1. The Saxon or Tower Pound

At some time before the Norman Conquest the Marc of Cologne was brought to England, probably only as the mint-standard of the later English kings, for the 16-ounce Roman pound was already long-established as the commercial weight.

The standard of the Cologne marc has never varied much.

Its mean weight = 3608 grains; when doubled it made a pound = 7216 grains, with an ounce = 451 grains. This pound is almost identical with the greater rotl of Al-Mamun, 1/100 of the cantar = 102·92 lb.; and the old Prussian pound of Cologne standard was 1/100 of the Prussian centner = 103·11 lb.

The Norman Conquest made no change; the Saxon pound became the Tower pound, the King’s treasury or mint being in the Tower of London. The Tower pound of standard silver was coined into 240 silver pennies, which, at 22-1/2 grains, their weight down to the time of Edward III, gives 5400 grains for the pound and 450 grains for the ounce. An actual weight = 5404 grains was found in the Pyx chamber in 1842.

The shilling, of 12 pence, was until Tudor times only money of account. But it was also a weight of account, the pound being either 12 ounces of 20 pennyweight, or 20 shillings of 12 pennyweight.

‘When a quarter of wheat is sold for 12 pence, the wastel-bread of a farthing shall weigh 6 li. and 16 s. But bread cocket of a farthing shall weigh more by 2 s.’ (Assize of Bread, 51 Henry III.) That is, the farthing loaf shall weigh 6-16/20 Tower lb. = 5-1/4 averdepois lb., and the second sort 24 dwt. or 1-1/5 Tower ounce more.

Here is an instance of the confusion caused by making bread, like gold, silver and medicines, saleable only by the royal pound. This system of a peculiar pound for bread lasted till the eighteenth century.

Under Edward I the halfpenny loaf weighed 40 s., that is 2 lb. Tower = a little more than 1-1/2 lb. averdepois.

Moneyers and goldsmiths divided the dwt. or original weight of the silver penny, for fine weighing, on the Dutch system, that is into 2 mayles, 4 ferlings 8 troisken, 16 deusken, 32 azen (aces). This would account for the 32 wheat-corns which the silver penny was always supposed to weigh, however many pence the mint struck from the pound of silver.

The mayle and ferling (Fr. maille and felin) were the mint-names for the silver halfpenny and farthing.

Under the gradual influence of Troy weight the dwt. Tower was also divided into 24 parts or grains. It was so divided in the time of Edward III.

It must be remembered that there was absolutely no definition of Tower weight, nothing but the usual proclamation about the 32 wheat-corns, a convenient definition, as they still appeared to balance the penny when it had fallen to half its original weight.

2. The Troy Pound

The pound of Troie is mentioned in the time of Henry IV, and in the next reign goldsmiths were ordered to use la libre de Troy, though by 9 Henry V mint-rates were still stated in la libre de Tour. By 2 Henry VI the price of standard silver is fixed at 30s. la livre du Troie, which means that 12 × 30 pennies of 15 grains were being coined from a pound of 5400 grains, evidently still a Tower pound. Notwithstanding the change of name, the Troy pound was not proclaimed as the royal pound until 1527, when by 18 Henry VII ‘the pounde Towre shall be no more used, but all manner of golde and sylver shall be wayed by the pounde Troye which excedith the pound Towre in weight 3 quarters of the ounce.’ But the Troy pound had been used concurrently with the old mint-pound for a long time, and there had been two standards at the mint.

According to an anonymous writer in 1507 (quoted in Snelling’s ‘View of the Silver Coin and Coinage,’ 1762) ‘it is a right great untruth and deceit that any such pound Toweres should be occupied, for that thereby the merchant is deceived subtilly and the mint master is thereby profited.’

