Vara (unit)

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Dimensional groove of the Aragonese Vara (77.2 cm) on the Cathedral of Jaca

The Vara (Spanish Elle , literally " rod " or " tail ") was one of the Kingdom of Castile derived unit of length , mainly on the Iberian Peninsula has been used and in its dependent territories, particularly in Spain , Portugal and Latin America , as well as informally even after 1898 in Cuba and the Philippines . Its systematic equivalent in the Anglo-Saxon system of measurement is the yard , in the old French it is the verge . In the form of the square vara, it was also a common measure of area . The Vara is still used as a measure of space in some Latin American countries .

The classic measure of the Spanish cubit, the so-called Vara de Burgos , is the equivalent of 0.835905 meters . The Vara used in Portugal and Brazil did not have an exact ideal size, but has usually been equated with 11 decimeters (1.10 meters) since the introduction of the metric system of units , even if it was mathematically up to 3.7 millimeters shorter.

history

Castilian Vara

middle Ages

The Castilian vara or bara was often archaically traced back to the Neolithic and associated with prehistoric dimensions such as the " megalithic yard " of around 83 cm from Iron Age Scotland or identified with other, sometimes even assumed, tripod dimensions from pre-Roman times However, use on the Iberian Peninsula has never been proven. The measure is only tangibly documented in the Middle Ages (from the 12th century).

The Alfonsin Vara goes back to the first standardization of the Castilian weights and measures by King Alfonso the Wise in a privilege for Toledo from 1261. Their measure, the rod length, also called Toledan Vara, corresponded to the length introduced a few decades earlier by the crown of Aragon during the reconquest of Valencia by Jacob the Conqueror , which was called alna ("Elle") and four palms (" Spanning ") or quarts ("quarter") owned. Thus, a standardization of the length measures used on the Iberian Peninsula extending beyond Castile can already be seen in the Middle Ages. Under Alfonso XI. the Vara of Toledo was initially prescribed for all of Castile in 1345, but was replaced by the Ordonnances of Alcalá in 1348 by a shorter cubit, the Vara de Burgos . The Castilian foot on which the etalon (sample measure) is based was called Burgos Pie de Burgos after the place of storage and was the standard measure: A vara corresponded to three feet and was divided into four palmos ("spans") or cuartos ("quarters").

Early modern times

In 1435 John II returned to the old Toledan Vara as the linear measure of Castile. During the time of the Catholic kings , no further efforts to standardize were made. The Castilian Vara was that of Toledo, but the Vara of Burgos or the Vara of Medina was still in use in many places . The differences were considerable, 12 Toledan varas corresponded to 13 Burgales. This gave rise to fraud and innumerable irritations. In particular, the use of the Medinian Vara, which is only slightly shortened compared to the official Toledan Vara, at the important trade fair in Medina del Campo led to dissatisfaction. The Pragmatic Law of 1568 finally restored the Vara of Burgos and made it again the authoritative Castilian, later Spanish Elle. All cities, markets and courts of law were obliged to purchase a copy of the sample from Burgos; this Vara should be the only measure used in Castile for all textiles . The regulation also extended to Galicia , Andalusia and the Basque Country , while Navarre, annexed by Castile in 1512 , was able to retain its own system of measurement, which was similar to that of Aragon. Why Philip II chose the Vara of Burgos instead of the Alfonsine Vara Toledos is not entirely clear. He probably acted under the influence of his court mathematician and confessor Pedro de Esquivel († 1570), who preferred the Burgalesian measure for historical reasons and considered it to be authentic Roman.

Distribution in Spain

The 17th century was characterized by the increasing interest of the Cortes in the control and regulation of weights and measures, which in part slowed down efforts to standardize. Nevertheless, the "Castilian foot" ( Pie castellano ) with a length between 278 and 279 mm, three times the length of which resulted in the length of a vara, was used in Spain and the dependent areas of the Spanish colonial empire as a measure of traffic and accounting, and it also spread beyond that. where he competed with other dimensional orientations such as the French toise ( called toesa in Spanish ) and the Parisian "royal foot" ( Pied du Roi ). In the 18th century the vara became the general reference measure for lengths throughout Spain and its colonies, with the exception of two overseas provinces, where - as in Catalonia  - the six-footed canna (double vara) dominated. In 1746 Philip V reaffirmed the general validity of the Vara of Burgos as an official measure of length in the Spanish monarchy. Differences between the Castilian Vara and the common Vara measurements in other Spanish territories nevertheless persisted: While in Aragon , Catalonia and Navarra a shorter Vara with lengths of 78 cm prevailed, the Vara was in the southern Levant (with the exception of the Castilian Kingdom of Murcia ) with the equivalent of approx. 91 cm, it is significantly longer than the Vara of Burgos and resembled the Old Valencian-Jacobean or Old Castilian-Alfonsine cubit from the 13th century.

