On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Lauren Walker wrote: > Cool, thank you. But to revert to my original question -- is there > anyplace where the various known ells have been compiled for > comparison and/or reference? You know, "English ell, 15th century, > 1.25 modern yards; Icelandinc ell, 14th century, 19.5 modern inches," > etc.?
I doubt you'll find anything that comprehensive. Sometimes measurements varied by city, and I wouldn't place bets on them being standard over the course of a century. What you will find is references to specific times and places. I believe, for example, that the facsimile edition of Alcega's pattern book has some discussion of the ell lengths at that time and place (late 16th c. Spain) to help you make sense of the patterns. If I needed this information, I'd start hunting through literature on trade and guild regulations in the place and time of interest -- e.g. if I were studying account books from 1362 London that included fabric orders of ells, I'd want to know what regulations applied at that period in that locale. Where to look for that? I am sure there is a body of literature out there on this, but it's just a little ways out of my field. I do have contact with some people who do work in trade and economics, and truth is, if I needed to know this, I'd probably call one of them, who could probably know just which reference book to pull off the shelf. Assuming it was for the right period and country for their expertise! I do see citations like this on a fairly regular basis -- a few weeks ago I edited an article comparing cloth production in various French cities that had to translate the recorded production levels to a consistent rate ... let's see, 840 Flemish ells equalled about 679 Champagne ells or 640 modern yards, in that particular case. So you can see there was a lot of variation. Among her citations were John Munro, "Textile Technology," in The Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer (New York: Scribner, 1988) and Patrick Chorley, "The Cloth Exports of Flanders and Northern France During the Thirteenth Century: A Luxury Trade?" Economic History Review, new series 40 (1987): 349-79. She probably got her particular ell ratios from one of those. In turn, the article she used might have cited either another paper or a primary source. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
