Editing Rod (unit) (section)

==History==
[[File:A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms - Placard.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The sign <!-- in the upper right corner --> included in [[Pieter Aertsen]]'s painting ''[[A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms]]'' reads in [[Flemish dialects|Flemish]]: "behind here are 154 rods of land for sale immediately, either by the rod according to your convenience or all at once".]]
In England, the perch was officially discouraged in favour of the rod as early as the 15th century;<ref>[[Encyclopædia Britannica]], English measure</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=More detail needed - There are many editions of Encyclopædia Britannica and each edition has multiple articles.|date=July 2013}} however, local customs maintained its use. In the 13th century, perches were variously recorded in lengths of {{convert|18|ft|m|2}}, {{convert|20|ft|m|1}}, {{convert|22|ft|m|2}} and {{convert|24|ft|m|2}}; and even as late as 1820, a [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] report notes lengths of {{convert|16+1/2|ft|m|2}}, {{convert|18|ft|m|2}}, {{convert|21|ft|m|1}}, {{convert|24|ft|m|2}}, and even {{convert|25|ft|m|2}}.<ref>{{cite book |title=House of Commons Report (Second) of Commissioners to Consider the Subject of Weights and Measures |date=13 July 1820 |series=Parliamentary Papers |volume=HC314 |pages=473–512}}</ref> In [[Ireland]], a perch was standardized at {{convert|21|ft|m|1}}, making an Irish chain, [[furlong]] and mile proportionately longer by 27.27% than the "standard" English measure.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictP.html |title=Units: P |website=unc.edu}}</ref>

Until English King [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] seized the lands of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] in 1536,<ref name="Connections">{{cite book |last=Burke |first=James |title=Connections: Alternative History of Technology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8IjaYgEACAAJ |year=1978 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-333-29066-8 |chapter=Chapter 9 |page=304}}</ref> land measures as we now know them were essentially unknown.<ref name="Connections"/> Instead a narrative system of landmarks and lists was used. Henry wanted to raise even more funds for his wars than he'd seized directly from church property (he'd also assumed the debts of the monasteries<ref name="Connections"/>), and as [[James Burke (science historian)|James Burke]] writes and quotes in the book ''[[Connections (book)|Connections]]'' that the English monk [[Richard Benese]] "produced a book on how to survey land using the simple tools of the time, a rod with cord carrying knots at certain intervals, waxed and resined against wet weather." Benese poetically described the measure of an acre in terms of a perch:<ref name="Connections2">''Connections'', pbk. p.263</ref>
{{Cquote|an acre bothe of woodlande, also of fyldlande [heath] is always forty perches in length, and four perches in breadth, though an acre of woodlande be more in quantitie [value, i.e. was more valued commercially] than an acre of fyldelande|Richard Benese per James Burke in ''Connections'', p.263}}
The practice of using surveyor's chains, and perch-length rods made into a detachable stiff chain, came about a century later when iron was a more plentiful and common material. A [[chain (unit)|chain]] is a larger [[Units of measurement|unit]] of [[length]] measuring {{convert|66|ft|4|lk=on}}, or 22 [[yard (unit of length)|yards]], or 100 [[Link (unit)|links]],<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cassell English Dictionary |location=London |date=1990 |page=214 |isbn=0-304-34003-0|last1=Kirkpatrick |first1=Elizabeth Mclaren }}</ref> or 4 rods (20.1168 [[meter]]s). There are 10 chains or 40 rods in a furlong (eighth-mile), and so 80 chains or 320 rods in one [[statute mile]] (1760 yards, 1609.344 m, 1.609344 [[kilometer|km]]); the definition of which was [[Act against Converting of Great Houses into Several Tenements and for Restraint of Inmates and Inclosures in and near about the City of London and Westminster|legally set in 1593]] and popularized by Royal surveyor (called the 'sworn viewer'<ref name="Connections3">"Connections", pbk. p.265</ref>) [[John Ogilby]] only after the [[Great Fire of London]] (1666).

An [[acre]] is defined as the area of 10 square chains (that is, an area of one chain by one furlong), and derives from the shapes of new-tech plows<ref name="Connections0">Connections, pbk. p.63</ref> and the desire to quickly survey seized church lands into a quantity of squares for quick sales<ref name="Connections2"/> by Henry VIII's agents; buyers simply wanted to know what they were buying whereas Henry was raising cash for wars against Scotland and France.<ref name="Connections2"/> Consequently, the surveyor's chain and surveyor rods or poles (the perch) have been used for several centuries in Britain and in many other countries influenced by British practices such as North America and Australia. By the time of the industrial revolution and the quickening of land sales, canal and railway surveys, et al. Surveyor rods such as used by [[George Washington]] were generally made of dimensionally stable metal&mdash;semi-flexible drawn wrought iron linkable bar stock (not steel), such that the four folded elements of a chain were easily transportable through brush and branches when carried by a single man of a surveyor's crew. With a direct ratio to the length of a surveyor's chain and the sides of both an acre and a square (mile), they were common tools used by surveyors, if only to lay out a known plottable baseline in rough terrain thereafter serving as the reference line for instrumental ([[theodolite]]) [[triangulation]]s.

