[Under construction]

First, remember that merchants and traders are seeking profits from their investments of capital and time. So they will stay from a neatly-bordered category or broaden the scope of their activity if the margins are favorable. A salter might drift into textile or wine trading. A chandler might fill the resulting void in salt trading. A successful merchant might join several guilds.

The largest concentrations of merchants are in the port cities, the towns and cities by rivers, and the towns and cities on or at the intersection of major trade roads. By far, the largest trading cities are Tricolles, Khartras, Northport, Port Liberty, and Ravenwood. But any town or city of 5,000 or more residents is a significant trading center. Average market towns of 2,000 to 2,500 residents are limited in the diversity of available goods and often specialize in one or several goods.

Merchants (wholesale)

Wool [1 Sack=364 pounds (2 pokes or 13 Tods); Tod (4 cloves/nails)=28 pounds; Clove/Nail=7 pounds]

Merchants (retail)

In cities, specific types of trade tended to concentrate on a specific street or in a particular district (which often carried a name that revealed its primary product–e.g., Book Lane, The Street of Booksellers).

Some Other Weights and Measures

1 bale (half load)=100-120 lb. (150 lb. max for the largest mules) [heavier by a multiple if for camels; used for spices, cheaper cloth, other goods]

1 bundle (half load; light or heavy bales)=100-150 lb. (silk, valuable cloth)

1 bota=10 bales (about 1,000-1,500 lbs.; sometimes used as a measure of ship cargo, instead of the ton–possibly to reduce the chances of overloading)

1 case=commodities like dyes, sugar, salt, some spices (anywhere from 100-210 lbs. but often closer to 100 so that one mule could carry two cases).

1 last=typically ~12 to 16 quarters of a dry commodity, but variable

1 barrel=typically 53 gallons (200 liters). Barrels usually held liquids.

1 cask=anywhere from 13 to 172 gallons, depending on size of cask (e.g., a quarter cask holds 13 gallons, a butt holds 132 gallon, and a pipe and a tun are the largest practical casks).

1 cartload=about 1 ton or 19.5 hundredweights (typically used as a combined measure for metal ingots or metals, often transported in chests or casks).

Origins of ancient and typical measures

1 grain (imperial)=64.8 mg., 1/7,000 of a pound; 1 grain of barley

1 dram (imperial)=1.772 g.

1 ounce (imperial)=28.35 g. (437.5 grains)

1 pound (imperial)=453.6 g. (7,000 grains)

1 grain (Khartras)=45.6 mg.; theoretically 1 grain of wheat (coinage)

1 pennyweight (Khartras dwt)=32 grains; 1.46 g. (coinage)

1 pound (Khartras)=12 ounces K; 350 g. (coinage)

1 carat=200 mg., or 1 seed of the carab [often used for weighing gems]