1. The Channel Islands
These measures are the connecting links between those of old France, through Normandy, and those of England, especially in land-measures. Normandy had a system of measures kept in fair unity by the English dukes of Normandy.
‘Thanks to their firm administration the English system was generally marked by a scientific regularity which, notwithstanding its complication, is in remarkable contrast with the barbarous French system.’[[33]]
For England had already, at the Norman Conquest, a good system in which weight, wine-measure, corn-measure, and linear measure were co-related; albeit this co-relation, under the influence of the royal mint pound, was forgotten for many centuries, and is indeed scarcely known at present.
But Northern France and Normandy had no such co-related system. Southern France had an excellent system, indeed that of Marseilles was perfect; while Paris, taking its measures from the South, destroyed their co-ordination and was careless of their standards.
None of the Paris series had any simple relation. So it was in Normandy, where the systems of North and South were mixed with Teutonic measures.
The original Norman perch, like that of England,
et est la mesure 16 pies la perque,
probably Rhineland feet, but perches of 20, 22 and 24 Paris feet, often of reduced Paris feet, superseded it. The Acre was always 4 Vergées or roods, nearly always of 40 square perches, and divided into quarters.
The charuée, caruée or ploughland was usually 60 Normandy acres, divided into 12 bouvées or oxgangs, each of 5 acres or 20 vergées.
Corn-measure had for principal unit the Bushel, 8 of which made a Quarter, a quarter of a horse-load or, if large, of a cartload. The bushel was, or appeared usually to be, a multiple of the Pot; this led to divergencies according to the number of pots taken; yet it seems probable that the Pot was itself a fraction, an eighth, a tenth, a twelfth, or a sixteenth of some bushel either wine-measure or corn-measure.
While the weights and measures of Paris had established themselves in Rouen and Caen, local measures more in agreement with Norman customs were in general use. Thus the Paris bushel = 793 cubic inches was scarcely used. A typical Norman measure was the Boisseau étalon de l’abbaye de Jumièges, containing, as nearly as I could measure, 1648 cubic inches. Now this is very approximately a cubic foot of the reduced Paris 11-inch standard usual in Normandy, akin to the 11-inch foot of Jersey. This cubic foot was very nearly the Roman cubic foot or Quadrantal; for the reduced Paris foot, = 11·72 English inches, was very nearly the same as the quarter of the aune, which was 4 Roman feet very approximately.
There was another standard Bushel—the Boisseau étalon de la Ville de Bolbec—containing, as nearly as I could measure, 2534 cubic inches.
There is also a peculiar measure for apples, the barattée or churnful, usually of 25 pots.
In Normandy as in the rest of France weights were not related to measures. It was always known what was the usual weight of corn in the bushel; thus the Paris bushel was supposed to hold 20 French pounds of wheat.
Some heavy pounds, brought possibly by the Normans, disappeared gradually before the Paris Troy pound. Wool-weight brought from England was used; the sack being 36 stone of 9 French pounds or about 350 averdepois pounds.
Such was the system of measures and weights used in Normandy, and surviving there in great part. The slightly differing systems of the Channel Islands are simply variants of this system, a rough sketch of which I have given by way of introduction to them.
Jersey and Guernsey (the latter including Alderney and Sark in its government) are each practically autonomous. The Islanders keep their Norman laws, customs and dialects, and retain their systems of measures, weights and currency. These are being gradually modified by increased intercourse with England; and French influence tries hard, especially in Jersey, to introduce the metric system.
Linear and Land Measures
1. Jersey.—For ordinary linear measures the English standards are used, the yard and the pied du roi; that is the English foot. There is also an ancient ell of 4 feet.
For land measure the Jersey foot is 11 English inches (but divided into 12 land-inches); and 24 of these feet make a perch = 22 English feet. This peculiar standard is evidently an adaptation of the Norman custom (which prevailed in France) of making 24 short feet of either a quarter aune, or 11 pouces, the perch or verge, which became officially the perche d’ordonnance of 22 French feet.
The Jersey Vergée or rood is 40 square perches = 0·44 acre.
