Chapter XVIII
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3. THE PRIDE AND FALL OF TROY
The myth of the 32 wheat-corns which formed the basis of the Tower pound = 5400 grains, passed to the Troy pound = 5760 grains, and this deliberate fiction lasted till the time of Elizabeth and perhaps later. It did little harm as regards these mint-pounds, but its application to the Averdepois pound, alleged to be an offshoot of the royal pound, either as 25 shillings, that is 300 pennyweights of 32 wheat-corns, or as 15 ounces Troy, or at a later period as 16 ounces Troy, produced a mental obliquity which is most lamentable.
The jury of merchants and goldsmiths appointed in 1574 to examine the ancient standards, and construct a new set, declared that ‘the one sorte of weight nowe in use is commonlie called the troie weight and that other sorte thereof is also commonlie called the avoir de poiz weight, and further they say that both the saide consiste compounded frome thauncient Englishe penye named a sterling rounde and unclipped which penny is limeted to waie twoo and thirtie grains of wheate in the midest of the eare and twentie of those pence make an oz. and twelf of those ounc make one pound troie.’ They go on to ‘saie that the said twoo sortes of weights doe differ in weight the one from the other three ounces troie at the pounde weight, for the pounde weight troie doth consiste onlie of xii oz. troie and the lb. weight of avoir de poiz weight dothe consiste of fiftene ounc troie.’
Thomas Hylles, in his ‘Arte of Vulgar Arithmeticke’ (1600), showed himself emancipated from the superstition of troy weight so far as to say:
‘15 ounces of Troy weight should by the statute make 1 pound of haverdepoise, but the same pound weyeth commonly but 14 ounces 1/2 Troy, 14 ounces 3/5 at the uttermost.’
(14-1/2 oz. troy = 6960 grs.; 14-3/5 oz. = 7008 grs.)
But he unfortunately went on to say that ‘of things liquid and dry 1 pound of Troy weight maketh a pinte in measure,’ not seeing that 12 oz. troy = only 13·16 oz. averdepois, while a wine-pint contained 16-2/3 ounces of water, and a corn-pint close on 16 ounces of wheat or 20 of water.
But the ignorance and superstition engendered by troy weight was just as bad in 1702 as in 1600 or even in 1500, as shown by the following utterance of an eighteenth-century scientist:
Troy weight, whereby bread, gold, silver, apothecaries’ wares etc. are weighed containing only 12 ounces in the pound, each ounce 20 pennyweight each pennyweight 24 grams. This seems to have been the most ancient weight by its name, as derived from the famous city of Troy, from whence Brutus and his people are said to have descended and to have called London Troy-Novant or New Troy.
So said J. Ralphson, F.R.S., in his ‘Mathematical Dictionary’ (London, 1702). And then he continued:
The second and more common weight is called Avoirdupois, being fuller and larger weight than the other, for it contains 16 ounces or 128 drams, viz. 384 scruples, viz. 7680 grains, by this are weighed all kinds of grocery ware and base metals, as iron, copper and brass, as also hemp, flax, rosin, pitch, tar &c.
A century later we find not much improvement in the idea of the pounds Troy and Averdepois.
‘The pound or 7680 grains avoirdupois equals 7000 grains troy and hence 1 grain troy equals 1·097 avoirdupois’ (Rees’ ‘Encyclopædia,’ 1819). This is an example of the utter muddle the Troy pound had made in the minds of otherwise intelligent people.
Similar pedantic efforts were continued, well into the nineteenth century, to represent the Troy pound as the sole standard of England and the averdepois pound only respectable as an offshoot of the royal pound used for vulgar purposes.
_The Assize of Bread_
Such fictions were helped by the old statutes which compelled the sale, first by Tower and then by Troy weight, of bread as well as of gold, silver, and medicines. And confusion was made worse by the use for a long period of a third weight for bread, the Amsterdam or Scotch troy pound.
The peck loaf, supposed to be that produced from a peck of flour (16 pints), was to weigh 16 of these pounds = 17 lbs. 6 oz. averdepois, the quartern loaf 4 = 4 lb. 5 oz., and the pint loaf (to be sold at a penny when wheat was 4_s._ a bushel or 32_s._ a quarter) was to weigh one pound = 17 oz. 6 drams averdepois. The periodical Assize of Bread fixed the price of the peck loaf.
It appears then that the pound of bread was = 7600 grains, its ounce = 475 grains, which was about the Scottish (and Dutch) troy standard. It was probably adopted as coinciding with the weight of bread supposed to be produced from a pint of flour and as keeping up the old superstition that bread must be sold by troy weight. As some persons in authority did not share the stupidity of those who considered the averdepois pound to be 16 troy ounces, the Scottish 16-ounce pound of troy standard was imported for the purpose.
This weight was abolished by 8 Anne (1710) and the sliding scale was put in the averdepois equivalent.
The Assize of Bread was abolished in 1815, but traces of it remain in the name ‘quartern loaf,’ although this now means a loaf of 4 imperial pounds. It may also mean a loaf weighing the quarter of a 16-lb. stone.
_The Disappearance of the Troy Pound_
In 1841 a Royal Commission on Weights and Measures recommended the abolition of the Troy pound as ‘wholly useless,’ retaining its ounce provisionally for the use of bullion merchants, pending ‘the removal of the troy scale.’ This recommendation was not carried out until 1878, when the Troy pound disappeared, except of course in almanacks and books for the instruction of youth—but the Troy ounce still survives at the mint, and consequently in the bullion market; and it is virtually forced on druggists in spite of the Medical Council. Troy weight was abolished by the Pharmacopœia Committee in 1864, Imperial weight being alone recognised; yet the Board of Trade keeps up the Apothecaries’ ounce of 480 grains. Troy weight has fallen; but, like many other superstitions, it dies hard.
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