The pound of two marks.
In Northern Europe the pound of twelve ounces was not, as elsewhere, the usual larger unit. The pound of two marks or sixteen ounces had taken its place. And except in Norway and Denmark, which sooner or later adopted the monetary and weight system of Charlemagne, the ounce remained the Roman ounce of 576 wheat-grains. At the same time, as in the case of the Merovingian system, in spite of the Imperial influence of the gold solidus, there were evident marks of a tendency towards the ancient Eastern standard of the stater rather than the heavier standard of the double solidus. The ortug of 192 wheat-grains seems to have often sunk in actual weight below even the Attic weight to that of the ancient Eastern stater of 8·18 grammes.
Thus when the Russian weight system was recorded in the time of Peter the Great the unit both for precious metals and goods was found to be the Zolotnic or gold piece. Thus—
| Dolja | = | ·0444 | grammes | = | wheat-grain. |
| Zolotnic | = | 4·265 | ” | = | 96 w.g. |
| Funt | = | 409·511 | ” | = | 96 zolotnic, or 9216 w.g. |
Here, then, in wheat grains the Funt is the light Mina Attica over again, Romanised in its divisions. The Zolotnic is the solidus or half-stater. But in actual weight the pound is exactly half of the ancient Eastern gold mina of 818 grammes.
The Pfund of Silesia (Breslau), according to Martini, was 405 grammes, and that of Poland (Cracow) the same. Only Sweden and Riga seem to have adopted or preserved higher standards, the double mark of Sweden being 425 and that of Riga 419 grammes; but even these fell far short of the standard weight of 16 Roman ounces, viz. 436 grammes. But throughout, low as the standard of the Baltic Funts or double marks may have been, they were divided according to the Roman commercial weight system into ores or ounces and loths or half-ounces, and gwentschen or drachmas of one eighth of an ounce, just as if they were of full Imperial weight. The marks and the ores remained, but the old division of ores into ortugs or staters had long ago disappeared.
The division into marks, ores, and ortugs was, however, in full force at the time of the Norse laws, both for gold and silver. And the evidence of actual weights seems to show, not only that for the purposes of the Eastern trade routes, reckoning in marks, ores, and ortugs was in common use, but also that the standard, like that of the Merovingian coinage, was the ancient Eastern standard.
Thus the following weights, believed to belong to the Viking period, from the island of Gotland, are now in the Royal Museum at Stockholm (Nos. 4752 and 5984).
The ortug in weight = Eastern stater or two Merovingian solidi.