practices in Scotland, England, and the Cities of Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century: Part I’, Equilibrium, (1) (1996), 1987–98; ‘Part II’, ibid., (2) (1996), 2015–24; ‘Fourteenth‐Century Weight Systems: A Response’, ibid., (1) 1997, 2107–10. The argument is developed in Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch 4.

¹⁰J. S. Forbes, Hallmark: A History of the London Assay Office (London, 1998), pp. 16–18.

¹¹T. F. Reddaway (Lorna E. M. Walker, editor), The Early History of the Goldsmiths' Company 1327–1509 (London, 1975), pp. 112, 193; Forbes (note 10), pp. 31, 52.

¹²For the 1574 jury's description, see Chisholm (note 1), p. 13. The inscription on the pile, as recorded in the minute books of the Goldsmiths' Company, is given by Forbes (note 10), p. 52.

¹³Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), pp. 427–28.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 428.

¹⁵Simpson and Connor, Part I (note 9), p. 1994. Somewhat similar controls were exercised by, for example, the London Salters' Company over its members' trade: we are grateful to Diana Crawforth‐Hitchins for this information.

¹⁶ Ibid., Part II, pp. 2017–20. (We must emphasize that we are not referring here to the much later shield‐shaped avoirdupois weights which have been characterized as ‘wool weights' in, for example, H. C. Dent, Old English Wool Weights (Norwich, 1927).)

¹⁷Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 415.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 416. On the distribution of the standards, see Chisholm (note 1), p. 20.

¹⁹The 128 ounce troy cup weight from the Aldeburgh troy set is at the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, Inv. T.1997.29, and a 1 pound avoirdupois bell weight is T.1997.38. Described, and the tower mark illustrated, in Allen Simpson, ‘English Standard Troy Weight Verified at the Mint, 1588’, in Humphrey Cole: Mint, Measurement and Maps in Elizabethan England, ed. by Silke Ackermann, British Museum Occasional Paper No. 126 (London, 1998), pp. 105–06. The 56 ounce cup from the same set was briefly recorded in 1973: [M. Stevenson], ‘Aldeburgh Troy Weight of 1588’, Libra, 10 (1972–74), 74–75. The ‘rose’ mark is identified as that of the Mint in [G. Graham], ‘An Account of a Comparison lately made by some Gentlemen of the Royal Society, of … several Weights lately made for their use, with Original Standards in … the Tower, &c’, Philosophical Transactions, 42 (1742–43), 541–56 (p. 555). The crowned ‘rose’ and ‘thistle’ marks, the latter for the Scottish Mint, are present on the surviving London‐made troy standards of the Edinburgh Mint: see Connor and Simpson (note 2), inventory item 41.

²⁰Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 443.

²¹Chisholm (note 1), pp. 12–13.

²² Ibid., p. 13.

²³ Ibid., p. 14.

²⁴Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 443.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 444.

²⁶Chisholm (note 1), pp. 16,19.

²⁷Forbes (note 10), p. 72.

²⁸Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 444.

²⁹Science Museum, London, Inv. No. 1931–946, parts 1–3. Described in Chisholm (note 1), pp. 21–22, and illustrated in R. D. Connor, The Weights and Measures of England (London, 1987), Figure 50.

³⁰Science Museum, London, Inv. No. 1931–946, parts 4–7 (avoirdupois) and 1931–948 (troy). Illustrated in Chisholm (note 1), pp. 21 and 22, and Connor (note 29), Figures 50 and 51.

³¹Norman Biggs, ‘English Weight Systems in the 14th Century—A New Interpretation’, privately circulated paper, December 1990, and discussed in Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch. 4.

³²See Simpson and Connor (note 9).

³³Pegolotti (note 7), p. 255: ‘In Londra si à 2 maniere di pesare argento, cioè il marchio della zecca della Torre di Londra, che è appunto col marchio di Cologna della Magna, e l'altro …’.

