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<blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 8470262" data-attributes="member: 57383"><p>I disagree. A medieval farmer would have a very good idea of weights and measures, although they wouldn't have been formally educated in it. It's an intrinsic part of their job, most likely learned from when they were sitting on their dad's knee. Who was probably a farmer too, just like dear old grandpa.</p><p></p><p>The main problem* they'd have is that there were multiple different weights & measures depending on what was measured. There was a lot less unified and uniform regulation back then.</p><p>*<span style="font-size: 10px">Well, actually a Medieval farmer's main problem is more likely to be the Miller short-changing them whenever they ground their grain for food. Millers where notorious for cheating farmers by cutting out more flour than they were supposed to. To make matters worse, they might have had a monopoly on milling enforced by the local lord (who obviously got kickbacks). At some times and places, it was illegal to own or operate a hand-mill, to ensure grain was processed through an officially sanctioned mill.</span></p><p></p><p>For example, in the UK version of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois_system" target="_blank"><strong>Avoirdupois System</strong></a>, a ton is made up of twenty hundredweights, a hundredweight is made up of eight stone, and a stone is made up of fourteen pounds. So a ton is 2,240 pounds (14 × 8 × 20 = 2,240).</p><p></p><p>However, in medieval England, how much a stone weighs <em>could depend on what it was a stone of</em>. A stone of cheese might weigh different to a stone of salt beef, for example. The weights were regulated, but the regulation might be performed by individual Guilds or other officials that may place different numerical values on measures with the same name, or use use the same weights as other types of good but use different names.</p><p></p><p>There's still lingering traces of this practice today - that's one reason a standard beer barrel holds a different amount than a standard wine barrel, and why Jeweler's use <strong><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight" target="_blank"><strong>Troy Weights</strong></a></strong> of ounce and pound when most standard commerce in the UK has been metric for decades.</p><p></p><p>Besides, I'd guess an average farmer of the time would likely eyeball something's weight as to how many bushels of grain it would be as heavy as, which would likely match the bushel-weight of the main grain they grew for food (probably barley or oats).</p><p></p><p>So, I'd guess a farmer would likely say something along the lines of "reckon it's about two bushels. Put it on the donkey."</p><p></p><p>They would have had to memorize all sorts of terms for weights and measures that are rarely used or forgotten today, such as a sheaf of arrows (24 arrows, or a standard quiver full) versus a sheaf of wheat (no fixed value, as it's "an amount of fresh cut grain large enough to require bundling", but a maybe two or three pounds of grain once winnowed?).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cleon, post: 8470262, member: 57383"] I disagree. A medieval farmer would have a very good idea of weights and measures, although they wouldn't have been formally educated in it. It's an intrinsic part of their job, most likely learned from when they were sitting on their dad's knee. Who was probably a farmer too, just like dear old grandpa. The main problem* they'd have is that there were multiple different weights & measures depending on what was measured. There was a lot less unified and uniform regulation back then. *[SIZE=2]Well, actually a Medieval farmer's main problem is more likely to be the Miller short-changing them whenever they ground their grain for food. Millers where notorious for cheating farmers by cutting out more flour than they were supposed to. To make matters worse, they might have had a monopoly on milling enforced by the local lord (who obviously got kickbacks). At some times and places, it was illegal to own or operate a hand-mill, to ensure grain was processed through an officially sanctioned mill.[/SIZE] For example, in the UK version of the [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois_system'][B]Avoirdupois System[/B][/URL], a ton is made up of twenty hundredweights, a hundredweight is made up of eight stone, and a stone is made up of fourteen pounds. So a ton is 2,240 pounds (14 × 8 × 20 = 2,240). However, in medieval England, how much a stone weighs [I]could depend on what it was a stone of[/I]. A stone of cheese might weigh different to a stone of salt beef, for example. The weights were regulated, but the regulation might be performed by individual Guilds or other officials that may place different numerical values on measures with the same name, or use use the same weights as other types of good but use different names. There's still lingering traces of this practice today - that's one reason a standard beer barrel holds a different amount than a standard wine barrel, and why Jeweler's use [B][URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight'][B]Troy Weights[/B][/URL][/B] of ounce and pound when most standard commerce in the UK has been metric for decades. Besides, I'd guess an average farmer of the time would likely eyeball something's weight as to how many bushels of grain it would be as heavy as, which would likely match the bushel-weight of the main grain they grew for food (probably barley or oats). So, I'd guess a farmer would likely say something along the lines of "reckon it's about two bushels. Put it on the donkey." They would have had to memorize all sorts of terms for weights and measures that are rarely used or forgotten today, such as a sheaf of arrows (24 arrows, or a standard quiver full) versus a sheaf of wheat (no fixed value, as it's "an amount of fresh cut grain large enough to require bundling", but a maybe two or three pounds of grain once winnowed?). [/QUOTE]
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