Barleycorn (unit)

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Barleycorn
Barley grains 3.jpg
The barleycorn is based on the length of a barley grain.
General information
Unit system Imperial units
Unit of Length
Conversions
1 barleycorn in ...... is equal to ...
    Imperial units    1/3  in
    SI units    8.46  mm
A chart of Imperial and United States customary units. English Length Units Graph.svg
A chart of Imperial and United States customary units.

The barleycorn is an English unit of length [1] equal to 13 of an inch (i.e. about 8.47 mm). It is still used as the basis of shoe sizes in English-speaking countries.

Contents

History

Under the 1300 Composition of Yards and Perches, one of the statutes of uncertain date that was notionally in force until the 1824 Weights and Measures Act, "3 barly cornes dry and rounde" [2] [3] were to serve as the basis for the inch and thence the larger units of feet, yards, perches and thus of the acre, an important unit of area. The notion of three barleycorns composing an inch certainly predates this statute, however, appearing in the 10th-century Welsh Laws of Hywel Dda.

In practice, various weights and measures acts of the English kings were standardized with reference to some particular yard-length iron, brass, or bronze bar held by the king or the Royal Exchequer. The formal barleycorn was 1108 of its length. [4]

As modern studies show, the actual length of a kernel of barley varies from as short as 0.16–0.28 in (4–7 mm) to as long as 0.47–0.59 in (12–15 mm) depending on the cultivar. [5] [6] Older sources claimed the average length of a grain of barley was 0.345 in (8.8 mm), while that of a grain of "big" was 0.3245 in (8.24 mm). [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imperial units</span> System of measurements

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The earliest recorded systems of weights and measures originate in the 3rd or 4th millennium BC. Even the very earliest civilizations needed measurement for purposes of agriculture, construction and trade. Early standard units might only have applied to a single community or small region, with every area developing its own standards for lengths, areas, volumes and masses. Often such systems were closely tied to one field of use, so that volume measures used, for example, for dry grains were unrelated to those for liquids, with neither bearing any particular relationship to units of length used for measuring cloth or land. With development of manufacturing technologies, and the growing importance of trade between communities and ultimately across the Earth, standardized weights and measures became critical. Starting in the 18th century, modernized, simplified and uniform systems of weights and measures were developed, with the fundamental units defined by ever more precise methods in the science of metrology. The discovery and application of electricity was one factor motivating the development of standardized internationally applicable units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish units</span> Obsolete units of measurement formerly used in Scotland

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weights and Measures Acts (UK)</span> Laws of the British Parliament determining the regulation of weights and measures

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The Composition of Yards and Perches or the Statute of Ells and Perches was a medieval English statute defining the length of the barleycorn, inch, foot, yard, and perch, as well as the area of the acre. Its date has been estimated at 1266–1303.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imperial and US customary measurement systems</span> English (pre 1824), Imperial (post 1824) and US Customary (post 1776) units of measure

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References

  1. "Barley corn", Britannica, Edinburgh, 1769
  2. Ruffhead, Owen (1765). Statutes at Large |From the second year of the reign of King George the Third | And an Appendix consisting of O[illegible]s and Curious Acts, some of which were never [b]efore printed. Vol. 9. Printed by M. Baskett. p. A421. OCLC   22642053 . Retrieved 12 February 2012. Ordinatum est quod tria grana ordei sicca & rotunda faciunt pollicem...[Let it be declared that 3 grains of barley, dry and round, make an inch...]
  3. Fowler, W. (1884). "On the ancient terms applicable to the measurement of land". Transactions. Vol. XVI. Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. p. 277. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
  4. Zupko, Ronald Edward (1977). British Weights and Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 21. ISBN   978-0-299-07340-4.
  5. Ullrich, Steven E. (2011). Barley: Production, Improvement, and Uses. p. 454.
  6. Sýrkorová, Alena; et al. (2009). "Size Distribution of Barley Kernels" (PDF). Czech Journal of Food Sciences. 27 (4): 249–58. doi:10.17221/26/2009-CJFS.
  7. "Brewing". Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2. Edinburgh. 1824. p. 462.