Jacob's staff

The term Jacob's staff, also cross-staff, a ballastella, a fore-staff, or a balestilha, is used to refer to several things. This can lead to considerable confusion unless one clarifies the purpose for which the object was named. In its most basic form, a Jacob's staff is a stick or pole with length markings; most staffs are much more complicated than that, and usually contain a number of measurement and stabilization features. The two most frequent uses are:

The simplest use of a Jacob's staff is to make qualitative judgements of the height and angle of an object relative to the user of the staff.

Astronomy and navigation

In navigation the instrument is also called a cross-staff and was used to determine angles, for instance the angle between the horizon and Polaris or the sun to determine a vessel's latitude, or the angle between the top and bottom of an object to determine the distance to said object if its height is known, or the height of the object if its distance is known, or the horizontal angle between two visible locations to determine one's point on a map.