Timeline for How much would 300 pounds (money value) weigh in Medieval England?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
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| Jan 4, 2023 at 9:46 | history | edited | Fred | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Gramamical changes
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| Apr 16, 2021 at 23:56 | comment | added | Schwern | @nanoman The OP asked a lot of things. I covered if there were gold coins and the difference it would make. It's a legend, so there's no definitive answer, but silver coins would be far more common. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 23:49 | comment | added | Schwern | @aliential My mistake with the troy pound. As for weighing money, you don't need a high precision, just repeatability. Simple balance scales have been around for millennia, as outlined in that article, as has the problem of trusting the person doing the weighing. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 23:43 | history | edited | Schwern | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
remove reference to troy pound
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| Apr 16, 2021 at 23:36 | comment | added | bandybabboon | And the Troy pound did not exist in the year 1200, it came into being in 1570's. It was all based on the weight of grains of wheat, so we don't really know, it changed over time. good luck if the weight used was truly based on the london tower weight or another one, the pope didn't establish a way of measuring weights at the time either. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 23:28 | comment | added | bandybabboon | This makes checking the value of a bag of coins very easy? Weights were not scientifically plausible untill 600 years later, even Leonardo da Vinci tried and failed to invent calibrated weights: precisa.co.uk/the-history-of-the-weighing-scales | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 20:55 | comment | added | nanoman | I'm confused -- OP basically asked: Was it necessarily silver, or could it have been gold (and thus much lighter)? Then you answer: Yes, it was silver...but wait, there were also gold coins at the time. So what's the conclusion? Are you agreeing with OP's doubt that "there would even be gold coins worth a total of 300 pounds in all of Nottinghamshire"? | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 18:03 | comment | added | Carlos Martin | In line with your numbers, an actual penny from the era weighs 1.3 g (bullionbypost.co.uk/collectible-coins/penny/…). 1.3gx72000 (pennies in 300 lb) = 93.6 kg (206 lb). | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 13:33 | comment | added | user3067860 | Horses in the middle ages actually really were quite small, though. 12-14 hands. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_the_Middle_Ages#Types_of_horse (We don't have to go by artistic records, there's plenty of archaeological evidence.) Compare to a modern Icelandic horse, which hasn't changed much over the intervening years, they are (avg) 13-14 hands and 730-840 pounds. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_horse (Of course, it's worth noting that people tended to be significantly smaller then, too. Henry VIII was considered enormous, at 6'2".) | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 13:15 | comment | added | Chris H | Careful, medieval art was not concerned with accuracy. They would regularly depict any scale or perspective that fit whatever they were trying to say with the art. See for example many, many illustrations of people almost as big as castles 13th and 14th century examples | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 12:15 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | Ah good job! I got as far as the Troy Pound myself, but failed to find any reference to those being different than modern pounds. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 7:06 | history | edited | gerrit | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
add total mass in kg
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| Apr 15, 2021 at 20:43 | history | edited | Schwern | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 558 characters in body
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| Apr 15, 2021 at 20:36 | history | answered | Schwern | CC BY-SA 4.0 |