Before the adoption of the metric system, a great variety of units of measurement was used in the area of present-day Switzerland. The Romans introduced their own system in the 1st century BC. In the Middle Ages, determining and supervising weights and measures was one of the rights of lordship, and from the late Middle Ages the authorities tried to bring order to their variety.
In the concordat of 1835, twelve cantons agreed on a common system that was based on the meter but followed the old units, with the Fuss (foot) set at 30 cm and the Pfund (pound) at 500 g; it was introduced in 1838–1839. The federal act of 1851 tried to make it compulsory for all cantons. The metric system was legalized alongside the concordat system in 1868, Switzerland joined the Meter Convention in 1875, and from January 1877 the metric system was used throughout the country. In 1977 Switzerland adopted the International System of Units, whose base units have been the basis for measurement in Switzerland since 1978.
System before metric system
Units were varied and were not in fixed values. During the transition to the metric system, units were fixed. Before 1856, almost every canton had its own system of units.
Length
A number of units were used to measure length. One pied (1 fuss) was equal to 0.30 m, according to the fixed value defined during the transition to the metric system. Some other units and their fixed values are given below:
1 ligne = 1/144 pied
1 linie = 1/144 pied
1 pouce = 1/12 pied
1 zoll = 1/12 pied
1 aune = 2 pied (or 4 pied)
1 elle = 2 pied
1 brache = 2 pied
1 toise = 6 pied
1 ruthe = 6 pied
1 perche = 16 pied (or 10 pied)
1 lieue = 16 000 pied. Lieue was used as a road measure.
Area
One arpent was 400 pied2 or 1.44 ha
Mass
A number of units were used to measure mass.
Ordinary
One livre (pfund of the Zollverein) was equal to 0.500 kg according to the fixed value defined during the transition to the metric system. Some other units and their fixed values are given below:
1 loth = 1/32 livre
1 once = 1/16 livre
1 quintal = 100 livre.
Medicine (apothecary or pharmacy)
One livre was equal to 0.375 kg according to the fixed value defined during the transition to the metric system. Some other units and their fixed values are given below:
1 grain = 1/5760 livre
1 scruple = 1/288 livre
1 drachme = 1/96 livre
1 once = 1/12 livre.
Capacity
Two main systems, dry and liquid, were used.
Dry
Several units were used to measure dry capacity. Some units are given below:
1 quarteron (divided into 1/4 and 1/16) = 10 emine = 15 L (0.4257 bushel)
1 double quarteron = 2 quarteron
1 sac = 10 quarteron.
Quarteron is the volume of 30 livre of pure water at 4 °C. Quarteron was equal to 5/9 of a cubic pied.
Liquid
Several units were used to measure liquid capacity. Some units are given below:
1 setier = 25 pot
1 muid = 4 setiers
1 pot = 1.5 L (1.585 quarts).
Pot was the bulk of 3 livres weight of pure water at the temperature of 4 °C. Pot was equal to 1/18 pied3 and was subdivided into 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8.
History
Earliest weights and measures
Measuring and weighing originally consisted of comparison with quantities that were always at hand, such as the foot, the pace, the thumb, the arm, the cup, the jug, the bucket, and the sack. These quantities, together with their names, later entered the systems of measurement of all countries.
The use of weights and measures in the area of present-day Switzerland can be traced from the 1st century BC with the Romans. They introduced their own system of weights and measures in all their provinces, as archaeological finds also show for Switzerland. From about AD 200 the Helvetii again used the Gallic road measure leuga, equal to 2.22 km or 1.5 Roman miles, alongside the Roman mile. Along Roman roads there were mile and leuga stones (milestones) giving the distance from the point of reference (for example a colonia). Other Celtic measures, however, such as a foot of about 31 cm, are difficult to pin down.
The end of the Roman period and the settlement of the Alemanni led to the decline of the Roman system of measures in Switzerland. As part of a larger cultural area (the Burgundian and Merovingian kingdoms), however, Switzerland remained integrated into a wider development of weights and measures, and the Roman tradition in measures of length and in weights continued there too. With slightly changed sizes, the pes (foot; German Fuss, French pied), the uncia (ounce; German Unze, French once, Italian oncia), the cubitus (ell; German Elle, Italian braccio), and the decempeda-pertica (rod; German Rute, French perche, Italian pertica) survived, as did the Roman subdivision of weights. A few pounds also show their Roman origin, such as the libbretta of Ticino and the French poids de marc (1 livre = 1.5 libra). Of the measures of capacity, some terms such as modius, sextarius, and hemina survived, but not the corresponding quantities. A characteristic of the post-Roman period is the absence of a general mathematical ordering of the various weights and measures. Every substance and every measurable activity had its own measures, which at first were only loosely correlated with one another and bore no relation to other measures. Not even liquid and grain measures, both of them measures of capacity, matched.