³⁴ Fleta, ed. by G. H. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, 3 vols, Seldon Society Nos. 72, 89, 99 (London, 1955–84), II, Book II, ch. 12: ‘xij. vncia faciunt libram xx. s. in pondere et numero’.

³⁵These ratios will be discussed in the sixth section of this article.

³⁶Graham (note 3), p. 187.

³⁷M. Tillet, ‘Essai sur le rapport des poids étranger avec le marc de France’, Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences, année M.DCCLXVII, avec les mémoires de mathématique & de physique, pour la même anée (Paris, 1770), pp. 350–408.

³⁸Discussed in Connor and Simpson (note 2), chs 4 and 8.

³⁹CNAM Inv. No. 3261. Elise Picard, Collection des poids et mesures: Inventaire des poids (Paris, 1989), p. 22. The set is sometimes incorrectly assigned a much earlier date—for example, Ronald Zupko describes it as mid‐fourteenth to late fifteenth century: R. E. Zupko, ‘Revolution in Measurement: Western European Weights and Measures since the Age of Science’, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 186 (1990), 1–548 (p. 116).

⁴⁰Philip Grierson, ‘Money and Coinage Under Charlemagne’, in Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, ed. by W. Braunfels, 5 vols (Dusseldorf, 1965–68), I, 501–36 (p. 530). Grierson argues that Charlemagne's monetary pound was 240 reformed deniers of 1.7 g, or 409 g. Following Grierson's analogy of the ratios (but at 12:16, rather than 15:16) between the monetary and commercial pounds, an 8 ounce mark will be 272 g.

⁴¹Louis Blancard, ‘La Pile de Charlemagne: étude sur l'origine et les poids des deniers neufs et de la livre de Charlemagne’, Annuaire de la Société Française de numismatique, 11 (1887), 595–638; [J. V. M. de L.] Dillon, ‘Observationes sur la pile de 50 marcs, dite la pile de Charlemagne, qui a servi a la determination du poids de marc’, in [J. F. Lesparat], Métrologies constitutionnelle et punitive, comparées entre elles et avec la métrologie d'ordonnances, 2 vols (Paris, 1801), I, 100–04.

⁴²Dillon's table betrays a couple of calculation slips in the size of the gros for the 14 mark cup and the total 50 mark pile, which should be 3.821 507 and 3.821 228 g respectively.

⁴³Lesparat (note 41), p. 99.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 104.

⁴⁵The adoption of ‘le marc creux’ (the ‘hollow’ mark, or the single mark weight) as the weight unit for this work is cited in the factual basis for D. Guedj's Le Mètre du monde (Paris, 2000), p. 179. Also see note 49.

⁴⁶The extract from the minutes of the Court of the Paris Mint, dated 20 September 1735, that accompanied the weight when it was sent to London, described the maker as ‘Nicholas Canu L'ainé Maître balancier à Paris, et ordinaire de la cour’: Royal Society Archives, London, MS LBC 22.92–94. We are grateful to Dr Anita McConnell for her advice and help in locating this correspondence. Canu, identified by his mark (‘A’), described his services as ‘Ce fait & vend les Poids & Balances pour le cour des Monnoyes: pour la Monnoyes de Paris, & les autres Monnoyes du Royaume …’: printed advertisement sheet, enclosed in the case for Canu's weight. See note 48. We are grateful to Kevin Johnson of the Science Museum for locating this.

⁴⁷The weight having been found accurate ‘a été marqué du Poinçon de fleur de Lys de la cour’: Royal Society Archives, London, MS LBC 22.92–94.

⁴⁸Science Museum, London, Inv. No. 1900–160a. See note 68.

