Medieval English People Used Eels to Pay Rent and Taxes

So something a little weird about medieval England is that they used to use eels as currency. That’s right they would charge a certain number of eels for rent as well as their taxes. This is all according to eel scholar Dr. Greenlee on twitter.

So may great questions! I'll try to get to them in coming days. But, briefly:

There were LOTS of eels in medieval England. People ate them, traded them, wrote about them, & paid taxes in them. In 1200 there were 500k+ eels being paid in in-kind taxation each year. Here's a map! pic.twitter.com/tHlHqDCDKZ

— Surprised Eel Historian, PhD (@greenleejw) December 12, 2019

Folks in early medieval England often paid their rents using eels. Some eel-rents were small (25-50 eels). But some were quite large.

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

And you thought your rent was hard to manage! pic.twitter.com/pgKp9VoOR2

— Surprised Eel Historian, PhD (@greenleejw) October 1, 2020

Do you want more eel trade in your city? Have you thought about cutting taxes? It's what Richard II did.

In 1392 the king cut tariffs on eels being imported to London to encourage merchants to bring eels "from over sea, where they are abundant, to London where they are dear." pic.twitter.com/bArOY9Xdoh

— Surprised Eel Historian, PhD (@greenleejw) September 25, 2020

Recently he spoke with TIME about the unusual currency. They say:

Scholar Thomas Bradwardine‘s 14th century book of mnemonics likens eels to England, advising readers to imagine the King of England holding in “his right hand an eel [anguilla ] wriggling about greatly, which will give you ‘England’ [Anglia ].” Family crests boasted eels. In the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the Norman conquest of England by William the Conquerer in the 11th century, the image of Anglo-Saxon King Harold shows him above a pile of eels. An Englishman in the bottom border is holding an eel the wrong way—by the tail, rather than the head—perhaps symbolizing Harold’s hold on the English throne, represented by eels, slipping away.

In 1086, when the Normans undertook a study to figure out how people lived in the countryside they had conquered and how much it was worth, known as the Domesday Study, they collected more mentions of rents paid in eels than any other in-kind tax. When the survey was conducted, the English likely owed some 500,000 eels in taxes to landlords around that time.

Curiously this form of currency didn’t hold up over time. But it’s interesting that it ever existed in the first place. I guess that this gave people more of a fair shot to start from nothing. I mean all you needed was a couple of eels and you were good. And not only would you use eels as currency but you could also eat them, so if you had extra it would be like eating your money. Which would have impacted your profit margin but eh, treat yourself right?