1. The raising of the hundredweight to 112 lb.
2. The lowering of the stone from 16 lb. to 14 lb. to make it one-eighth of the new hundredweight.
3. The rise of the averdepois pound from 16 Roman ounces of 437 grains to 16 ounces of 437-1/2 grains; a difference of 8 grains, so as to make it 7000 grains of the Tudor Troy pound.
4. The re-legalising of the 100 lb. or cental weight in 1879.
I may observe that the octonary series of measures of capacity, also of the 14 lb. stone and new Cwt., is quite in harmony with the sexdecimal system, however objectionable be those units.
The Recognition of Averdepois Weight
It is not until 1485 (Ripon Ch. Acts, quoted in the ‘New English Dictionary’) that we find mention of averdepois, though there had been standard weights of it from temp. Edw. III, ‘per balance cum ponderibus de haberdepase,’ and those standards were extant in the time of Elizabeth.
The document embodying 12 Henry VII (1496) mentions, as has been seen, the Habertypoie pound, with the assertion that it was 16 Troy ounces, an assertion causing confusion for centuries afterwards.
In Arnold’s ‘Customs of London,’ c. 1500, there is mentioned ‘the Lyggynge Weyght, by which is boughte and solde all maner of marchaundise as tynne, ledde ... and al maner of specery ... and such other as is used to be solde by weyght; and of this weyght xvj uncis make a pound, and C and xij li. is an C, and x C make a M of all suche marchaundises ... except wulle.’
This ‘lying weight’ was by the balance, the weight lying in one scale, and not hanging or sliding on the beam of a stilyard as in Auncell weight. The stilyard, very portable, as not requiring heavy weights, yet admitted of fraud. Arnold says ‘this weight is forboden in England by statute of parlement, and also holy church hath cursed in England all that beyen or sellen by that auncel weyght.’