How much is a "modium" of grain (Medieval measure)?

Factual Questions
1

I’m writing a paper on agriculture in the Frankish kingdoms under Charlemagne. In Einhard’s Charters, it references such and such amounds “modia” of grain being raised. I gather that asking for academic help on this board is generally frowned on, but I have looked it up and can’t find a translation for this. I want to know how much grain is in a modium. There is no glossary in the book I’m using, Charlemagne’s Courtier, and there doesn’t seem to be a translation of the modium into any modern forms of measurement.

Does anyone have any idea?

2

Every kind of measurement comparison you could imagine for the modium.

3

Caution: That site uses a comma where most people would use a decimal point.

4

By “most people”, you mean people from Australia, Brunei, Botswana, Canada (English-speaking), China, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong of the People’s Republic of China, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea (both North and South), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Peru, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, and United States.

The comma is the correct decimal separator in certain other countries.

5

Thanks!

6

How many of those countries use English (the language of the linked page)?

7

Does it matter? “Most people” are not from English-speaking countries. The author of the page in question is Russian.

8

Yep, like I said, most of the world’s population uses the decimal point, not a comma. I did the math.

9

Are you sure the word isn’t “modicum”, which just means a small measure of indeterminant size?

10

I can’t speak for the medieval period definitively, but if it was the same as the ancient period, measures, while within the same range, varied from city to city. Usually the main political/financial centre would have an ‘official’ weight measure, often inscribed with a city’s official stamp of approval, and anyone could make sure that the weights each merchant was using was in accordance with the city standard. I believe this was the case until very late - in a book on the development of the metric system, the author mentioned that this same kind of system continued.

Which is all to say, you should expect to find an amount that modern people call a modium, but it would have varied wildly in the real medieval world.

11

Oh, and - I believe the Latin word is modius, not modium. You’ll have better luck with that.

12

:wink: I’ll take your word for it.