3. The Hand
The popular ‘hand’ was the ‘palm’ of ancient times, four digits or finger-breadths.
Pes habet palmos iv, palmus habet digitos iv (Frontinus).
‘Foure graines of barlye make a finger; foure fingers a hande; foure handes a foote’ (Eden, 1566).
But the present Hand for horse-measurement is ‘the measure called a Handful used in measuring the height of horses, by 27 Hen. 8, Chap. 6, ordained to be 4 inches’ (Sam. Leake, 1701). This is part of an old popular duodecimal division of the foot into 3 hands of 4 inches, then of the inch into 3 barleycorns (lengthwise) each of 4 poppy-seeds, and of these again into 12 hairbreadths.
In Austria this horse-measure is the Faust or fist.
Another very widely spread limb-measure is that of the fist with the thumb projecting, roughly = 6 inches. It is the Shaftment of some parts of England, scæft-mund (shaft-hand) in Old English, bawd in Wales; the somesso of Italy, the kubdeh of Egypt, the taim of Burma.
In the Laws of Æthelstan (1000) a measurement is given as 9 feet, 9 shaftments, and 9 barleycorns, i.e. 9 feet + 9 half-feet + 3 inches.