2 meils malt.....

Scozzie · Post by **Scozzie** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:42 am

I have been given information on the Clark family of Orkney. These Clarks may or not be mine, but I have a question about one piece of information:
Poll Tax List of Holm c1693, James Clark..... paying rent of 2 meils malt, worth c4pounds Scots. (sorry, I don't have a pound symbol).
How big is a meil?

Sobil · Post by **Sobil** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:36 am

Hi Scozzie,

I found this reference in what seems to be a dictionary of old Gaelic.... McFarlanes Dictionary. An interesting read in general but not helptful in this case.

www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MF2/mf08.html[url][/url]

Then I found a reference to the imperial equivalent of the meil according to Drever, W.P. 1900 "Udal Law in the Orkneys & Zetland"

The Meil of Malt 177lb 12oz
The Meil of Oatmeal 177lbs 12oz

I've no idea how they used to weigh it!

Hope this helps

Sobil

Sobil · Post by **Sobil** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:58 am

It looks like the weight varied from place to place...I think this is a better explanation....

I Googled for - "Meils Malt" weight - but pasting the link doesn't seem to take you to the right page. Google yourself, there is only one result, and click on the CACHE version. The text is below.

DSL - SND1 †MEIL, n. Also meill, meile; miel, meel; meal, mail. [mel] An I.Sc. measure of weight for dry ingredients, as corn and malt, = 6 Lispunds or Settens, q.v. The measure varied from place to place and time to time and according as the bear- or malt-pundlar was used, but was gradually increased in the 18th c. from about 9 to 15 stones avoirdupois. Now only hist.
*Ork. 1715 in H. Marwick Merchant Lairds (1936) I. 54:
Wee should buy for him two hundred meils of meall and ane hunder meils malt — the pryces he offers is 3 lb 13/- for meall and malt.
*Ork. 1730 B. H. Hossack Kirkwall (1900) 408:
The Standart of the Malt-pundar Meil consisting of six of these Setteens, seventy-two libs. and no more.
*I.Sc. 1779 J. Swinton Weights, etc. 106–7:
The chalder of Bear, in Orkney, being 24 Meils on the Malt-pundlar, and 36 on the Bear-pundlar. . . . The above Meil on the Malt-pundlar = 195.7836 lb. avoird. [Ork.] . . . = 182.7318 lb. avoird. [Sh.]
*Ork. 1795 Stat. Acc.1 V. 412:
The stipend consists of 86 mails malt, (each mail weighing about 12 stones Amsterdam weight).
*Ork. 1845 Stat. Acc.2 XV. 182:
The “meil”, which is nearly 11¼ stones Dutch, or 14¼ imperial.
Hence combs. 1. meal scoup, meils cop, a land division in Ork. (see quots. and Marwick op. cit.). Hist.; 2. miels-kaesie (see quot.)
1. *Ork. 1868 D. Gorrie Orkneys 22–3:
Westray is divided into penny and farthing-lands, with the exception of one township which is divided into meal scoups, a corruption of the Norse mæliscop, equal, it is supposed, to one-sixth of a pennyland.
*Ork. 1952 H. Marwick Farm-Names 203:
Two other land-valuation units — the “meils cop” and the “uris cop” — are of much more obscure origin, neither being known in Norway, and in Orkney curiously enough their use seems to be on record from one island only — Westray. “Cop” in these terms certainly represents O.N. kaup, purchase or bargain.
2. *Ork. 1905 Orcadian Papers (Charleson) 38:
The miels-kaesie derived its name from the fact that it was intended to hold a miel, that is a certain weight of bere.
[Norw. mæle, a measure equivalent to part of a barrel which varied in size according to the locality, O.N. mælir. O.Sc. mele, id., from 1560.]

Scozzie · Post by **Scozzie** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:37 am

Thank you Sobil - that's great info. All those numbers - I'm happy we use the metric system in Oz!