man can, by words only, give another an adequate idea of a foot-rule,
or a pound-weight. It is therefore necessary to have recourse to some
visible, palpable, material standard; by forming a comparison with
which, all weights and measures may be reduced to one uniform size:
and the prerogative of fixing this standard, our antient law vested in
the crown; as in Normandy it belonged to the duke[p]. This standard
was originally kept at Winchester: and we find in the laws of king
Edgar[q], near a century before the conquest, an injunction that the
one measure, which was kept at Winchester, should be observed
throughout the realm. Most nations have regulated the standard of
measures of length by comparison with the parts of the human body; as
the palm, the hand, the span, the foot, the cubit, the ell, (_ulna_,
or arm) the pace, and the fathom. But, as these are of different
dimensions in men of different proportions, our antient historians[r]
inform us, that a new standard of longitudinal measure was ascertained
by king Henry the first; who commanded that the _ulna_ or antient ell,
which answers to the modern yard, should be made of the exact length
of his own arm. And, one standard of measures of length being gained,
all others are easily derived from thence; those of greater length by
multiplying, those of less by subdividing, that original standard.
Thus, by the statute called _compositio ulnarum et perticarum_, five
yards and an half make a perch; and the yard is subdivided into three
feet, and each foot into twelve inches; which inches will be each of
the length of three grains of barley. Superficial measures are derived
by squaring those of length; and measures of capacity by cubing them.
The standard of weights was originally taken from corns of wheat,
whence the lowest denomination of weights we have is still called a
grain; thirty two of which are directed, by the statute called
_compositio mensurarum_, to compose a penny weight, whereof twenty
make an ounce, twelve ounces a pound, and so upwards. And upon these
principles the first standards were made; which, being originally so
fixed by the crown, their subsequent regulations have been generally
made by the king in parliament. Thus, under king Richard I, in his
parliament holden at Westminster, _A.D._ 1197, it was ordained that
there shall be only one weight and one measure throughout the kingdom,
and that the custody of the assise or standard of weights and measure