Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


Philippe le Bel issued several prohibitory enactments also in the interest
of home commerce and local industry, which Louis X. confirmed. Philippe le
Long attempted even to outdo the judicious efforts of Louis XI., and
tried, though unsuccessfully, to establish a uniformity in the weights and
measures throughout the kingdom; a reform, however, which was never
accomplished until the revolution of 1789. It is difficult to credit how
many different weights and measures were in use at that time, each one
varying according to local custom or the choice of the lord of the soil,
who probably in some way profited by the confusion which this uncertain
state of things must have produced. The fraud and errors to which this led
may easily be imagined, particularly in the intercourse between one part
of the country and another. The feudal stamp is here thoroughly exhibited;
as M. Charles de Grandmaison remarks, "Nothing is fixed, nothing is
uniform, everything is special and arbitrary, settled by the lord of the
soil by virtue of his right of _justesse_, by which he undertook the
regulation and superintendence of the weights and measures in use in his
lordship."

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