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: