Cylchgronau Cymru

Ijtrctefllfljgia tinmhrtmi*. \y FIFTH SERIES.—VOL. XIII, NO.XLIX. JANUARY 1896. NOTES ON ANCIENT WELSH MEASURES OF LAND. BY ALFEED NE0BARD PALMER. The study of ancient Welsh land-measures involves so many interesting questions that I should like to put on record the results of an investigation which I made into this subject above eight years ago. The Venedotian Code explicitly declares that the Welsh troedfedd, or foot-measure, contained nine mod- Jeddi. Now what was the length of the ancient mod- fedd ? It may be conceded at once that the old measures of length were not calculated with the precision of modern times. But I maintain that the modfedd was 'practically identical with the English statute inch, and that the ancient Welsh foot contained nine such inches. This is how the inch and foot are defined in the Vene¬ dotian Code : " Three lengths of a barley-corn in the inch (strictly thumb-measure), three inches in a palm- breadth, three palm-breadths in the foot measure."1 The first time I tried the length of three barley-corns I found them measure exactly one statute inch ; but generally speaking, in the samples of barley I examined, three barley-corns set end to end measured rather more than an inch. Three barley-corns, however, repre- 1 Ven. Code (Dull Gwynedd), book ii, cb. xvii, sec. 5. 5th see., vol. XI11. 1