Interesting Reading

I needed to look up the Magna Carta from 1215 for a research paper in my American Legal Systems class and found the following provision:

There shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the London quarter), throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russett, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges. Weights are to be standardised similarly.

It would be even more interesting to find out the measurement from the 1215 ell and if it differed from the ell in the Spanish tailor's book from 1598.