Men and Measures

The Ells are the Cubits of the modern West. They are of two kinds: the Foot-Ells, of which the Persian cubit and the Beládi cubit, divisible into 2 feet, were the types, and the Span-Ells, of 3, 4, 5 or 6 spans.

1. The Foot-Ells

In France the Aune was 4 Roman feet.

In the Italian states the Braccio was usually 2 local feet, but sometimes an Eastern cubit.

In the German and Norse states the Eln was 2 local feet.

In Spain the Covado, of 2 Burgos feet, was the Beládi cubit.

2. The Span-Ells

The Span-Ells of Western Europe are of two types, derived either from the English foot, or from a Netherlands foot which has disappeared and which was probably the Olympic foot. (See Holland, in the next chapter.)

The Netherlands Ell appears then to be 3 spans of an Olympic cubit = 3 × 18·24/2, which is equivalent to 2-1/4 Olympic feet: 2-1/4 × 12·16: both = 27·36 inches. The Antwerp Ell was formerly = 27·396 inches, and that of Amsterdam = 27·216 inches. There has been shrinkage, probably through the influence of the English standard of the Flemish Ell, we having taken 3 of our own spans, = 27 inches, for this largely used trade-measure, and our standard having prevailed in foreign trade. So the Flemish Ell has tended more and more to the English standard. In Holland and its colonies it is = 27·08 inches. This is also the standard in Portugal. The lesser pík or drá of Constantinople, = 27 inches, was probably = 26·8 inches as in Egypt; it may have increased under the influence of the English or Flemish Ell. The Venetian braccio, = 26·9 inches, probably comes from this Turkish pík.

In Northern France there was an Aune = 27·1 inches and another of 27 Amsterdam inches = 27·36 inches (the Amsterdam foot being of 11 inches).

In Prussia there is, or was, an Ell = 26·257 inches. It was described as of 2-1/8 Rhineland feet; but it was almost certainly 3 Roman spans = 2-1/4 Roman feet (11·67 × 2-1/4 = 26·257 inches), brought into the Rhineland system by representing it as 2-1/8 Rhineland feet, which it is only approximately; 2-1/8 × 12·3563 being = 26·2617 inches.

Nowhere out of England and Scotland is there found any Span-ell other than of 3 spans. The apparent exceptions are in Spain, where the Vara of 3 feet, = 1-1/2 Beládi cubit, is a 4-span ell, like our Yard, and in Occitania (Southern France), where the Cano is an 8-span fathom.

‘Ell,’ formerly Elne, meant at first the natural cubit or length of the forearm (L. ulna) from the finger tips to the bend of the arm or ‘el-bow.’ Originally of 2 spans, it came to mean a greater multiple of the span, or, as in the case of the German ells and the French aune, a multiple of the foot.

Our Ells were:

The Flemish Ell was that of the Netherlands, brought to the standard of our inches.

The Long English Ell or cloth-goad of 6 spans was a double Flemish ell. It has long been extinct.

The Yard has survived, from its convenience as either of 4 spans or of 3 feet.

The Scots Ell = 37·058 inches corresponded to the English yard; it was 3 feet Scots, i.e. of Rhineland standard, = 12·353 inches.

The Common English Ell, the tailor’s yard, ‘taylors yerde, virga cissoris,’ was probably the French aune = 46·6 inches, introduced under the Plantagenets from their French dominions and cut down to fit our ell system. This ell appears to have been carried abroad by trade. Both the 3-span Covado and the 5-span Vara of Portugal are identical with our ells, their spans being longer than the ordinary Portuguese spans and called palmos avantejados, long spans.

The four-foot Ell of Jersey and Guernsey was probably the French ell increased from 4 Roman feet to 4 English feet.

Of the foot-ells of Italy and Germany, several were exactly half our ell, while quite foreign to the native standards.

Both our Ell and our Yard were divided into 4 quarters and 16 nails. The Elizabethan standards, still extant, are so divided.

Of the English span-ells the Yard alone remains. The 5-span Ell, maintained by the statute authority which prescribed the breadth of cloth, lived only as a royal measure and, like the royal pound, was gradually superseded by the more popular measure. The ell was obsolete nearly a century before the royal pound silently disappeared. It seems, however, to have survived in Wales for a long time.