The fotmal ( ang, fotmael,
"
foot
The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
-measure"; la, fotmal), also known as the foot ('), formel, fontinel, and fotmell, was an
English unit of variable
weight particularly used in measuring production, sales, and
duties of
lead.
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Under the
Assize of Weights and Measures, it was equal to 70
Merchants' pound
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally define ...
s and made up of a
load
Load or LOAD may refer to:
Aeronautics and transportation
*Load factor (aeronautics), the ratio of the lift of an aircraft to its weight
*Passenger load factor, the ratio of revenue passenger miles to available seat miles of a particular transpo ...
of
lead.
[. & & ] Elsewhere, it was made of 70
avoirdupois pounds and made up load. According to Kiernan, in 16th-century
Derbyshire, the fotmal was divided into "boles" and made up of a
fother
The load, also known as a fodder, fother, and charrus ( la, carrus, "cartload"), is a historic English unit of weight or mass of various amounts, depending on the era, the substance being measured, and where it was being measured. The term wa ...
, meaning it was considered to be 84
avoirdupois pounds.
It continued to be used until the 16th century.
References
Citations
Bibliography
* {{Citation, last=Gill, first=M.C., author2-last=Harvey, author2-first=W.S., display-authors=1, ref={{harvid, Gill, 1998, date=1998, contribution=Weights and Measures Used in the Lead Industry, title=British Mining, volume=No. 61, pages=129–140, publisher=Northern Mine Research Society, location=Sheffield, contribution-url=https://www.nmrs.org.uk/assets/pdf/BM61/BM61-129-140-weights.pdf
Obsolete units of measurement
Units of mass