The statute mile has it origins in Roman times where a measure of a thousand paces, mille passum, was used for large distances. For the Romans, a pace was the distance between the same foot touching the ground—that is the distance covered in two steps. The pace was taken as being equal to five Roman feet, a length that historians have calculated to be 11.65 inches.

The study of Anglo-Saxon texts reveals that the early English used a measure for long distances called a mil (plural: mila), which was also equal to 5,000 feet. However, the foot used by the Saxons was measured by using an adult's actual foot, and so was about 80 percent of the length of the Roman foot.

Although the confusion between Roman and Saxon feet was resolved by the Statute for Measuring Land of 1305, making the foot close to...