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Bushel measure
A wooden grain measure hooped with wrought iron. Under the Ancien Régime it held a little under ten litres and was used to count the tithe the Church took on grain and wine. This one is branded with a fleur-de-lis.
French: boisseau à coupe · Anjou · wood and wrought iron
At a glance
- Region of the example shown: Anjou
- Materials: wood, wrought-iron hoops
- Capacity: a little under ten litres of grain
- Mark: fleur-de-lis branded on the base
What it is
The boisseau is a cylindrical measure for dry goods. The bushel shown in the book contains a little under ten litres of grain and is branded on its base with the fleur-de-lis, an official mark.
Before the metric system, the size of the bushel varied from one region or even town to another, which is why official, marked measures mattered.
Measures and the tithe
Under the Ancien Régime the Church collected the tithe, a share of harvests of grain and wine. Measures like this served to count it. Grain was poured in and leveled off at the rim with a straight stick, the strike, to avoid disputes.
The metric system, adopted during the Revolution and made compulsory in the nineteenth century, replaced these local measures.
Collecting and displaying it
Branded marks, dates and original hoops increase interest. Check that the bottom is original and firmly fixed.
A bushel makes a fine container for logs, magazines or dried flowers, keeping its link with the harvest.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 108–111, with general background on the object. The book was published in 1995, so workshops, people and figures are described as they were then. Regional names and dates are given as the book records them; a style or a region of origin does not by itself date an individual piece.