enlightenment

In the course of the Enlightenment , the scientific interest shifted from the historicizing derivation of the common units of measurement from ancient and biblical sources to the exact determination, conversion and harmonization of the measurements used. Corresponding initiatives came from the Spanish Bourbons , who took up suggestions from France , where the "Spanish Elle" was called verge espagnole . Under Ferdinand VI. the Vara of Burgos was compared by the Spanish naval engineer and polymath Jorge Juan (1713–1773) with the French scale and determined to be exactly 30 inches ( pouces ) and 11  lines ( lignes ) of the toesa ( toise ), resulting in a ratio between the Castilian Vara and the Parisian foot of 371: 144 (1  Pied du Roi = 0.388 varas ), that is: 6 Parisian feet (= 1 toise ) corresponded to 7 Castilian ones. Later, the Vara used in Madrid was equated with 375.9 Paris lines .

In 1789 the Spanish mathematicians Gabriel Ciscar and Augusto Pedraya traveled to Paris to study the possibilities of an internationally standardized length measurement with French colleagues. In 1791, the Académie des Sciences in Paris recommended the replacement of the various traditional measures of length by a unit measure, the later meter, which should correspond to one ten-thousandth of the earth's meridian quadrant measured between Dunkerque and Barcelona . In the same year, King Charles IV initiated a renewed investigation of the standards of the Castilian Vara that can still be found in Castile. The measuring standards preserved today in the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid include a notarized steel copy of the "Castilian Vara of Toledo" (83.55 cm), which was introduced in 1568 under Philip II in Toledo by Antonio Rojo in 1791 on behalf of the king, a nail marking corresponding to the Vara of Burgos used by Jorge Juan (83.50 cm), an older embodiment of the Vara officially used in Madrid (83.90 cm) made of wood with iron reinforcements and a 28 cm long wooden pie de Ávila , which documents a common length of the vara of 84 cm in Ávila .

Relation to the meter

Map of Greater Colombia with comparative scale bars of ten thousand Varas and Metros each

The meter was introduced in France during the French Revolution and a definitive original meter was manufactured in 1799 . In contrast to efforts to introduce the metric system in Spain, too, Charles IV wrote in 1801 that the Vara should be adhered to as the basic Spanish measure of length. The Castilian standard measure then prevailed in other provinces. At the same time, the use of the meter ( metro ) was documented in Spain as early as 1803. The theoretical ideal measure of the "Spanish cubit" or Vara has been metric since that time

  • 1 Vara = 83.5905 cm determined.

Measurements of the Vara from Toledo with 83.7 cm and Burgos with 83.6 cm (1849) have been preserved from the 19th century. A legal specification of the Vara in the metric system took place on various occasions in the independent countries of Hispanic America , for example in Chile on January 29, 1848

  • 1 Vara = 0.836 m fixed.

On July 19, 1849, a law to standardize the units of measurement was passed, according to which the French system of measurements and weights should also apply in Spain from January 1, 1859. With a royal order of December 9, 1852, the metric conversion values ​​for the length measures used in the individual provinces were legally established. From 1868 onwards, the use of the metric system was to become compulsory throughout Spain. However, the changeover was only actually implemented after Spain was one of the 17 first signatory states to accept the Paris Meter Convention ( Convention du Mètre ) of May 20, 1875.

Single examples

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½ Castilian Vara corresponded to 1 Codo. The Brazza , Estado, and Toesa were 2 Vara or 6 feet in size. The Estadal was given as 4 varas. The cord or cuerda had 4 ½ varas. The Canarian Brazádo was 2 1/6 Varas.