There is no doubt that after the conquest of England by Henry Tudor a cloud of deceit came over the coinage, deceit only ended by Elizabeth’s establishment of the coinage on an honest basis. Comparing the declaration of weights, measures, and coinage by Henry III in 1266 with that of 12 Henry VII in 1496, the latter does not show to advantage. It orders—

That every Pound contain 12 ounces of Troy weight and every ounce contain 20 sterlings and every Sterling be of the weight of 32 corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear according to the old law of the said land.

Meanwhile the Troy ounce of silver was being coined, not into 20, but into 40 sterlings or pennies. But each of these was supposed to weigh 32 wheat-corns just as they did when they were really 20 to the ounce, albeit a Tower ounce.

Whence came the Troy Pound?

It is probable that the name of the King’s Troy pound came from the marc of Troyes, but it is certain that the English Troy pound no more came from Troyes than the ‘pound Toweres’ came from Tours.

There were four principal marcs in France:

The marc of Troyes doubled made the livre poids de marc, the Paris standard = 7554 grains.

That of La Rochelle, the marc d’Angleterre, would appear from its name to have been, originally at least, the marc of Cologne, Tower standard, but its standard corresponds almost exactly to the marc of Castille. I make inquiries at La Rochelle, and am informed that the La Rochelle mint had at one time been coining for Spain, perhaps at the time of Plantagenet dominion in the South.

The marc of Limoges coincides nearly exactly with 8 ounces averdepois of Plantagenet times; it will be remembered that Limoges was for a long time an English Plantagenet city.

The marc of Tours is of southern rather than northern type.

None of these marcs seem to have any relation with the Troy weight of England.

There appears to have been in Northern France, England and Scotland, about the eighth century, a heavy 16-ounce pound of nearly 8500 grains, possibly related, through the Russian pound, with the minÁ of the Greek-Asiatic talent = 8415 grains. This was probably the heavy pound which survived in Guernsey up till the eighteenth century; and perhaps other pounds said to be of 18 ounces, such as that of Cumberland up to a generation ago, were really survivals of this heavy northern pound. Whether this pound dwindled spontaneously, or whether it was superseded by the pound derived, either directly from the lesser Arabic rotl with an ounce = 480-1/4 grains, or indirectly from an ounce of 10 dirhems, of about 48 grains, is difficult to say. All that is known is that there is a family of pounds usually known as Troy with an ounce varying between 483 and 472 grains; that the pennies of Charlemagne averaging 25 grains correspond to an ounce of about 500 grains, possibly more, which is certainly not modern French Troy, and that many Saxon pennies of about that time were much heavier than those of the times nearer to the Conquest. The Northern Troy pounds show the following variations:

The variation in these Troy pounds seems due to their ounces being 10 dirhems of 48 grains, more or less; the lightest ounce, that of French Troy, being 10 dirhems of 47·1 grains, the same as the dirhem of which the ProvenÇal ounce, 377 grains, contained 8.

Our Troy pound, while taking its name, like the Scots and Dutch pound, from the Troyes marc, took its standard from some pound of full weight, possibly from the Bremen pound, introduced by the Hanse merchants. Its exact standard appears due to the influence of the averdepois pound, and this would explain—

This division into 7000 grains was not arbitrary, but it was due to the desire to give it as simple a ratio as possible to the new Troy pound. It was found by a Parliamentary Committee in 1758 to weigh 7000 of those grains into which the Troy pound had always been divided, necessarily into 5760 of them (12 oz. × 20 dwt. × 24 grs.). Now it seems probable that when the Troy pound was adopted for mint purposes its weight might be modified, on the advice of goldsmiths and merchants, so as to give it a convenient relation to the old-established averdepois pound. Supposing the new pound were of the Bremen standard, 7693 grains, of which 12 ounces = 5769·6 grains, then its weight would be to that of averdepois as 5769·6 to 7000, or as 5760 to 6987·8. To make the proportion 5760 to 7000 it would be necessary to decrease the weight of the Troy pound by about 8 grains or to increase that of the averdepois pound by about 10 grains. It is probable that the latter alternative was adopted, and that the averdepois pound was raised in such proportion that it now weighed 7000 grains of the Troy pound = 5760 grains. This accounts for the rise in the weight of the averdepois standard between Plantagenet and Elizabethan times, making the ounce = 437-1/2 grains instead of the 437 grains of the Roman ounce.

