Technikatörténeti szemle 10. (1978)

A MÉRÉS ÉS A MÉRTÉKEK AZ EMBER MŰVELŐDÉSÉBEN című konferencián Budapesten, 1976. április 27–30-án elhangzott előadások II. - Zupko, R. E.: Angol súlyok és mértékek

successful institutions. In Britain they merely added a further dimension to most institutions and either improved them or helped preserve them by ignoring them. William's policy toward Anglo-Saxon metrology was in line with these general observations. Once the invasion and the sustained land war had succeeded in subduing Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman military, William concentrated on his domestic program. In one of his earliest decrees—the only one during his entire reign dealing with weights and measures—he reinforced the decrees of various AngloSaxon kings which aimed at metrological uniformity.

10 In commanding that all weights and measures throughout the realm be uniform and stamped with his seal to authenticate them, he took as his model the Winchester system of his AngloSaxon predecessors. He then transferred the Winchester standards to London and deposited them, along with the royal treasures, in the Crypt Chapel (later called the Pyx Chapel or the Chamber of the Pyx) of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.

11 William's motive in these maneuvers is quite apparent: he wanted to appear not merely as a military conqueror but as a lawful successor to Edward the Confessor. In the process, the weights and measures used by the Anglo-Saxons became the established metrology of Norman England. // The first millennium of British metrological history ended with the Norman Conquest. Cultural interaction—the dominant characteristic of this age—produced a system of weights and measures rich in scope and application. Britain had inherited the Roman and North German systems. As the era came to a close, the Germanic system had emerged dominant in the government's monetary, commercial, and agricultural operations, while in the recesses of the countrysides, in the mountainous regions, and on the channel and sea islands the indigenous Celtic system lingered on. Soon thereafter, however, other influences came to bear upon them which contributed to an even more accellerated growth in the numbers of weights and measures and to a greater disparity between national standards and local systems.

12 As a result, the dominant characteristic of this second millennium was the long-range program pursued by numerous British governments aimed at limiting metrological proliferation and establishing a simple, coherent, and integrated system of national standards. Space does not permit detailed discussions of the reasons for this continuous metrological expansion, but the following were the principal contributors: economic resurgency in the agricultural, industrial, and commercial sectors; frequent governmental privileges to certain towns or regions which enabled them to employ weights and measures that varied both in size and application from royal standards; defective workmanship in the physical standards; gradual intensification of foreign exchange; graft and corruption among many metrological agencies and officials; continuous statutory confusion and contradiction; peculiarities in the physical requirements, the qualities, and the monetary values of certain products; differences in local soil conditions and topographic features; mounting pressures from commercial competition ; ever-changing needs in local industry and agriculture; tax evasion; increasingly more rapid and complex transportation and communication methods and vehicles;