2. Guernsey.—The linear measures are based on the English standards. They were, in 1611:
| Cloth yard | = 38-1/2 | inches (= half a toise). | |
| Sail Cloth yard | = 44 | „ | |
| English ell | = 45-1/2 | „ | |
| English yard | = 36 | (Verge d’Angleterre). | |
The perch or verge is 21 feet; probably an approximate adaptation of the common perch of 20 French feet = 21·3 English feet. It is the same as the Irish and Lancashire rod.
The verge or rood is 40 square perches = 0·4 acre.
The acre-unit is not used now in either island.
The bouvée (bovate) of 20 vergées, and caruée (carucate) of 12 bouvées remain only in manorial records.
Measures of Capacity
1. Jersey.—The standard ordered in 1754, and confirmed in 1771, is the Cabot, defined as containing 10 Pots.
The Pot contains 123·56 cubic inches = 0·445 Imperial gallon. It does not correspond directly to the Paris pot = 111 cubic inches or 0·41 gallon, nor apparently to the various Normandy pots, of which that of Caen, about Paris standard, is the type. It is simply one-tenth of the Cabot.
The Cabot, a common name in Normandy for a corn-measure, is for wheat and for wine, cider, &c. A larger cabot, for barley and other light grain, is one-third larger, containing 13-1/3 pots; another, for coal, contains 14 pots. Lime and charcoal are measured by the cask of 120 Pots, i.e. 6 bushels of 20 pots. For a double cabot is usually called a bushel.
The Cabot = 1235·6 cubic inches, and containing 4·456 gallons, coincides nearly with one-eighth of the Paris Setier = 4·29 bushels, and also with the Panau or Eimino, 1/8 of the Marseilles Cargo of 4·34 bushels.
It is divided into 6 Sixtonniers.
For wine, cider, &c., it is divided into gallons (double pots, 1/5 cabot), pots, quarts and pints.
A double cabot is the bushel. The duodecimal division of the Paris Setier and the division (in the corresponding wheat-water series) of the Quartant into 9 veltes, prevent the relations of the Jersey measures with those of Paris being clearly seen. But the relations with the Marseilles standards, corn and wine, from which the Paris standards were taken, are evident. It will be seen in the [chapter] on the Old Measures of France that the Paris Setier was derived, through the Marseilles Cargo, from the Egyptian Rebekeh, which is the cubed cubit of Al-Mamūn.
The Cabot has been stated (Ansted, ‘Channel Islands,’ 1862) to contain 43 lb. 7 oz. of water. On this estimate = 4·344 gallons, it is exactly the Marseilles Eimino.
| Marseilles | Jersey | ||
| Gallons | Gallons | ||
| Cargo | 34·72 | Quarter (8 Cabots) | 35·6 |
| Sestié | 8·68 | Bushel | 8·91 |
| Eimino, Panau | 4·34 | Cabot | 4·45 |
| 1/6 „ | 0·72 | Sixtonnier | 0·74 |
| Fluid Measures. | |||
| Escandau | 3·54 | ||
| Quartié | 0·885 | Gallon | 0·89 |
| 1/2 „ | 0·442 | Pot (1/10 Cabot) | 0·445 |
| Pot, Pechié | 0·221 | Quarte | 0·222 |
| Fuieto | 0·11 | Pinte | 0·111 |
N.B.—The Escandau is the Panau diminished in wheat-water ratio. The Jersey pot is the fluid measure in wheat-water ratio with 1/8 cabot.
There seems no doubt that the cabot is the eighth of the setier (and of the Cargo), slightly variant, as the Jersey pound is a variant of the Paris pound.
There is also a measure for apples = 3·77 bushels or 30 gallons. The ordinary barattée (churnful) of apples in Normandy is 25 pots = 10 gallons.
The larger Cabot for barley and other grains except wheat was to be = 1-1/3 of the wheat cabot, that is 13-1/3 pots; it was therefore = 5·933 gallons, very nearly 3/4 an imperial bushel = 1647 c.i. Was it fixed at this size to hold approximately the same weight of barley, &c., as the smaller cabot held of wheat, or was it the Boisseau de Jumièges = 1648 c.i. approximately? That I cannot say. But the question is of some importance historically, for Guernsey adopted a bushel of about this capacity, the lineage of which is a matter of considerable interest.
