Medieval English people used to pay their rent in eels

[thomdunn]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/25/medieval-english-people-used-to-pay-their-rent-in-eels.html

…

[teknocholer]

Nowadays in Canada eels can only be used to pay one’s hovercraft license.

[WoolyBugger]

If only euros were so delicious now

[NukeML]

Eels - Novocaine For The Soul (Official Video)

[atteSmythe]

This feels like an elaborate hoax

[capnjimbo]

In Ireland eels were considered harbingers of famine, especially when they started whistling!

I’m probably missing a joke, but eels don’t whistle, do they? I know there’s some shrieking ones off the coast of Florin, but that’s miles away.

[NukeML]

Indeed

Princess Bride - The Shrieking eels

[RickMycroft]

@thomdunn

The village of Welles, for example, paid Ramsey Monastery 60,000 eels every year in rent.

I bet that monastery had one heck of an eel cookbook.

[RandomDude]

This is truly bizarre. Really out there.

So’s this.

Eels Song | The Mighty Boosh | BBC Studios

[simonize]

In a world without much cash, this sort of thing made life easier for the landlord and the tenant.

[vrplumber]

When the eels pay your rent,
As a currency spent,
It’s a moray.

[Mister44]

Fun fact - the lead singer of the Eel’s father was Hugh Everett III, originator of the many worlds interpolation of quantum theory.

@RandomDude

So’s this.

This really should have been the first post.

[leicester]

The eel payments used common volume measurements: hogshead, tun, barrel, and hovercraft.

[longtimelurker]

Came, saw, left satisfied after the shrieking eels video. But one last thing…

Surprised Eel Historian, PhD
@greenleejw

·

Dec 11, 2019

So you’re a medieval landlord, collecting property rent from your peasants in eels. How do you measure them? Eels were usually counted in units called sticks (25 eels) – likely from the number of eels you can smoke on a stick at one time. 10 sticks of eels was called a bind.

You know how I know they’re using some “English” system? Because otherwise you’d have a 25 eels instead of a “stick”, and you’d have 250 eels instead of a “bind”.

[anothernewbbaccount]

In Boston (Lincolnshire, UK) musicians were banned in the 1200s. If they wanted to live in the town they had to pay more than they could realistically afford - in fact it was more than an eeling

[ficuswhisperer]

[jerwin]

Yeah. It plays off of the all too human weakness for analogies, We’re supposed to think that just because rents in England were paid in goods like grain (or favours like a military service) that this somehow extends to something like the eel. What’s next? Are we supposed to enter into the mind of a medieval peasant, and imagine an alternative to the centuries old federal reserve note? It’s a plot, I tell you. He’s trying to educate us!

[Hypoxia]

My orchardist grandfather said he paid his Farm Bureau membership with walnuts but I’m not sure I believe him.

[agies]

A surfeit of eels.

[ddmone]

Eel-aborate