[1242] Fines (ed. Hunter) i. 242: ‘sex acras terrae mensuratas per legalem perticam eiusdem villae [de Haveresham].’
[1243] Acts of Parliament of Scotland, i. 309.
[1244] Schmid, Gesetze, App. XII.: ‘three feet and three hand breadths and three barley corns.’
[1245] Acts of Parliament of Scotland, i. 309. Compare Statutes of the Realm, i. 206: ‘Tria grana ordei sicca et rotunda faciunt pollicem.’ This so-called Statute of Admeasurement has not been traced to any authoritative source. Probably, like many of the documents with which it is associated, it is a mere note which lawyers copied into their statute books.
[1246] Hoveden, iv. 33: ‘et ulna sit ferrea.’
[1247] Britton, ii. 189.
[1248] Magna Carta is careful of wine, beer, corn and cloth; not of land.
[1249] Gloucester Corporation Records, ed. Stevenson, p. 80. Near the year 1200 a grant is made of land in Gloucester measuring in breadth 30 feet ‘iuxta ferratam virgam Regis.’ Ducange, s. v. ulna, gives examples from the Monasticon. The iron rod was an iron ell. Were standard perches ever made and distributed? Apparently the only measure of length of which any standard was made was the ulna or cloth-yard.
[1250] See the apocryphal Statute of Admeasurement, Stat., vol. i. p. 206.