⁴⁹Lesparat (note 41), p. 104n. The Musée national des techniques gives the mass as 244.75 g: Picard (note 39), p. 20. The more exacting 244.7529 g appears in detailed and respected studies such as: Blancard (note 41), p. 82; C. Wyffels, ‘Contribution à l'histoire monétaire de Flandre au XIIIe siècle’, Revue Belge de philologie et d'histoire, 45 (1967), 1113–41 (p. 1121), Joseph Ghyssens, ‘Quelques measures de poids du moyen‐âge pour l'or et l'argent’, Revue Belge de numismatique, 132 (1986), 55–83 (p. 62). The kilogramme was devised as the weight of a cubic decimetre of distilled water at 0 °F. Of the three changes made in moving from the provisional to the definitive kilogramme, it is the other two which are normally cited. These are the adjusted length of the metre, which changed the water volume, and the use of water at 4 °F, where the density is at a maximum.

⁵⁰Tillet (note 37), p. 359.

⁵¹J. H. van Swinden and J. G. Tralles, ‘Rapport sur la mesure de la méridienne de France, et les resultants qui ont été déduits pour determiner les bases du moyen systême métriques’, Mémoires de l'Institute national des sciences et arts: sciences mathématiques et physiques, 14 vols (Paris, 1798–1818), II, p. 71. Tillet's results can be converted to give the Paris pound as 7560.8 English troy grains and the English avoirdupois pound as 7004.5 grains: Tillet (note 37), pp. 384–85. This is a good match for Graham's 7560 and 7004 grains: discussed at note 63.

⁵²Van Swinden and Tralles (note 51), pp. 70–71.

⁵³A 12 pound standard by Canu, similarly with the Mint's mark and also from the Paris Académie's collection, is recorded at a mark of 244.8 g: Picard (note 39), p. 37, item 56.

⁵⁴Graham (note 19).

⁵⁵On the linear scales, see Connor (note 29), pp. 243–51, 264–67, and A. D. C. Simpson, ‘The Pendulum as the British Length Standard: a Nineteenth‐Century Legal Aberration’, in Making Instruments Count: Essays on Historical Scientific Instruments presented to Gerard L'Estrange Turner, ed. by R. G. W. Anderson, J. A. Bennett and W. F. Ryan (Aldershot, 1993), pp. 174–90.

⁵⁶Anthony Turner has commented on the restrictions on French workshops imposed by the Paris guilds, and the lack of effective dialogue between instrument makers and bodies such as the Académie, for the low profile of French instrument makers for much of the eighteenth century: A. J. Turner, From Pleasure and Profit to Science and Society: Etienne Lenoir and the Transformation of Precision Instrument‐making in France 1760–1800 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 3–10, and ‘Mathematical Instrument‐making in Early Modern Paris’, in Luxury Trades and Consumerism in Ancien Régime Paris: Studies in the History of the Skilled Workforce, ed. by Robert Fox and Anthony Turner (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 63–96, especially pp. 82–87. Jim Bennett has discussed the way in which major London‐made instruments were promoted in France in the same period: J. A. Bennett, ‘The English Quadrant in Europe: Instruments and the growth of Consensus in Practical Astronomy’, Journal of the History of Astronomy, 23 (1992), 1–14. For an overview, see A. D. Morrison‐Low, ‘The Scientific Instrument Trade in Provincial England during the Industrial Revolution, 1760–1851’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of York, 1999), ch. 3. We are grateful to Dr Morrison‐Low for her comments on the present paper.

⁵⁷[Aimé Pommier and Elise Picard], L'Aventure du mètre, exhibition catalogue, CNAM (Paris, 1989), p. 81.

⁵⁸Simpson (note 55), pp. 180–81. On Bird, see note 90.

⁵⁹Graham (note 3), p. 186. On Read, see Gloria Clifton, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550–1851 (London, 1995), p. 229.

⁶⁰Copy extract of Dufray's letter to Desaguliers, 8 October 1735: Royal Society Archives, London, MS LBC 22.92–94.

⁶¹Graham (note 3), p. 186.

