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.
4. The Ell
The yard, being 4 spans, was formerly one of the Ells, measures of 3, 4, 5 or more spans, related to the cubit of 2 spans. The Scots yard, of 37 inches, was always known as an Ell, and it was only gradually that our yard took the place, for cloth measure, of the Ell of 5 spans = 45 inches, which was long maintained by statute. The yard and the ell were usually distinguished as virga and ulna in statutes, but sometimes ulna meant a yard.
Both yard and ell were divided into halves, quarters, and nails (sixteenths).
See [Chap. XVI] (The Ells), and [Chap. XX] (section on the Nail and the Clove).
5. The Rod, Furlong, Mile, and League
The earliest table of English linear measures is probably that in Arnold’s ‘Customs of London,’ c. 1500.
The lengith of a barly corne iij tymes make an ynche
and xij ynches make a fote