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cabot

On the island of Jersey, 14ᵗʰ – 19ᵗʰ centuries, a unit of capacity = 10 Jersey pots (by an Act of the Jersey Court on 19 January 1625), or in imperial measure, 4 gallons, 1 quart, and 3 gills (about 19.75 liters or 5.22 U.S. gallons). Also called the estendard du chasteau. According to Cheney, it was “legalized by Acts of the Royal Court of Jersey on 11ᵗʰ December, 1593, 7ᵗʰ March, 1617, and 19ᵗʰ January 1625, which were confirmed by the Sovereign in Council in 1717.”

Simmonds (1892) said the unit was “in general use” and that 19 cabots are considered equal to 1 imperial quarter of wheat (i.e., 8 imp. bushels, making the cabot 8/19ths of an imp. bushel).

A special, larger cabot existed for barley. Simmonds says there are 11 cabots to a quarter of barley (making the cabot 8/11ths of a bushel). Britten says 8/13th and that barley was measured in a large cabot, 3 of which equaled 4 ordinary cabots. Chaney says the barley cabot was 12 pots, 3 pints and 1 1/3 noggins, which would be 128.3% bigger than the 10-pot cabot, and about 25.34 liters (taking the ordinary cabot at 19.75 liters).

There may have been a cabot for potatoes. Simmonds mentions that 1 potato cabot was considered to weigh 40 Jersey pounds, and Cheney mentions a nameless measure for potatoes with a capacity of 9 pots, 2½ pints, only slightly smaller than the 10-pot cabot.

Frederic Godefroy.
Lexique de l'ancien Français.
Paris: 1901.

James Britten.
Old Country and Farming Words.
English Dialect Society, number 30.
London: Trübner and Co., 1880.

Page 170.

Henry J. Chaney.
Our Weights and Measures. A Practical Treatise on the Standard Weights and Measures in use in the British Empire...
London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1897.

Pages 32 and 33.