The mileage with 8000 varas had a metric length of 6782 m. This length was also known as the royal legua and was called the real legua .

However, different lengths for the cubit measure have become known from practice. A Vara was 33 inches. The equivalent was 100 yards = 108 varas; 100 m = 119 varas.

For silk goods , 138 varas were used and for wool and other fabrics 140 varas for 100 old Parisian auns. The reference measure for the Brabant Elle was 81 varas.

  • Valencia had the old Vara 0.906 m and that corresponded to 1.083855 the Castilian Vara
  • Montevideo : 1 Vara with 0.86 m = 1.028825 Castilian Vara
  • San Sebastian : 1 old Vara = 0.837 m = 1.0013 Castilian Vara
  • Saragossa : 1 old Vara = 0.772 m = 0.92 355 Castilian Vara

The term sesma was used for the so-called sixth Vara and it was 13.932 centimeters.

In Cuba the measure was called Vara cubana and corresponded to the measures mentioned above. The Cordel was equated to 24 varas, which was 72 feet. It was also used as a measure of area here: 186,624 square varas were about 13 hectares. In Lima , 1 vara had 101.4 Castilian varas, corresponding to 375.7 Parisian lines.

Philippines

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In the provinces and also on the islands of the Philippines, the values ​​were quite different:

Wood measure

In the south of Chile , the cubic Vara is still used today as a wood measure (room measure for firewood); the common values ​​vary between the Vara legal ("legal cubit of wood") with a cube edge length of 33  inches (volume of 35,937 Anglo-American cubic inches ) and informal trade sizes of 30 or 29 inches in the cube. The Chilean Vara is about ½  cubic meter .

Historically, this unit of measurement is derived from the Spanish square vara of 3 × 3 feet, which, based on the Castilian foot of 27.79 cm, which is common in Chile, resulted in an edge length of 83.36 cm. This Vara, originally converted to 33 ⅜ English inches, was equated with the advance of the international timber trade at 33 inches (83.82 cm).

