31. Eels Were Sometimes Used as Currency
Few things are as slippery as an eel, so maybe that difficulty in getting a hold of them explains why they were sometimes used as currency during the Middle Ages. Eels may not be a popular dish in the West, but they were once such a common staple in medieval England that they were used as currency. For example, the Domesday Book lists hundreds of English watermills whose rent was paid in eels, bundled in “sticks” of 25. One proprietor who received his rent in eels was “Giles brother of Ansculf”, who got 1000 sticks from his watermill in Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, and 2000 sticks from his watermill in Datchet, Buckinghamshire.
Which raises the question: just how much were eels worth? In 1273, king Edward I issued price controls for the sale of certain foods in London, and a stick of 25 eels was listed as 2 pence, or the equivalent of $8.25 in 2017 US dollars. Edward’s price controls were issued almost two centuries after the Domesday Book, but inflation was nowhere near as great in those days as it is day. Thus, if we assume that 2 pence had roughly the same purchasing value in both Domesday Book and Edward I days, Giles brother of Ansculf would have gotten about $8250 in rent for his Bottisham watermill, and $16,500 for the one in Datchet.