Yet another Act of James VI (1616) finds the Linlithgow standard of the
Firlot to be true and to contain ‘twentie are pincts and ane mutchkin of
just Sterline Jug and measure,’ but, in order to put an end to heaped
measure, it orders a new firlot for malt, barley and oats, containing 31
pints Stirling Jug, and that the pint weigh 3 lb. 7 oz. Trois of the
running water of the Water of Leith. Thus different Acts order firlots
of 16, 17, 18, 19, 21-1/4, 31, pints; sometimes the pint is to be 41
ounces Scots, sometimes 55 ounces, and sometimes it is not mentioned
which.
The firlot of 21-1/4 pints was probably an imported measure found to
contain that number of pints; 21-1/4 × 104·2 gives 2214 cubic inches, =
7·98 Imperial gallons, for its capacity, a measure coinciding very
closely with the Anker, which varies between 7·83 gallons in Oldenburg
and 8 gallons in Lubeck (and 7·95 gallons in the Cape Colony). The Boll
of 4 firlots = 4 bushels was equal to the Lubeck Ohm; and the term Anker
was used in Scotland for the potato-firlot.
This firlot of 21-1/4 pints became the Edinburgh firlot; and it happens
to coincide almost exactly with the Imperial bushel. It being fixed at
21-1/4 Stirling pints (of 104·2 c.i.) when 20-1/2 pints would have made
it 2136 c.i., almost exactly the old English bushel (2150 c.i.), shows
that it was not influenced by the latter; it was clearly an independent
measure imported by trade. Its series was quaternary:
Boll (of 4 firlots) = 4 Imperial bushels.
Firlot = 1 „ „
Peck = 2 „ gallons.
Lippy (or forpit) = 4 „ pints.
The lippy, as its sixteenth, came to mean a sixteenth generally. The
word is a diminutive of the O.E. ‘leap,’ a basket, e.g. ‘seed-lip.’
The barley and oats firlot of 31 pints = 3230 cubic inches is the real
Linlithgow firlot. It was the Edinburgh firlot increased to contain the
same weight of malt, bear (barley) and oats as that contained of
wheat.[32] Its capacity was 11·6 gallons, and its Boll contained 46-1/2
gallons or 5·8 bushels. It was probably a Boll of about this capacity
the dimensions of which, giving a capacity of about 43 gallons, were
roughly stated in the Act of 1410 as those of the wine-boll.
Footnote 32:
It was a common custom formerly to measure corn by the shallow bushel,
striked for wheat, heaped for lighter corn. The oats firlot of 31
pints was ordered to end the practice of giving ‘three straiked for
two heaped measures [which] do exceed and are not just.’
The Chalder (of Culross) was 16 Edinburgh bolls.
I need scarcely do more than mention the smaller measures: to the
Choppin (Fr. _chopine_), half a wine-pint; to the Mutchkin (Du.
_maatje_), its quarter; to the Gill, its eighth, usually.
The measures of Scotland may be thus summarised: They appear to have all
come from North Germany, except one from Provence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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