literature

  • Federico Salvador ( University of Valencia ): Les monarchies espagnoles et les essais d'unifications des poids et mesures. In: Suzanne Débarbat, Antonio E. Ten (Ed.): Mètre et système métrique. Artes Gráficas Soler, Valencia 1993, pp. 111-121.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meaning of the word in Pons' online dictionary, as viewed August 2018.
  2. ↑ a b c d e J. Mateu y Fuensanta López: Art. Vara (as of April 2, 2014). In: Vocabulario del Comercio Medieval. Online project of the University of Murcia and the Fundación Juan March to make the Miguel Gual Camarena (1916–1974) estate available , based on his slip box .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Martín Almagro Gorbea: Conjunto de varas castellanas. In: Jorge Maier (Ed.): Antigüedades siglos XVI – XX. Catálogo del Gabinete de Antigüedades. Real Academia de la Historia , Madrid 2005 (exhibition catalog), ISBN 84-95983-64-8 , pp. 49-55 in the Google book search.
  4. ↑ Diego Narciso Herranz y Quirós: Aritmética universal, pura, testamentária, eclesiástica y comercial. 2., exp., Erg. U. corr. Edition, Volume 3, Madrid 1818, pp. 325-328 (Portugal); here: p. 327 f. in the google book search (length measurements).
  5. ^ Ana Lucia Vieira Dos Santos: A Casa Carioca. Estudo sobre as formas de morar no Rio de Janeiro, 1750-1850. Dissertation, UFF , Niterói 2005, pp. 98-102 (online) .
  6. ↑ José Luciano de Mattos Dias: Medida, Normalização e Qualidade. Aspectos da história da metrologia no Brasil. Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial (Inmetro), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro 1998, ISBN 85-86920-02-9 (online) .
  7. ↑ Las medidas en España de la Prehistoria a la Antigüedad. (PDF; 260 KB). In: Museo Virtual de las Ciencias ( Sala de la Medida , chapter 1), CSIC , Madrid 2000 (exhibition documentation, unpaginated PDF document, 11 printed pages, especially pages 1 and 6/7).
  8. ↑ a b Federico Salvador: Les monarchies espagnoles et les essais d'unifications des poids et mesures. Valencia 1993, pp. 111-113.
  9. ↑ Mariano Esteban Piñeiro (University of Valencia): Las medidas en la época de Felipe II. La uniformación de las medidas (PDF; 127 KB). In: Museo Virtual de las Ciencias ( Sala de la Medida , Chap. 3), CSIC, Madrid 2000 (exhibition documentation, unpaginated PDF document, printed pages 2 to 6 of 8).
  10. ↑ Federico Salvador: Les monarchies espagnoles et les essais d'unifications des poids et mesures. Valencia 1993, p. 118.
  11. ↑ Manuel Gil i Gil: Problemas de metrología aplicadas a la medición del suelo. / Pesos, mides i mesures a la Catalunya medieval. Aportació al seu estudi. In: Imma Ollich, Montserrat Rocafiguera, María Ocaña (coord.): Experimentació arqueològica sobre conreus medievals a L'Esquerda, 1991–1994 ( Osona ). University of Barcelona , Barcelona 1998, pp. 70–81 (here: 73, 80).
  12. ↑ Fr. Silber: The coins, measures and weights of all countries in the world individually calculated according to their values ​​and relationships to all German coins, measures and weights. In addition to information on the trading venues and their billing relationships. Moritz Ruhl, Leipzig 1861, p. 455 in the Google book search.
  13. ↑ a b Beatriz Sáez Riquelme, Ángel Miguel Pitarch Roig ( University of Jaume I ): Lectura de las proporciones utilizadas por el maestro Ayora en las iglesias salón valencianas del xviii. In: Informes de la Construcción , Vol. 72, No. 557 (January / March 2020), ISSN 0020-0883, pp. 1–11, doi: 10.3989 / ic.62812 (here: p. 3).
  14. ↑ a b Federico Salvador: Les monarchies espagnoles et les essais d'unifications des poids et mesures. Valencia 1993, p. 119.
  15. ^ A b Leopold Carl Bleibtreu : Handbook of coin, measure and weight. Verlag J. Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1863, p. 263 in the Google book search.
  16. ↑ Pesos y medidas españolas antiguas. Patrones del siglo XIX anteriores al sistema métrico. Centro Español de Metrología, Madrid 1999 (exhibition catalog), p. 153. Documented by Alejandro Caballero Cobos: La excavación de Pedro Álvarez en Cerro Largo. Año 1800. Documentación y conocimiento actual. In: Péndulo. Papeles de Bastitania , ISSN 1138-686-X, No. 12 (2011), pp. 283–311, here: p. 285, note 10.
  17. ↑ Pesos y medidas españolas antiguas. Patrones del siglo XIX anteriores al sistema métrico. Centro Español de Metrología, Madrid 1999 (exhibition catalog), p. 279 and 101. Proven from Almagro Gorbea: Conjunto de varas castellanas , Madrid 2005, p. 52, 54.
  18. ^ A b Leopold Carl Bleibtreu: Handbook of coin, measure and weight. Verlag J. Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1863, p. 103 in the Google book search
  19. ↑ Gustav Wagner, Friedrich Anton Strackerjan: Compendium of the coin, measure, weight and exchange rate ratios of all states and trading cities on earth. Verlag Teubner, Leipzig 1855, p. 212 in the Google book search.
  20. ↑ Manuel Gil i Gil: Pesos, mides i mesures a la Catalunya medieval. Aportació al seu estudi. In: Imma Ollich, Montserrat Rocafiguera, María Ocaña (coord.): Experimentació arqueològica sobre conreus medievals a L'Esquerda, 1991–1994. Barcelona 1998, pp. 77-81 (here: 78).
  21. ^ Ulrich Stille: Measuring and calculating in physics. Basics of size introduction and definition of units. 2nd, improved and supplemented edition, Springer, Wiesbaden 1955, p. 46.
  22. ↑ Helmut Kahnt, Bernd Knorr: Old dimensions, coins and weights. A lexicon. Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim / Wien / Zürich 1986, ISBN 3-411-02148-9 (licensed edition of the Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig), p. 280.
  23. ↑ a b c d e f J. P. Sanger: Census of the Philippine Islands. Volume 4, US Bureau of the census, Washington 1905, p. 453.
  24. ↑ a b Medidas de Vara. Online explanation from La Leñería de Don Benito , July 2017, accessed August 2018.