` But that really depends on what the weights with the heavier grain were actually used for. There were lots of local standards, perhaps precisely because the average grain weight depended on the region. But here we are talking about influential standards that were actually used in minting money. Of course one could argue that this was such a local standard, one that somehow became more important. (And then of course it doesn't seem very likely that they actually counted 5000-10000 grains ``from the middle of an ear`` to find out how much a pound is.) In the past some very strange claims were made, such as ``the king's foot`` being the actual length of the king's foot and changing with every new ruler. I haven't researched this (I am just interested in weights right now, although this may change), but I guess that this has been rejected later. Sometimes a ``foot`` was considerably more or less than the average length of actual feet, and I see no reason why it shouldn't have been the same with weight units. For standardised weights such as the Roman pound (which remained constant over many centuries and was used all over Europe) and their subdivisions, that is.   `