Note 50 — Chapter XXI · THE OLD MEASURES AND WEIGHTS OF FRANCE
Reading edition
There were relations between Burgundy and England. The former was, up to the fall of its powerful dukes in the sixteenth century, a state enjoying prosperity and independence, while France was mostly in a condition of misery. It had, and retained till quite recently, its system of measures and weights, derived from the southern system at the time when Arles was the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy. It had two toises, one = 7-1/2 French feet, the other, for field measure, = 9-1/2 French feet. Now the first seems to have passed to England, for a time at least, for the Liber Albus, 1419, contains an order for the City of London:
‘The Toise of pavement to be 7-1/2 feet in length, and the foot of St. Paul in breadth.’
The English wool-weights, the wey, stone (12 French lb.) and clove, were current in Burgundy and in Southern France.