download.pdf - 1.2Mb - Viola da Gamba Society

the inch was defined as the length of three barleycorns, but the physical object
which was used for comparison was a metal rod. 8 These stable standards were
renewed by statute in 1496, after which replicas of the physical standards were
sent from London to forty-three shire towns such as Oxford, Cambridge,
Bristol and Chester. 9 These replica standards were declared defective and were
replaced the following year.
Fortunately, we are able to make a precise assessment of the revised
physical standard yard of 1497 which was itself modelled on that of Edward I
(c1300). It is a half-inch thick octagonal-section rod which is preserved in the
Science Museum, London along with several comparable standards. 10 The
overall length of the rod is 0.037 inches (0.1%) shorter than the modern
standard imperial yard. 11 During Elizabeth I's reign these standards were
checked again, and any that were considered inadequate were replaced. 12 The
Elizabethan standard [19] yard of 1588 is a half-inch section bronze rod which
is just one hundredth of an inch (0.03%) shorter than the imperial measure. 13
During the later Stuart period scientific and industrial advances brought
pressure for the reform and refinement of many units of measurement, but the
standards described above show that the absolute values of units of length had
already been established virtually at their modern levels well before the viol
achieved its greatest prominence in England.
Of course there have always been rogues, and short measure is one of the
archetypal reasons for complaint, litigation and law enforcement. Metrological
standards have been policed since the middle ages by a variety of national officers,
local officials (including chief officers of cities, shire towns and boroughs,
and port measurers), and by guilds. Guild inspectors typically had the authority
to 'search, view & gage' members of their company, to approve measures and
destroy false measures, and to punish offenders. 14 Officials were required to
enforce consistency by comparing the measures used by traders and artificers
with the official standards and ensuring that any inaccurate measures were
replaced. Justices of the Peace could examine local authority officers as well as
buyers and sellers. They could punish offenders and destroy defective weights
and measures. 15 The illegality of using weights or measures that were not'sealed
according to the King's standard' and matched exactly to the standards kept in
every city, borough and market town was very clear. Some surviving tools,
however, show that accurate measurement was an ideal that would be
approached more or less closely depending on the nature of the task. The
8 Ibid., 21, n. 9.
9 Ibid., 75. Replicas were also sent to Ireland.
10 London, Science Museum Inventory No. 1931-984. A standard yard was also kept at
the Exchequer and was used to avoid wear to the other standard. London, Science Museum
Inventory No. 1932-313.
11 Zupko, British Weights and Measures, 76-7.
12 For William Harrison's 1577 discussion of English weights and measures, see his
Description of England (1577, 1587), ed. G. Edelen (New York and London, 1994), 452-6.
13 Zupko, British Weights and Measures, 92-3. London, Science Museum Inventory No.
1931-985.
14 Zupko, British Weights and Measures, passim. 'The last of the major London craft guilds
to be given metrological duties was the Founders' Company [in] 1614' (ibid., 85).
15 M. Dalton, The Covntrey Jvstice (1635), 142ff. Also, 'Within every Leet or market there
ought to be a Pillory and a Tumbrell, to punish the Bakers and Brewers that offend': ibid.