The perch or rod, as it was also known, was a traditional Saxon land measure and survived into the twentieth century. It had originally been defined as the total length of the left feet of the first sixteen men to leave church on Sunday morning. A statute of Edward I, however, defined the perch or rod as five and one-half ulna (yards) or indirectly as sixteen and one-half feet. This proportion of one rod = 5½ yd = 16½ ft has remained ever since.