⁶²CNAM, Paris, Inv. No. 3280. A brass plate on the lid is engraved ‘Peny Weight—Denier de poids anglois étalonné a la Tour de Londres par Mr Graham en 1737’: Picard (note 39), p. 92. The reference to the Tower probably relates only to Graham's copying of the Ordnance's standard onto Sisson's yards.

⁶³Graham (note 3), p. 187.

⁶⁴Science Museum, London, Inv. Nos. 1900‐160. a–c. We are grateful to Kevin Johnson of the Science Museum for providing access to material in his care.

⁶⁵Picard (note 39), pp. 93–94, items 224 and 225 (CNAM Inv. Nos. 3287 and 3289).

⁶⁶ Ibid., p. 136.

⁶⁷ Ibid., p. 92, item 213 (CNAM Inv. No. 3280). It is possible that the troy pile may be item 226 (Inv. No. 3291), although this has been dated to the first half of the nineteenth century: ibid., p. 94.

⁶⁸We are grateful to Derek Christie, Managing Director of D. Brash & Sons Ltd of Clarkston, Glasgow, agents for Mettler, for the loan of weighing equipment.

⁶⁹Science Museum, London, Inv. No. 1931–950.

⁷⁰See Connor (note 29), pp. 162–163, and A. E. Berriman, Historical Metrology (London, 1953), pp. 162–64. For the consequent production of Exchequer standards (attributed to John Snart of London), see Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch. 9.

⁷¹Graham (note 19), p. 544.

⁷² Ibid., p. 542.

⁷³ Ibid., p. 550.

⁷⁴ Ibid., p. 551.

⁷⁵Chisholm (note 1), p. 23.

⁷⁶Graham (note 19), p. 555. It is possible that this may be same as Harris's ‘very curious and exact Pair of Scales’, used in his later work for Carysfort's parliamentary committee: see note 90.

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 555. The inscription should be ‘PRIMO MAII/AN°. D^oni./17..07/A° REGNI VI.°’: Connor and Simpson (note 2), inventory item 75.

⁷⁸The Act of Union standards are discussed in Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch. 9 and inventory. Of the twenty‐one sets of troy weights supplied to the Scottish burghs in 1707, twelve sets or part‐sets have been located.

⁷⁹No set is included in the holdings of the Exchequer, as listed in Carysfort's report, although this does include the crucial new standard of the wine gallon, issued in the same year: Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 430. For Snart's work for the Edinburgh Mint, see Athol L. Murray, ‘Sir Isaac Newton and the Scottish Recoinage, 1707–10’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 127 (1997), 921–44.

⁸⁰Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 437. Snart's business successor (probably in 1720) was Henry Oven, who was contracting to the Mint from 1723, being briefly succeeded in this respect by his widow and then by Thomas Overing, a former Snart apprentice and subsequently probably an employee, who died, however, in about 1731. The Mint contracts (and perhaps the other interests of Overing's business) passed to the second of three generations of scale makers named Samuel Freeman in 1731, trading as Freeman and Son from 1750, and then as the son alone from 1757. Both Samuel Freeman II and III were specifically described as ‘Scale Maker to the Mint’ by Carysfort, and it was Samuel Freeman III who had the standard set of Queen Anne 1707 troy weights. For these makers see Clifton (note 59). Oven and his successors are discussed in Gloria Clifton, ‘Scientific Instrument Makers at the Royal Mint’, unpublished paper presented to the XIX Scientific Instrument Commission Symposium, Oxford, September 2000.

⁸¹Graham (note 19), pp. 553, 555, 556.

⁸² Ibid., pp. 552–53.

⁸³Discussed in Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch. 9.

⁸⁴Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), and ‘Report from the Committee, Appointed (upon the 1^st Day of December 1758) to Inquire into the original Standards of Weights and Measures in this Kingdom; and to consider the Laws relating thereto [Carysfort 2nd Report], 11 April 1759’, Reports from the Committees of the House of Commons, 3 vols (1715–1801), II, pp. 453–63. For the political context, see Julian Hoppit, ‘Reforming Britain's Weights and Measures, 1660–1824’, English Historical Review, 108 (1993), 82–104 (pp. 94–95).