It is not improbable that the change of mint-standard from Tower to Troy was due to the very inconvenient ratio of the Tower pound to the averdepois pound. The mint-pound being necessarily divided into 12 ounces of 20 pennyweight of 24 parts or grains = 5760 parts, the ratio of the Tower and averdepois pounds was 5400 to nearly 7000, or 5760:7453, the latter figure being about the number of Tower grains = 0·937 grain, contained in the original averdepois pound. The introduction of a new pound, which by slight modification in either it or the averdepois pound would give the simpler ratio of 5760 to 7000, would probably be most welcome to the mercantile community.

In Teutonic countries the usual system of dividing the pounds was as follows:

The Latin nations followed the ancient Roman system of dividing the ounce:

In Southern France:

There we see the scruple becomes a pennyweight, and the obolus or half-scruple becomes a halfpenny.

In Northern France:

In this system, common to France, Spain, Portugal, Florence, and Rome, the ounce is divided into 576 parts or grains, while the Troy ounce of the rest of Europe is of 480 grains. This makes the Latin grain lighter.

In the medicinal pound, more or less international throughout the West, the 24 Scruples of the ounce are grouped into 8 drachms of 3 scruples.

It may be concluded that the English Troy pound was a Northern weight with its ounce of 480 instead of 576 parts. It has no direct connexion but in name with the marc of Troyes. It probably came to us as an apothecary’s and goldsmith’s pound, and in the latter, the Latin factors 24 scruples × 20 grains were transposed for mint purposes so as to preserve the ancient pennyweight 1/20 ounce of the Tower pound. But in the apothecary’s Troy pound the ounce remained divided into 24 scruples (8 drachms of 3 scruples) each of 20 grains as in other countries except France, &c.

The story of the goldsmiths’ Carat and Grain will be found in Chapter XX, that of the ProvenÇal weights, from which the French Troy was derived, in Chapter XVIII.

The myth of the 32 wheat-corns which formed the basis of the Tower pound = 5400 grains, passed to the Troy pound = 5760 grains, and this deliberate fiction lasted till the time of Elizabeth and perhaps later. It did little harm as regards these mint-pounds, but its application to the Averdepois pound, alleged to be an offshoot of the royal pound, either as 25 shillings, that is 300 pennyweights of 32 wheat-corns, or as 15 ounces Troy, or at a later period as 16 ounces Troy, produced a mental obliquity which is most lamentable.

The jury of merchants and goldsmiths appointed in 1574 to examine the ancient standards, and construct a new set, declared that ‘the one sorte of weight nowe in use is commonlie called the troie weight and that other sorte thereof is also commonlie called the avoir de poiz weight, and further they say that both the saide consiste compounded frome thauncient Englishe penye named a sterling rounde and unclipped which penny is limeted to waie twoo and thirtie grains of wheate in the midest of the eare and twentie of those pence make an oz. and twelf of those ounc make one pound troie.’ They go on to ‘saie that the said twoo sortes of weights doe differ in weight the one from the other three ounces troie at the pounde weight, for the pounde weight troie doth consiste onlie of xii oz. troie and the lb. weight of avoir de poiz weight dothe consiste of fiftene ounc troie.’

Thomas Hylles, in his ‘Arte of Vulgar Arithmeticke’ (1600), showed himself emancipated from the superstition of troy weight so far as to say:

‘15 ounces of Troy weight should by the statute make 1 pound of haverdepoise, but the same pound weyeth commonly but 14 ounces 1/2 Troy, 14 ounces 3/5 at the uttermost.’

