Historical Units of Measure
When Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD, his empire included most of modern-day Western Europe including the Netherlands and Belgium. Charlemagne introduced a standard system of measurement across his domains using names such as "pound" and "foot". At the Treaty of Verdun, the empire was divided between Charlemagne’s three grandsons and Lothair received the central portion, stretching from the Netherlands in the north to Burgundy and Provence in the south.
Further fragmentation followed and with it various parts of the empire modified the units of measures in a manner that suited the local lord. By the start of the religious wars, the territories that made up the Netherlands, still part of the Holy Roman Empire, had passed into the lordship of the King of Spain. Each territory had its own variant of the original Carolignian units of measure. Under the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the seven Protestant territories that owed a nominal allegiance to the Prince of Orange ceded from the Holy Roman Empire and established their own confederacy but each kept its own system of measures.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Units Of Measurement
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