Weights and measures

 Hoping Irene is around to check my spelling here and my understanding of the plurals! 

So, I started work on 'Fledglings' and I have not abandoned 'Wiridiana'.  Do you want first chapters of each as tasters, and first chapters of things like Falconburg Ascendent, and Bess and the Gunpowder Plot? 

give me some ideas what you would like of those and I'll post something later.

Polish weights and measures

 

 

Length

 

Krok, or step –  2’6” -2’8” or 75-80 cm

Ławka –  1 ¾+ “ or 4.46cm

Łokieć cubit/ell – 24” or 60cm

Piędź – 3 Łokcia. ¾ Stopy, 8” or 20cm

Stopa – about a foot, 12” or 30cm. Stopy is plural

Staja – around ½ mile, 893m. Staje is plural

Of course it isn’t as simple as that, as the Staja means different things for area measurement, and changed at various times.

                                 

 

Area

 

Włoka – 45acres, 18Ha [17.97 Ha but for ready reckoning let’s not be too complex] pl. Włoki

Morga -  1/30^th  włoka, 1.5 acres or 0.6Ha

Sznur – 1/3^rd  Morga, 1/90^th włoka, 0.5 acres  or 0.2Ha

Pret – 1/900^th  Włoka, 1/30^th Morga, 1/10^th Sznur, 0.05 acres, or 0.02 Ha [242 yards² or 200m²]

Kopanka – 1/10 pret, 24 yards² or 20m²

Kokieć -  about ½ yard² [a fat quarters of 54” wide to the needlewomen out there] or 0.38m²

 

With regards to area, the average number of serfs or peasants would be around  10 per 3 włóki. An average nobleman’s estate is 30-40 włoki, somewhere in the region of 1500 acres or 500 Ha, carrying 600 serfs.

Sheep can graze at a rate of 6-10 to the acre depending on breed, size and land

Cows need to be at 2-4 per acre, depending on breed, size and land.

Livestock would be generally much smaller, an average bull for slaughter being no more than 370lb/178kg in most places; note, Raven lands have larger livestock for selective breeding and  using crop rotation for winter feeding and may be almost double the sizes of average.

A pre-industrial milk cow produces 100-150 gallons of milk p.a. but it can be as low as 39 gallons if the grazing is poor or there is sickness. Raven cows, more comparable to English beasts, will give up to 200 gallons a year. Sheep generally give 1/10 the amount of milk to cows. Goats on good grass can give almost as much as a cow. Note: goats have two teats, not the four a cow or ewe has.

 

Weight

 

Kamień – 64 Grzwny = 1024 łaty – 28.6 lb[just over 2 stone] or 12.96kg. It means a stone, which measure was used across Europe in the middle ages, and just to be confusing meant a different weight wherever you were, varying from 3 to 15 kg, which is probably why America abandoned the measure still used in the UK.

Grzywna or silver-ingot’s weight; after 1650 around 7-8oz, ie about half a pound, or 200g, before 1650, slightly under this. 

Wrardunek  = 6 skojek about ¼ oz or 7g

4 Wradunek is about an ounce  or 28g or 48 Prague groschen in silver

Skojek is 30 pfennigs or 2 Prague groschen

 

 

 

Volume

 

1 garniec  is about a gallon or 4l [ Imperial gallon 4.5l, American gallon 3.8l]. It translates as ‘pot’ and is based on a vessel used for fluids and dry goods acting like fluids since the middle ages.

However.

The garniec varied in different regions from 2 ¼ l in Kraków in the 16^th century to 7.12 litres in Chełmno  up to 1714,  3.76 -3.96 l in Warszawa.  I’ve based this on the Novopolska Garnce from 1814 which was 4l, a little more than an American gallon [3.8l] and a little less than an English gallon. But as nobody is doing rocket science with liquid fuel, about a gallon is close enough, whichever gallon you are using.

 

Kibel = 35 garnców, originally a measurment used in mining and metallurgy,  later  the capacity of a restroom toilet barrel

Korzec = 32 garnce; meaning, a basket or bushel for loose dry measure.

Beczka =48 garnców, a barrel

 

The garniec is divided into 4 Kwarty, around 1litre each, or 16 Kwarterek, each 0.25 l

 

 

 

 

 

Money

 

Most people count their money in grosze.

There are phrases referring to grosze as saws;

 

Wtrącać swoje trzy grosze – to add one’s three pennorth [of ideas, speech]

 

Niewart złamanego grosza – not worth a broken penny

 

Niwart trzech groszy – not worth thruppence.

 

1 grosz is about equivalent to 1d in late 18^th century English money.

3 groszy =  1 trojak

6 groszy = 2 trojaków = 1 szóstak

7.5 grosze is a silver grosz

30 grosze  or 5 szóstaków = one złoty [silver; 23.1g]

240 grosze = 32 silver grosze = 8 złoty – 1 talar [aka thaler in Germanic countries] about equivalent to an English pound/sovereign.

 

Just to make things awkward, there is also the Dukat or red złoty, made of gold, whose value varied widely. In the 17^th century it was the only złoty and was worth 30 grosze; by the mid 18^th century [Mikołaj’s youth] it was worth 6 silver złoty, and by the end of the century was worth 18 silver złoty. Around the 1770s it is worth 16 ¾ złoty.