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

demographic growth; technological advancements; and the inestimatable effects of custom and tradition.

13 Although Britain would not achieve a partial solution to her metrological problems until 1824 when the Imperial system of weights and measures was established and would have to wait for a complete solution until 1965 when the metric changeover was inaugurated, governments since the High Middle Ages concentrated on the development of a program of metrological standardization that was divided into three distinct, yet interrelated, procedures. The most direct procedure—the earliest from the standpoint of origin—was the construction of state standards by London craftsmen. Originating usually in the Exchequer, the Tower, or the Guildhall, these standards served as the official state weights and measures upon which all local systems were supposed to conform. Sometimes they were used to size corresponding local units, and occasionally they were duplicated and sent to shire officials, who distributed them among the major cities and towns. In many cases they were even attached to the outside walls of municipal buildings, especially in the larger ports where native and foreign merchants had continuous need for them in their daily mercantile operations. Having convenient access to copies to Crown standards also helped local guilds and markets control fraudulent practices.

14 Until relatively recent times, there were several serious drawbacks to this particular procedure. First, there were too few standards in proportion to the thousands of weights and measures in actual use. In other words, there were no physical standards for many units employed by the central government and relatively few for strictly local units. In fact the total, slightly over 50, remained fairly constant from the Late Middle Ages until the establishment of the Imperial system in the nineteenth century—during the very time when this metrology was undergoing its greatest expansion.

15 Secondly, the standards sent to the shires by the central government were not originals. They were copies. Occasionally they were accurate duplications of the originals, but frequently they varied. And even the originals varied, because they were constructed in three different places. Tests on Guidhall, Tower, and Exchequer standards reveal that England actually had three separate state standards for almost every weight and measure which it regulated. Then to compound these errors, local communities often made copies from the copies they received, and if local artificers were less skillful than those employed by the government, the disparity between state and local standards grew more acute.

16 Finally, both state and local standards deteriorated quickly. Wooden standards, common all during the Middle Ages, naturally decayed, while those made from lead, iron, or bronze oxidized. In particular, state standards suffered from constant handling by Crown officials who used them for testing and verifying local weights and measures. Local standards, on the other hand, whose accessibility to native and foreign merchants was important for settling disputes, suffered from continuous exposure to the hazards of English climatic conditions. In each case not only was the effectiveness of the existing standards impaired, but their defects were perpetuated, since they often served as models for the construction of new standards. Even with defective standards, however, national uniformity would have been realized sooner if royal decrees and conciliar and parliamentary legislation on weights