§In Middle Ages, varied not
only by locality but also by type of product.
§Aids cheating, raises
transaction costs.
§England leader in
unification, but local weights and measures not abolished until statute of 1835.
Rembrandt, detail from The Moneychanger (1627), Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin.
“... to bring the whole of His Majesty’s kingdom within the same statutes and within the same
system of weights and
measures, an undertaking very worthy of our great King …”— Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1665)
