Two Reforms of Charlemagne? Weights and Measures in the Middle Ages

Bibliographic Data

ID3166387
AuthorsHarry A Miskimin (Yale University, corresponding author)
Year1967
Volume20
Issue1
Pages35
Publication date1967-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2592034
OpenAlexW4235776804
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited1

W l rITHIN a few generations of the death of Charlemagne the organizational and political structure of his 'empire was destroyed. The geographical ties which had held together the empire, always a patchwork of conquests, were dissolved in the fratricidal struggles among the successors of the great Charles. His era of relative peace, intellectual consolidation, and economic prosperity, however modest, remained for centuries a memory of better times, a golden age, to European populations constantly harassed by Saracen, Norman, and Hungarian invaders. Hard times, however, could not eradicate those features of the Carolingian empire whose preservation was assured by their utility. The court hand, Carolingian minuscule, survived in manuscripts and scriptoria for centuries; the system of weights and measures decreed by Charlemagne remained to influence standards even into modern times. What were the metrological reforms introduced into Europe by Charlemagne ? There is at present no consensus among historians regarding this, one of the two most lasting vestiges of the Carolingian empire. We know that the monetary account pound was fixed by Charlemagne at 20 shillings and 240 pence; we know that the pound weight was divided into i2 ounces; we know also that a pound weight was often measured in shillings so that 2o shillings equalled a pound weight and an ounce equalled 2o pence. Such archetypal numerical relationships are clear and in their proper sphere useful, but unfortunately they do not reveal the basic unit of weight to which the divisions themselves apply, and without knowledge of these basic measures and weights, economic history is mute, condemned to statistical silence. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to provide a new method of solving this problem, but first I must apologize to the reader for inflicting upon him a highly abstract and at times, perhaps, tedious argument, offering nothing more than the importance of the subject as my excuse. In the interest of clarity, however, a precis of the argument may be helpful: the documentation will be presented subsequently. First, we shall make an investigation of numismatic frequency tables of coin weights to determine the range of possible weights for the Carolingian pound, given the evidence of the surviving coins. Secondly, on the bases of historical convenience, logic, and internal consistency, we will postulate that the weight of a grain, the smallest subdivision of the pound, was once the same in France, Flanders, and England, but was subsequently altered. Then, employing a slight variant of the present English grain weight, the numerical grain content of the heavy Flemish gold mark' will be rendered in grams; this produces a

Ancient history · Middle Ages · Political science · Byzantine Studies and History · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History

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