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The various systems of weights and measures used in Portugal until the 19th century combine remote Roman influences with medieval influences from northern Europe and Islam.The Roman and northern European influences were more present in the north. The Islamic influence was more present in the south of the country.
The Mark (from Middle High German: Marc, march, brand) is originally a medieval weight or mass unit, which supplanted the pound weight as a precious metals and coinage weight in parts of Europe in the 11th century. The Mark is traditionally divided into 8 ounces or 16 lots.
Arroba – an Iberian unit of weight, equivalent to 11.5 kilograms [6] Buddam; Candy; Corgee – an obsolete unit of mass equal to 212 moodahs, or rush mat bundles of rice. The unit was used in the Canara (now Kanara) region of Karnataka in India. Cullingey; Dharni; Dirham; Duella; Dutch cask – a British unit of mass, used for butter and ...
English-speaking countries also used a system of units of fluid measure, or in modern terminology volume units, based on the apothecaries' system. Originally, the terms and symbols used to describe the volume measurements of liquids were the same as or similar to those used to describe weight measurements of solids [33] (for example, the pound by weight and the fluid pint were both referred to ...
From the time of Offa King of Mercia (8th century) until 1526 the Saxon pound, also known as the moneyers' pound (and later known as the Tower pound) was the fundamental unit of weight (by Offa's law, one pound of silver, by weight, was subdivided into 240 silver pennies, hence (in money) 240 pence – twenty shillings – was known as one pound).
Scottish or Scots units of measurement are the weights and measures peculiar to Scotland which were nominally replaced by English units in 1685 but continued to be used in unofficial contexts until at least the late 18th century. [citation needed] The system was based on the ell , stone , and boll and firlot .
In the Middle Ages, an English penny's weight was literally, as well as monetarily, 1 ⁄ 20 of an ounce and 1 ⁄ 240 of a pound of sterling silver. At that time, the pound unit in use in England was the Tower pound, equal to 7,680 Tower grains (also known as wheat grains). The medieval English pennyweight was thus equal to 32 Tower grains.
The English pound weight, which was adopted very early and directly from France, shows that the value of the Carolingian pound was a little lower in France for a long time. The weight of the livre des poids-de-marc also corresponds very closely to one seventieth of the mass of a French cubic foot of water. So it is likely that this is why there ...