An early English weight standard used for discovering the lack of proper weight in the coins. An ordinance of the year 1205 states that there was issued, from the mint office, a penny-poise, wanting one eighth of a penny, to be de- livered to any one who would have it, to be used until Easter in the next year.

Ruding (i. 211) states that about the year L331, "a curious kind of fraud was devised by Salainon de Ripple, a monk of tlic Abbey of St. Augustin in Canterbury, and receiver of the tenth and fifteenth in that diocese, as deputy for the abbot. He framed a balance, which he called a penny pise, and having selected twenty shillings in old and heavy pennies, he weighed against them the money which he received; by which means those who thought to pay only twenty shillings were forced to pay five shillings more, or three shillings and fourpence at the least. At length a com- plaint from the whole diocese was laid be- fore the council, and the king gave order for proper inquiry to be made ; in conse- quence of which the abbot was fined eighty pounds, for the offence committed by his deputy, and was obliged to refund what had been unjustly taken, although it was done without his knowledge."