while others believe it originated as a cubic measure. One official British report writes: From ell to yard The earliest record of a prototype measure is the statute II Edgar Cap. 8 (AD 959 963), which survives in several variant manuscripts. In it, Edgar the Peaceful directed the Witenagemot at Andover that "the measure held at Winchester" should be observed throughout his realm. (Some manuscripts read "at London and at Winchester".) The statutes of William I similarly refer to and uphold the standard measures of his predecessors without naming them. William of Malmesbury's Deeds of the Kings of England records that during the reign of Henry I (1100 - 1135), "the measure of his arm was applied to correct the false ell of the traders and enjoined on all throughout England." The folktale that the length was bounded by the king's nose was added some centuries later. C.M. Watson dismisses William's account as "childish", but William was among the most conscientious and trustworthy medieval historians. The French "king's foot" was supposed to have derived from Charlemagne, and the English kings subsequently repeatedly intervened to impose shorter units with the aim of increasing tax revenue. The earliest surviving definition of this shorter unit appears in the Act on the Composition of Yards and Perches, one of the statutes of uncertain date tentatively dated to the reign of Edward I or II . Its wording varies in surviving accounts. One reads: It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre. The Liber Horn compilation (1311) includes that statute with slightly different wording and adds: And be it remembered that the iron yard of our Lord the King containeth 3 feet and no more, and a foot ought to contain 12 inches by the right measure of this yard measured, to wit, the 36th part of this yard rightly measured maketh 1 inch neither more nor less and 5 yards and a half make a perch that is 16 feet and a half measured by the aforesaid yard of our Lord the King. In some early books, this act was appended to another statute of uncertain date titled the Statute for the Measuring of Land. The act