Today we have the Imperial and Metric systems of measurement, but what would medieval Europe, say around 1,000 CE, have used to measure?
The Norse used álnar (ells) as a unit of measurement.^1 A major export of medieval Iceland was vaðmál (homespun cloth), and ells were the unit of measurement for this cloth.^2 It was even used as a currency due to the absence of the necessary raw materials to produce coinage in Iceland.^3 1 ell was about the same as 18 inches.^4
Endnotes
^1 R. Cleasby and G. Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1854), 13.
^2 W. Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago, 1990), 313.
^3 S. Gullbeck, 'Money and its Use in the Saga Society: Silver, Coins and Commodity Money' in S. Sigmundsson (ed.) Viking Settlements & Viking Society (Reykjavík, 2011), 176 - 188, 179.
^4 Cleasby and Vigfússon, 13.