⁸⁵Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 438.

⁸⁶ Ibid., p. 437.

⁸⁷The weights have all been adjusted upwards to the Imperial standard with the addition of lead solder to the bases, presumably in the nineteenth century. They are illustrated in Reddaway (note 11), pl. 9, and Forbes (note 10), p. 71. We are grateful to the Librarian, David Beasley, for providing access to the weights and to P. V. A. Johnson, Superintendent Assayer, for weighing them.

⁸⁸Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), pp. 431, 434.

⁸⁹ Ibid., p. 436. Carysfort reported that Harris, Read, and Freeman had agreed that ‘the Scales in the Exchequer are not so good as might be made for the purpose; … there ought to be twice the Number, and … not so distant in Size from each other as these are.’

⁹⁰ Ibid., p. 437. The identification of this balance with a sensitivity of ½ grain is uncertain, but the implication that it was already in Harris's possession suggests that it may be the balance earlier used by Graham: see note 76. It probably differs from the balance described in Carysfort's 1759 report as ‘a very curious and accurate Apparatus contrived on Purpose’, which was used by Harris for the precision adjustment of the reference weights made for the committee. This was ‘adapted to five different Beams which ascertained the Weights from 12 Ounces or one Pound down to a Grain inclusive’, with a claimed sensitivity of 0.025 grain (or 0.002 g) in a pound: Carysfort 2nd Report (note 84), p. 456. (However, the inference from the known relationship of the surviving 1758 weights is that the sensitivity at this load may have been overestimated by perhaps 5–10 times.) Writing 40 years later, Patrick Kelly misquoted Carysfort in describing the balance as ‘a very curious and accurate Apparatus contrived by Mr. Bird’, and he said it had been made by Bird at the committee's instruction in 1758: Kelly (note 6), p. xxiii. However, Kelly had personal knowledge of the balance, which may well have been signed by Bird, because it had remained in use by Harris's successor at the Mint, Robert Bingley, who undertook assay work in 1820 for inclusion in the second edition of Kelly's Universal Cambist: ibid., p. xii. The prominent London instrument maker John Bird (c. 1709–76) was closely associated with both Graham and Sisson, and was particularly known for the quality of his scale division. He provided specialist equipment under Harris's direction for gauging capacity standards and assisted Harris in this work: Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 433. For Bird, see Clifton (note 59), p. 30. He has recently been discussed by Anita McConnell, ‘John Bird's Work’, unpublished paper presented to the XX Scientific Instrument Commission Symposium, Stockholm, October 2001. Harris commissioned one of Bird's renowned 60 inch standard scales, which later formed the basis for the instrument maker Edward Troughton's own standard: Simpson (note 54), pp. 180–81.

⁹¹The 256 ounce cup was less than its pile by 24 grains in the first test and 21 grains in the second, and the 128 ounce cup was greater by 15 and then 14 grains. There was significant variation between the tests for both the 64 and 32 ounce weights, but a match to within ½ grain for the 16, 8, and 4 ounce weights.

⁹²Chisholm (note 1), p. 21. There are some difficulties with using Chisholm's published figures. The errors he ascribed to the individual cups at 1758 turn out to have been drawn from the discredited measurements made at the Exchequer rather than to the later measurements at the Mint. However, the sign of the error on the 128 ounce cup has been reversed, apparently to match the level of error that he measured. However, if the sign of the measured error is also suspect, then the implied differences between the cups and their piles are more obviously compatible with Harris's improved measurements at the Mint. In any event, we must assume that the quality of the internal division of this particular set was comparatively poor.

⁹³ Ibid.

⁹⁴Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 437.

⁹⁵Kelly (note 6), p. xxiii.

⁹⁶ Ibid.

⁹⁷Chisholm (note 1), p. 22.