The rod as a [[Surveying|survey]] measure was standardized by [[Edmund Gunter]] in England in 1607 as a quarter of a chain (of {{convert|66|ft|m|2}}), or {{convert|16+1/2|ft|m|2}} long.

===In ancient cultures===
The '''perch''' ([[Pertica (unit)|pertica]]) as a [[Ancient Roman units of measurement|lineal measure in Rome]] (also ''decempeda'') was 10 Roman feet (2.96 metres), and in [[France]] varied from 10 feet (''perche romanie'') to 22 feet (''perche d'arpent''—apparently {{frac|1|10}} of "the range of an arrow"—about 220 feet). To confuse matters further, by ancient Roman definition, an arpent equalled 120 Roman feet. The related unit of square measure was the ''scrupulum'' or ''decempeda quadrata'', equivalent to about {{convert|8.76|m2|sqft|abbr=on}}.<ref name=smith/>

===In continental Europe===
[[Image:Münster, Historisches Rathaus, Preussische halbe Ruthe -- 2017 -- 9783 (crop).jpg|thumb|300px|right|A standard at the City Hall in [[Münster]], [[Germany]] from 1816; the bar shown is one "Prussian Half Rod" (1.883&nbsp;m) long.]]
Units comparable to the perch, pole or rod were used in many European countries, with names that include {{langx|fr|perche}} and ''canne'', {{langx|de|Ruthe}}, {{langx|it|canna}} and ''pertica'', {{langx|pl|pręt}} and {{langx|es|canna}}. They were subdivided in many different ways, and were of many different lengths.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Rods and similar units in continental Europe{{dubious|date=April 2012}}
|-
! width=240 |Place
! width=130 |Local name
! width=130 |Local equivalent
! width=120 |Metric equivalent (meters)
|-
| [[Aachen]]
| Feldmeßruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.512<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Amsterdam]]
| Roede
| align="right" | 13 Voet
| align="center"|3.681<ref name="DeGelder1824">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYVbAAAAQAAJ |title=Allereerste Gronden der Cijferkunst |trans-title=Introduction to Arithmetic |first=Jacob |last=de Gelder |location=’s-Gravenhage (The Hague) and Amsterdam |language=nl |year=1824 |pages=163–176 |publisher=de Gebroeders van Cleef |access-date=13 June 2017}}</ref>
|-
| [[Aubenas]], [[Ardèche]]
| canne
| align="right" | 8 ''pans''
| 	align="center"|1.985<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Grand Duchy of Baden|Baden, Grand Duchy of]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 10 Fuß
| 	align="center"|3.0<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Canton of Basel|Basel, Canton of]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.864<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Canton of Bern|Bern, Canton of]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 10 Fuß
| 	align="center"|2.932<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Barcelona]]
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmos''
| 	align="center"|1.581<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Braunschweig]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.565<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Bremen]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 8 Ellen or 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.626<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Brussels]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 20 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.654<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Cagliari]], [[Sardinia]]
| canna
| align="right" | 10 ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|2.322<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Calenberg|Calenberg Land]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.677<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Kassel|Cassel]], [[Hessen]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 14 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.026<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Denmark]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 10 Fuß
| 	align="center"|3.138<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| {{sortname|Canton of |Geneva|Canton of Geneva}}
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 8 Fuß
| 	align="center"|2.598<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Hamburg]]
| Geestruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.583<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Hamburg
| Marschruthe
| align="right" | 14 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.010<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Kingdom of Hannover|Hannover]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.671<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[France]]
| Perche
| align="right" | 3 ''[[toise]]s''
| 	align="center"|5.847<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| France
| Perche (for woodland)
| align="right" | {{frac|3|2|3}} ''toises''
| 	align="center"|7.145<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Genoa]]
| canna
| align="right" | 10 ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|2.5<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Jever]], [[Duchy of Oldenburg|Oldenburg]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 20 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.377<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Mallorca]]
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmos''
| 	align="center"|1.714<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Malta]]
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|2.08<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Mecklenburg]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.655<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Menorca]], but not [[Mahón]]
| canna
| align="right" |
| 	align="center"|1.599<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Menorca, city of Mahon
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmos''
| 	align="center"|1.714<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Messina]], [[Sicily]]
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|2.113<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Montauban]], [[Tarn-et-Garonne]]
| canne
| align="right" | 8 ''pans''
| 	align="center"|1.783<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Morocco]]
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmos''
| 	align="center"|1.714<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Naples]]
| canna (for cloth)
| align="right" | 8 ''palmi''
| align="center"|
|-
| [[Kingdom of Naples|Naples, Kingdom of]]: [[Apulia]], [[Calabria]], [[Eboli]], [[Foggia]], [[Lucera]]
| percha
| align="right" | 7 [[Palm (unit)|''palmi'']]
| 	align="center"|1.838<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Naples, Kingdom of: [[Capua]]
| percha
| align="right" | {{frac|7|1|5}} ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|1.892<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Naples, Kingdom of: Fiano, Naples
| percha
| align="right" | {{frac|7|1|2}} ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|2.014<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Naples, Kingdom of: [[Caggiano]], [[Cava de' Tirreni|Cava]], [[Nocera Superiore|Nocera]], Rocce, [[Salerno]]
| percha
| align="right" | {{frac|7|2|3}} palmi
| 	align="center"|1.971<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Nuremberg]], Bavaria
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.861<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Oldenburg (city)|Oldenburg]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 20 Fuß
| 	align="center"|5.927<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Palermo]], Sicily
| canna
| align="right" | 8 ''palmi''
| 	align="center"|1.942<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Parma]]
| Pertica
| align="right" | 6 [[braccio|''bracci'']]
| 	align="center"|3.25<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Poland]]
| Pręt
| align="right" | {{frac|7|1|2}} ''łokci'' or 10 ''pręcików''
| 	align="center"|4.320<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Prussia]], [[Rhine Province|Rheinland]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 12 Fuß
| 	align="center"|3.766<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Rijnland]]
| Roede
| align="right" | 12 Voet
| 	align="center"|3.767<ref name="DeGelder1824"/>
|-
| [[Rome]]
| canna (for cloth)
| align="right" |
| 	align="center"|2<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Rome
| canna (for building)
| align="right" |
| 	align="center"|2.234<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Zaragoza|Saragoza]]
| canna
| align="right" |
| 	align="center"|2.043<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Kingdom of Saxony|Saxony]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Leipziger Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.512<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Sweden]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.748<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Tortosa]]
| canna
| align="right" |
| 	align="center"|1.7<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Grand Duchy of Tuscany|Tuscany, Grand-Duchy of]] ([[Florence]], [[Pisa]])
| canna
| align="right" | 5 bracci
| 	align="center"|2.918<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Uzès]], [[Gard]]
| canne
| align="right" | 8 ''pans''
| 	align="center"|1.98<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Vaud|Waadt, Canton of]]
| Ruthe or ''toise courante''
| align="right" | 10 Fuß
| 	align="center"|3<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Württemberg]]
| Reichsruthe
| align="right" | 10 Fuß
| 	align="center"|2.865<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| Württemberg
| old Ruthe
| align="right" | 16 Fuß
| 	align="center"|4.583<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Republic of Venice|Venice, Republic of]]
| Pertica
| align="right" | 6 ''piedi''
| 	align="center"|2.084<ref name=kruger/>
|-
| [[Canton of Zurich|Zürich, Canton of]]
| Ruthe
| align="right" | 10 Fuß
| 	align="center"|3.009<ref name=kruger/>
|-
|}

