“Two casks in his house always, a cask of milk and a cask of ale”. Foodstuffs as currency in pre-monetary capitalist economic systems

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  • Raimund Karl - Speaker

Description

Early medieval Irish literature contains detailed information about food rents in premonetary economic systems based on clientage relations. Clients have to pay their patrons for a loan (a „fore-payment“) of a certain value, an exactly defined annual rent consisting of agricultural resources and prepared foodstuffs. Itinerant patrons consume at least parts of this rental income at „feasts“ more or less immediately when it is delivered; customary events characterised by a particular feasting culture. The texts also tell us about rules for the sustenance of the sick and the injured, who are entitled to a legally defined „healthy“ diet depending on their social rank. In all of these texts, however, agricultural resources and foodstuffs serve as means of payment in a defined, premonetary system of established exchange value relations. This contribution examines these texts and develops a general model of foodstuffs as an established exchange value system and their consumption in premonetary societies.
30 Apr 2017

Event (Conference)

TitleWas tranken die frühen Kelten? Bedeutungen und Funktionen mediterraner Importe im früheisenzeitlichen Mitteleuropa.
Period28/04/171/05/17
Web address (URL)
LocationKloster Weltenburg
CityWeltenburg
Country/TerritoryGermany
Degree of recognitionInternational event

Event (Conference)

TitleWas tranken die frühen Kelten? Bedeutungen und Funktionen mediterraner Importe im früheisenzeitlichen Mitteleuropa.
Date28/04/171/05/17
Website
LocationKloster Weltenburg
CityWeltenburg
Country/TerritoryGermany
Degree of recognitionInternational event

Keywords

  • Archaeology, Iron Age, Economics

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