But he unfortunately went on to say that ‘of things liquid and dry 1 pound of Troy weight maketh a pinte in measure,’ not seeing that 12 oz. troy = only 13·16 oz. averdepois, while a wine-pint contained 16-2/3 ounces of water, and a corn-pint close on 16 ounces of wheat or 20 of water.

But the ignorance and superstition engendered by troy weight was just as bad in 1702 as in 1600 or even in 1500, as shown by the following utterance of an eighteenth-century scientist:

Troy weight, whereby bread, gold, silver, apothecaries’ wares etc. are weighed containing only 12 ounces in the pound, each ounce 20 pennyweight each pennyweight 24 grams. This seems to have been the most ancient weight by its name, as derived from the famous city of Troy, from whence Brutus and his people are said to have descended and to have called London Troy-Novant or New Troy.

So said J. Ralphson, F.R.S., in his ‘Mathematical Dictionary’ (London, 1702). And then he continued:

The second and more common weight is called Avoirdupois, being fuller and larger weight than the other, for it contains 16 ounces or 128 drams, viz. 384 scruples, viz. 7680 grains, by this are weighed all kinds of grocery ware and base metals, as iron, copper and brass, as also hemp, flax, rosin, pitch, tar &c.

A century later we find not much improvement in the idea of the pounds Troy and Averdepois.

‘The pound or 7680 grains avoirdupois equals 7000 grains troy and hence 1 grain troy equals 1·097 avoirdupois’ (Rees’ ‘EncyclopÆdia,’ 1819). This is an example of the utter muddle the Troy pound had made in the minds of otherwise intelligent people.

Similar pedantic efforts were continued, well into the nineteenth century, to represent the Troy pound as the sole standard of England and the averdepois pound only respectable as an offshoot of the royal pound used for vulgar purposes.

The Assize of Bread

Such fictions were helped by the old statutes which compelled the sale, first by Tower and then by Troy weight, of bread as well as of gold, silver, and medicines. And confusion was made worse by the use for a long period of a third weight for bread, the Amsterdam or Scotch troy pound.

The peck loaf, supposed to be that produced from a peck of flour (16 pints), was to weigh 16 of these pounds = 17 lbs. 6 oz. averdepois, the quartern loaf 4 = 4 lb. 5 oz., and the pint loaf (to be sold at a penny when wheat was 4s. a bushel or 32s. a quarter) was to weigh one pound = 17 oz. 6 drams averdepois. The periodical Assize of Bread fixed the price of the peck loaf.

It appears then that the pound of bread was = 7600 grains, its ounce = 475 grains, which was about the Scottish (and Dutch) troy standard. It was probably adopted as coinciding with the weight of bread supposed to be produced from a pint of flour and as keeping up the old superstition that bread must be sold by troy weight. As some persons in authority did not share the stupidity of those who considered the averdepois pound to be 16 troy ounces, the Scottish 16-ounce pound of troy standard was imported for the purpose.

This weight was abolished by 8 Anne (1710) and the sliding scale was put in the averdepois equivalent.

The Assize of Bread was abolished in 1815, but traces of it remain in the name ‘quartern loaf,’ although this now means a loaf of 4 imperial pounds. It may also mean a loaf weighing the quarter of a 16-lb. stone.

The Disappearance of the Troy Pound

In 1841 a Royal Commission on Weights and Measures recommended the abolition of the Troy pound as ‘wholly useless,’ retaining its ounce provisionally for the use of bullion merchants, pending ‘the removal of the troy scale.’ This recommendation was not carried out until 1878, when the Troy pound disappeared, except of course in almanacks and books for the instruction of youth—but the Troy ounce still survives at the mint, and consequently in the bullion market; and it is virtually forced on druggists in spite of the Medical Council. Troy weight was abolished by the Pharmacopoeia Committee in 1864, Imperial weight being alone recognised; yet the Board of Trade keeps up the Apothecaries’ ounce of 480 grains. Troy weight has fallen; but, like many other superstitions, it dies hard.