1. The Southern System
This system, prevailing far beyond the limits of Occitania, the land of the Lengo d’O, had for its basis the Load of Wheat, a measure very nearly that of the cubed Arabic cubit, and comparable with the English Coomb or half-Quarter. Just as the English Quarter of corn is 8 bushels, so the Cargo (load, or Saumado, ass-load, Seam) is 8 Eimino. And just as we had a wine-bushel, originally a cubic foot in water-wheat ratio with the corn-bushel, so Occitania had its Escandau for wine corresponding, in the Southern water-wheat ratio of 1 to 1·22, to the Eimino or Panau. The only difference in this evolution was that, while our corn-measure was increased from the wine-measure, the southern wine-measure, and other measures evolved inversely from it, were produced from the corn-measure as a basis. The word Escandau means ‘standard’ (like the Denerel of Guernsey), and just as the cubic measure, the quadrantal, of 1000 Roman ounces of water, is the standard of our foot and virtually of all our other measures, so the Escandau-quadrantal is the standard of the Pán and of all the other measures of Marseilles. I take the standards of Marseilles as it was the great port of trade in the South, and incidentally those of Arles, the capital of the medieval kingdom of Arles or of Burgundy, afterwards the republic of Arles. This was so considerable a seaport, connected as it was with the sea both by the Rhone and by a canal passage, the Fossæ Marianæ, through the lagoons, that at one time the Lion of Arles was a rival of its brother of St. Mark, and gave its name to the Gulf which receives the Rhone.
The process of involution by which the Pán of Marseilles was derived from the side of an Escandau of quadrantal form has been described in [Chapter IV].
The Cano or fathom, = 79·24 inches, was 8 pán or spans each = 9·904 inches; the span was of 8 menut or inches, also divided into 8 parts.[[47]]
The basis of the Southern system, typically that of Marseilles, was then the Cargo, a corn-measure = 34·73 gallons (the equivalent of 154·79 litres, the official metric value), which was the cubic cubit of Al-Mamūn:
21·28 inches cubed = 9639 c.i. = 34·73 gallons.
Now what water or wine measure would be produced from the Cargo, decreased in wheat-water ratio?
Dividing the measure of the cargo by 1·22 we have:
34·73/1·22 = 28·46 gallons.
A fluid measure of this capacity is not in use at Marseilles, but we find its half, almost exactly, in the Mieirolo = 14·19 gallons, a wine and oil measure used extensively in Mediterranean ports.
The word Mieirolo, in which mié means half, corresponds to the name of the first in an Italian series of wine-measures:
Mezzaruola, Terzaruola, Quartaruola, fractions of a 28-gallon measure now apparently obsolete.
The standard of the Mieirolo is now at—
| Marseilles, | 64·384 | litres | = | 14·19 | gallons. |
| Tripoli, | 64·386 | „ | „ | „ | |
| Tunis, | 63·347 | „ | 13·97 | „ | |
| Spain, | 64·55 | „ | 14·23 | „ |
One-fourth of the Mieirolo, or one-eighth of the obsolete wine-cargo, is the Escandau, equal to the Spanish arroba (a word meaning ‘quarter’), and containing, at the present Marseilles standard, 16·096 litres = 3·54 gallons. To this Escandau or standard corresponds, in water-wheat ratio, the Panau = 4·34 gallons, 1/8 of the Cargo = 4·34 bushels or 34·73 gallons.
The correspondence of this series of wine and corn measures, in southern water-wheat ratio, is perfect, even after many centuries, probably since the tenth century. The Escandau and the Panau or Eimino correspond then to about 4 wine-gallons and 4 corn-gallons.
The Escandau has always been understood to be a cubic pán. Escandau[[48]] means a standard; Pán means a side, pane or panel, and it is the measure of the side of a ‘quadrantal’ containing an Escandau of water, as our foot is the measure of one containing an English talent of 1000 Roman ounces of water. The cube root of 16·096 litres is 25·24 centimetres, a length differing by less than a millimetre from the standard of the Marseilles pán = 25·16 centimetres or 9·9 inches.
Land-measures
The ancient system of seed-measures, fixed geometrically, survives to this day in Southern France, indeed throughout most of France. I shall make no apology for dwelling on it, for the linear land and cubic measures of Southern France show a perfectly concordant system of measures, more so even than those of England; indeed they are the type of a perfect system.
The largest unit of land is the Saumado, of 4 Sesteirado, each of 2 Eiminado; these being originally the ground that could be sown with a Saumado (or Cargo), with a Sestié, with an Eimino, of wheat.
These seed-measures of land corresponding to our Coomb, Bushel and Peck land, became fixed respectively at 1600, at 400, and at 200 square cano or fathoms.
To the Sestié and the Sesteirado correspond the boisseau and boisselée of Poitou and other provinces, the boisselée, or bushel-land, being 400 square toises.
But the surveyor’s measuring-rod is the Destre, a double cano, of 16 pán = 13 ft. 2-1/2 in. In Languedoc, west of the Rhone, the square destre = 4 square cano is the smallest unit, so that the Saumado of land is 1600 square cano or 400 destre. But in Provence the destre of land is 2 square cano, so that the Saumado is 1600 square cano or 800 destre; the reason probably being that the destre should be 2 cano superficial as it is 2 cano linear, and also that the Eiminado or peck-seedlip of land should be 100 destre.
The Eiminado is divided into quarters and sixteenths, corresponding to the gallon and quart divisions of the Eimino or peck. It is also divided into 20 Cosso, the ground corresponding to a cosso (= quart, wine-measure) of seed.
It is interesting to observe that the Saumado of 4 Sesteirado of 40 Cosso, corresponds, in division, to our Acre of 4 roods, of 40 square rods.[[49]] And the Cosso = 1/100 acre or 1/10 sq. chain.
N.B.—1000 sq. cano = 1 acre.
The Saumado, of 1600 sq. cano = 1·6 acre.
Such is the typical system of Southern measures, best preserved in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, but prevailing throughout the Southern half of France, though with local variations in the length of the cano and the names of the land-units.
Measures of Capacity
These have mostly been given in the story of the pán and in the seed-measures corresponding to the land-measures.
Throughout the system the divisions in each series are sexdecimal, even the Cosso, 1/20 Eiminado, being 1/160 Saumado.
Weights
There were three types of pounds in South France, local variations from these being very slight. The pound was always 16 ounces, each of 8 ternau. The Ternau, so called from its being divided into 3 pennyweights, was the Arab dirhem. The three types of pound were:
| Languedoc | lb. | = 6400 | grs. | Ounce | = 400 | grs. | Ternau | = 50 | grs. |
| Gascony | „ | = 6280 | „ | „ | = 392 | „ | „ | = 49 | „ |
| Provence | „ | = 6030 | „ | „ | = 377 | „ | „ | = 47 | „ |
| (See [Chapter XVIII].) |
The Quintal was 100 of these pounds, but long hundredweights were common. Its quarter was the Rub (Ar. rouba, four). These weights are nearly obsolete, as the possession of any weights not of the Republican system would be illegal. The measures of length and capacity are often slightly altered so as to be in metric units: the pán becomes a quarter-metre; groceries are often ticketed by the hectogramme, as this is known to coincide very closely with the old Southern quarter-pound.
We now pass to the Northern or Paris system, mostly taken from the South, and bearing evident traces of this origin.