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 Whether this pound dwindled spontaneously, or whether it was superseded by the pound derived, either directly from the lesser Arabic rotl with an ounce = 480-1/4 grains, or indirectly from an ounce of 10 dirhems, of about 48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.