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:
| Marc | de | Troyes | its oz. | = 472·1 | grains |
| „ | „ | La Rochelle | „ | = 443·4 | „ |
| „ | „ | Limoges | „ | = 436·5 | „ |
| „ | „ | Tours | „ | = 430·9 | „ |
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:
| Swedish mark-weight pund, | its ounce | = 483·3 | grains | ||
| Danish solvpund | „ | = 481·5 | „ | ||
| Scots Tron pound | „ | = 481·1 | „ | ||
| Bremen pound | „ | = 480·8 | „ | ||
| Norwegian skaalpund | „ | = 477·4 | „ | ||
| Amsterdam | pound | „ | = 476·6 | „ | |
| Scots Trois | „ | „ | = 475·5 | „ | |
| Dutch Troy | „ | „ | = 474·7 | „ | |
| French Troy | „ | „ | = 472·1 | „ | |
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—
How the Averdepois Pound was of 7000 Grains.
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:
| Mint-marc of 8 oz. × 20 dwt. × 24 grs. (or 32 azen). Oz. of 480 grains. | |
| Medicinal lb. of 12 oz. × 24 scruples × 20 grs. Oz. of 480 grains. | |
| Commercial | ⎧ Marc of 16 loth × 16 ort (German). |
| ⎩ lb. of 16 oz. × 16 drams (English). | |
The Latin nations followed the ancient Roman system of dividing the ounce:
Mint-pound of 12 oz. × 6 sextulæ × 24 siliquæ = 1728 siliquæ, the ounce being of 6 × 24 = 144 siliquæ or carats, and the carat of 4 grains, giving 576 grains in an ounce.
| Medicinal lb. of 12 oz. | ⎧ × 8 drachmæ × 3 scrupuli × 24 granæ, |
| ⎩ × 8 drachmæ × 3 scrupuli × 2 oboli × 12 granæ. |
In Southern France:
Pound of 16 oz. × 8 ternau × 3 denié × 24 gran.
There we see the scruple becomes a pennyweight, and the obolus or half-scruple becomes a halfpenny.
In Northern France:
Mint-marc 8 oz. × 8 gros × 3 deniers × 24 grains.
Medicinal lb. of 12 oz. × 8 drachmes × 3 scrupules × 24 grains.
Commercial lb. of 16 oz. × 8 gros × 72 grains.
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].