The number of reams in a maund

Eleven years after the act of 1534 had banned the importation of bound books, a standard valuation for unbound books was included in the first known printed book of rates, dated 1545. Somewhat redundantly, two entries were given:

It is not known whether a maund was a basket of fixed dimensions, or whether a half maund implied a half-empty one or a container of half the standard volume. But since unbound books essentially meant bundles of printed paper it can be assumed that the word was understood to denote a specific number of reams.

Essentially the same entries were repeated in edition after edition, largely unaffected by the periodic revisions until those of 1642 (Wing E 920, B4v) except that in 1562 the order was reversed to place the half maund first (7688.4, A5r). The only significant variation was that the 1582 edition appeared to define the maund as forty reams (7689, A5v). That definition was repeated in the reprint of 1590 but then removed (almost certainly because it was erroneous) when the book was revised yet again in 1604 and the original order of the two entries restored (7690, A6r; 7690.5, B3r). Unfortunately, in 1962 T. S. Willan chose the 1582 edition as the basis for his Tudor Book of Rates, and consequently enshrined the false definition in what has become the standard reference for early modern customs rates. Those who have discussed the matter at all, therefore, have assumed that a maund of unbound books meant forty reams of printed paper.