City scales
The Stadtwaage is a public facility for weighing merchant goods.
Before the spread of uniform measures across regions, weights could vary from city to city. In order to prevent fraud, since the Middle Ages merchants in various cities were obliged to have the weight of their goods determined in the scales set up by the city authorities . Most of the time, they had to pay a fee for this, the scale money or weighing money . The city's right to impose such an obligation on merchants ( Wierechte ) was often part of the city or market rights granted by the sovereign . City scales are mostly partially open buildings on the ground floor. Often the facility also offered the possibility of selling goods, but most of the time the weighing building was located on a market square anyway .
.jpg)
Preserved city scales
In some cities there are still well-preserved former city scales.
Germany
- Braunschweig, Alte Waage , 1991–1994 reconstructed
- Bremen , city scales
- Dorsten
- Emmerich on the Rhine
- Goerlitz
- Kempten (Allgäu) , city scales
- Empty, old scales
- Leipzig , old scales
- Michelstadt
- Osnabrück (built in 1532, burned out in World War II, externally reconstructed in 1953, today used as a registry office)
-
Stralsund
- Stadtwaage Wasserstraße 68 (today a facility for linking university and business development)
- City scales at the town hall
Belgium
Italy
Netherlands
- Alkmaar , houses the cheese museum
- Amsterdam
- Delft
- Deventer ,
- Gouda cheese
- Haarlem (in use 1599-1915)
- Nijmegen
- Oudewater (scale built in 1482, used for weighing samples from the 16th to the 18th centuries )
Former city scales
Germany
- Frankfurt am Main , see Stadtwaage (Frankfurt am Main)
- Nuremberg
- Wuppertal , see Stadtwaage (Elberfeld)