Knowledge of historical weights and measures rests largely on the measurements made in the 19th century. What lies further back in time is known by name from administrative records from the Middle Ages onward (among them tax rolls and rent rolls), but rarely as a concrete quantity. Nor do archaeological finds of early and high medieval vessels used as measures give reliable results. Moreover, the figures handed down from the 19th century represented the end point of a long development and were the outcome of reforms, only partly known, by which the authorities had tried from the late Middle Ages to bring order to an almost bewildering variety.
Weights and measures as an expression of lordship
In the Middle Ages, determining and supervising weights and measures was, along with other rights of lordship, one of the rights of manorial and judicial lordship (Grund- und Gerichtsherrschaft), in connection with the market, the court, and the power to tax. Lords (nobles, monasteries, and towns) determined the weights and measures valid in their territories and scattered holdings and had them checked at their market places. When the towns gradually acquired former manorial institutions on town land in the late Middle Ages, the right to weights and measures was among them. As a rule, a town's authority over weights and measures applied within the sphere of influence of the former lord of the town and of the town market, that is, usually only in the town itself and its immediate surroundings. Rights over large areas were rarer, for example those of Burgdorf, which in 1383 acquired from the counts of Kyburg the right to weights and measures in the whole of the Oberaargau. From the 15th century the city cantons (Stadtorte) sought uniformity in their territories by imposing the town's own weights and measures. Weights and measures of length, area, and liquids could be partly harmonized by the 18th century, but not grain measures, the old units of rents and tithes, to which places and regions clung stubbornly. Reforms of grain measures, such as Lucerne's in its rural territory in the 15th century or Bern's in Vaud in 1616–1617, therefore met local resistance, partly because of the legal uncertainty that was feared.
The lord's keeping of the peace at his market combined regulated supervision of weights and measures with the market court, which punished fraud. Visitors to the market had to pay a fee to use the public measures and the market lord's scales, and to have their own measures checked by the lord's official against a standard measure (Eichmass); only the measures customary in the place were permitted. From the 13th and 14th centuries, officials of the towns or of the countryside, or guilds, checked the weights and measures on market days. Depending on the place, public scales (among them scales for fish, rice, butter, and silver) were under the master of the weigh house, of the merchants' hall (Kaufhaus), or of the Sust (warehouse). Despite all the checks, the weights and measures for everyday use, made of wood or iron by village craftsmen and prone to warping and rust, proved deficient. In daily dealings, measuring and weighing achieved only approximate accuracy. Greater precision was achieved in weighing precious metals and medicines.
Influence of the economy on weights and measures
The spread of weights and measures depended not only on the political power of the responsible authority to impose them. Belonging to important economic areas played a more decisive role. In this respect southern Switzerland (Ticino and the southern valleys of the Grisons) belonged to northern Italy, and western Switzerland was under the influence of Savoy, France, and the Free County of Burgundy. The city of Basel looked to Alsace, whereas its rural territory, like the Swiss Plateau, was oriented toward southern Germany. Eastern Switzerland was traditionally linked with the area beyond the Rhine and Lake Constance, while the ties between the Grisons and Vorarlberg and Tyrol were looser.
Through the exchange of goods with international trading centers, foreign weights and measures came to Switzerland, took hold there, and displaced local units or existed alongside them, for example German and French commercial weights (the Antwerp or Cologne pound, the poids de marc) or measures of the foot and the ell (the pied de roi, the aune de roi, the braccio di Milano, and the Nuremberg and Rhenish foot). Unlike in international trade, where the foreign weights and measures were left unchanged, in regional trade they gave rise to new local measures, above all in the economically strong grain-growing regions. Bern contributed much to the standardization of weights and measures in its large territory, and the trade of Zurich shaped the country from the Rhine to the Alps of the Grisons. Central Switzerland, with the market of Lucerne, proved to be an intermediate region that combined influences from the north (Alsace, the Rhineland), the east (the market of Zurich), and the west (the farming country of Bern). The Napf–Reuss and Reuss–Aare lines formed barriers to east–west exchange. North of the Alps there were no southern influences on weights and measures worth mentioning.
The situation in the three pass regions of the Alps was different. Along its trade routes, the market town of Chur combined weights and measures from the area of Zurich, Vorarlberg, and Tyrol into systems of its own, but it had little influence on the Engadine and the southern valleys. In the upper Rhône valley, the different weights and measures of the individual valleys point to the independence of the Zenden (dizains) and the weakness of the central authority. Only in the 18th century did Valais open up to French influence. On the Gotthard route, foreign weights and measures were hardly integrated into the local units. Uri kept to its grain and wine market in Lucerne, and Ticino to northern Italy. In contrast, the Alpine regions from east to west agreed strikingly in the yield measures of their pasture farming (the Kuhrecht, literally "cow right").
Weights and measures in the Old Swiss Confederacy