⁹⁸George Shuckburgh Evelyn, ‘An Account of Some Endeavour to ascertain a Standard of Weights and Measures’, Philosophical Transactions, 88 (1798), 133–82 (pp. 167, 173–74).

⁹⁹Kelly (note 6), p. xxvi.

¹⁰⁰Discussed in note 90.

¹⁰¹Three pound weights were recorded in Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 437. Five were located by Miller in the 1850s: see note 5. The damaged Parliamentary standard was identified by Miller as weight ‘U’; ‘O’ and ‘M’ (Mint) were the pounds in Bingley's possession, ‘V’ was held by Vandome, and ‘B’ was at the Bank of England. The weights above 1 pound were listed in Carysfort 2nd Report (note 84), p. 457, and their rescue, in a damaged state, from the 1834 fire is noted in 1841: ‘Report of Commissioners appointed to consider Steps to be taken for Restoration of the Standards of Weights and Measures, 21 December 1841’, Parliamentary Papers, 1842 (336) XXV, p. 284. The fractional weights, also listed by Carysfort, were weighed by Chisholm: Carysfort 2nd Report (note 84), pp. 456–57; Chisholm (note 1), p. 40.

¹⁰²Miller (note 5), pp. 799, 803, 804.

¹⁰³Chisholm (note 1), p. 40.

¹⁰⁴Carysfort 1st Report (note 4), p. 437.

¹⁰⁵The weight was marked ‘S.F./1759 17 lb 8 dwt Troy’: ‘Report of Commissioners … 1841’ (note 101), p. 284. The size corresponds to a 14 pound avoirdupois unit, based on a 7008 grain avoirdupois pound considered by the committee as a means of providing precise grain equivalences in whole numbers of grains: Carysfort's 2nd Report (note 84), pp. 457–59. Although one of the 1758 pound weights is also stamped ‘SF’, this might be considered a mark of ownership rather than manufacture: see note 5.

¹⁰⁶Kelly (note 6), p. xxvi.

¹⁰⁷Discussed in Connor and Simpson (note 2).

¹⁰⁸Pegolotti (note 7), p. 245: ‘… fa in Londra once 8 e sterlini 8 al peso della Torre di Londra.’

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., p. 237: ‘Lo marco dell'argento a peso di Bruggia e di tutti Fiandra se è once 6 a peso di Bruggia, e marchi 21 a peso d'argento fanno in Bruggia marchi 16 a peso d'oro’. For the earlier period, see C. Wyffels, ‘Note sur les marcs monétaires utilisés en Flandre et en Artois avant 1300’, Handelingen van het Genootschaap ‘Société d'Émulation’ te Brugge, 104 (1967), 66–87 (p.71). We are grateful to Professor Philip Grierson for drawing our attention to this reference.

¹¹⁰ Ibid., p. 244: ‘con Anguersa, con Mellino, con Borsella, con Lovano, e con tutto Brabante … E lo marchio dello argento al peso di Bruggia, ch'è once 6 in Bruggia, fa ne’ detti luoghi once 6 e sterlini 8. E lo marco dell'oro al peso di Bruggia fa ne’ detti luoghi once 8 e sterlini 8.’

¹¹¹ Ibid., p. 245: ‘Marchio 1 d'argento di Bruggia fa in Parigi once 6 e denari 2 e grani 667, di grani 24 per 1 denaro, e di denari 24 per 1 oncia’.

¹¹²See Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch. 4.

¹¹³ Tudor Royal Proclamations, ed. by Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, 3 vols (New Haven, CT, 1964–69), I, pp. 160–61.

¹¹⁴Chisholm (note 1), p. 16, quoting from 1864 Commons Paper No. 115. The comparison pound was presumably the 1824 brass pound identified by Miller as pound ‘Ex’, which was less than 0.01 grain heavier than the Imperial standard ‘U’.

¹¹⁵See Simpson and Connor, Part II (note 9), pp. 2022–23, and developed in Connor and Simpson (note 2), ch. 4.