2. Guernsey.—In 1582, also in 1611, the Guernsey bushel was ordered to be 16 inches diameter and 8 inches deep; it was to hold 13 pots and a quart. The pot was not defined: at the end of the seventeenth century it is recorded to be equal to 121 cubic inches. On this basis the bushel should be 1633 cubic inches, but according to the dimensions ordered it contains only 1608 cubic inches. This is evidently one of the cases where the wish to order a measure of simple dimensions has caused the standard to deviate practically from its calculated value. There is considerable doubt as to the capacity of the pot, the original standard of which is not extant. But from the definition of the Guernsey bushel as 13-1/2 pots of approximately 121 cubic inches, it would seem that this was considered as roughly equivalent to the 13-1/3 pots, each 123-1/2 cubic inches, of the Jersey barley-bushel = 1647 c.i.
The bushel is divided, on its calculated capacity of 13-1/2 pots, = 1631 c.i., into
| 2 Cabotels | |||
| 6 Denerels (Jersey sixtonniers) | = | 272 | c.i. |
| 30 Quintes | = | 54-1/2 | „ |
The Denerel is thus, probably by mere coincidence, exactly the old corn-gallon, and the bushel is 6 corn-gallons.
The word Denerel means ‘standard’ in the sense of the standard coin or pattern piece, the Denerial or Deneral, to which the French moneyers had to strike deniers or silver pence. We may confer with this term the Marseilles Escandau, meaning ‘standard,’ a measure = 3·54 gallons, the basis of a whole system of measures.
But if the bushel were based on another measure than the obsolete pot—on a standard still extant in the Sheriff’s Office, the
Quinte, grande mesure du marché de Guernesey 1615,
it would be of larger capacity. For the Quinte, I found when I measured it in 1885, is approximately 54·7 cubic inches, and it is stated to contain fully 32 ounces of water. As it happens to be equal to a fifth of the imperial gallon, the Denerel should be equal to an imperial gallon, and the bushel to 6 gallons.
There are two other bushels:
The Coal-bushel (1611) of 18-1/2 inches diameter, by 8 deep, then stated to be equal to 16-3/4 pots (an evident mistake, in Roman numerals, for 17-3/4 pots) and containing an English corn-bushel.
The Barley-bushel, 1625 and 1673, to contain 17-1/2 pots; of such size that it should hold, striked, as much as the wheat-bushel held when heaped. Its calculated capacity is 2117·5 c.i. = 7·63 gallons.
Wine-Measures
These have assimilated themselves in the course of trade to those of the countries of exportation, but the fluid measures of the islands still subsist for cider and other liquors. The Jersey gallon is, or was, 2 pots = 247 c.i. The Guernsey gallon is, or was, 1/8 of the bushel = 252 c.i. or perhaps 2 pots = 242 c.i.
Both are somewhat over the old English wine-gallon.
Weights
The Jersey pound, = 7561 grains, is 7 grains over the old French pound; 104 pounds make a cwt. = 112·3 lb.
The Guernsey pound, = 7623 grains, differs by only 2 grains from the Amsterdam pound; 100 Guernsey pounds = 108·9 lb.
There is a tradition that this pound was originally 18 ounces of Rouen weight, reduced in 1730 to 16 ounces. But it is not 16 ounces of any weight but that of Amsterdam. It may have been originally 16 ounces of some heavy pound with an ounce of about 530 grains, akin to the Austrian and Russian ounce; then converted into 18 lighter ounces, and afterwards 16 ounces were taken for the pound. In the seventeenth century it is recorded as being 18 ounces of 471 grains, which is approximately the Paris standard = 472·1 grains. In 1730 it was ordered to be of 16 ounces, but of what standard there is no evidence. And in the nineteenth century it is 16 ounces of 476·6 grains, almost exactly the Amsterdam standard. It looks as if the change in 1730 was to 16 ounces of another standard, Amsterdam Troy, instead of French Troy.
I have given some space to these Channel Island measures, so interesting as a survival of Norman measures and as a link between the measures of old France and of England. The peculiar monetary system of Guernsey will be given in [Chapter XIII].