===In Britain and Ireland===
[[File:Gortavaura - geograph.org.uk - 1258792.jpg|thumb|Land for sale in Gortavaura, [[County Galway]], Ireland: the area is 48 acres, 3 [[rood (unit)|roods]] and 29 perches. In metric units, this is 19.8 [[hectares]].]]
In England, the rod or perch was first defined in law by the [[Composition of Yards and Perches]], one of the [[statutes of uncertain date]] from the late 13th to early 14th centuries: ''tres pedes faciunt ulnam, quinque ulne & dimidia faciunt perticam'' (three feet make a yard, five and a half yards make a perch).<ref>{{cite book |title=The statutes at large |location=London |publisher=Charles Eyre & [[Andrew Strahan]] |year=1794 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cKQ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA400 |page=200 |language=la}}</ref>

The length of the chain was standardized in 1620 by [[Edmund Gunter]] at exactly four rods.<ref name=Taylor/><ref name=Russell/> Fields were measured in acres, which were one chain (four rods) by one furlong (in the United Kingdom, ten chains).<ref name="dict-acre"/>

Bars of metal one rod long were used as standards of length when surveying land. The rod was still in use as a common unit of measurement in the mid-19th century, when [[Henry David Thoreau]] used it frequently when describing distances in his work, ''[[Walden]]''.<ref name="Thoreau1899"/>

In traditional [[Scottish units]], a ''Scottish rood'' (''ruid'' in [[Scots language|Lowland Scots]], ''ròd'' in [[Scottish Gaelic]]), also ''[[fall (Scots)|fall]]'' measures 222 inches (6 [[ell]]s).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/fall_n_1 |title="fall, faw" |website=Dictionary of the Scottish Language – [[Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue]]}}</ref>