June 28, 2021 • 48 mins
Nowadays, most people pay rent with the currency of their given nation — but for a time in England, your rent might have been paid with eels (yes, literal eels). In today’s episode, Ben, Max and returning guest host Matt Frederick explore the strange story of the Medieval eel economy, from the financial constraints that inspired it, to the religious beliefs that sustained it, to explain exactly how owning thousands of eels became a massive economic flex.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, Before we get into today's episode, we want
to cite Dr John Wyatt Greenley, who is a world
class authority on not just deals but many things from
the medieval world, and want to cite his work because
he has put a lot of time and research into
(00:22):
the story that we're going to explore today. You can
also find his website, which we mentioned in the episode,
Historia car Tarum dot org if you would like to
learn more about his past, present and future work. Hey,
and as we're going through this episode, we've collected a
bunch of research from a bunch of different outlets, and
(00:43):
what we didn't realize is that much of the writing
that's done on this topic comes directly from the research
that Dr Greenley has performed. And two of the main
articles will be pulling from today are from history extra
dot com. The article is Fishing for Gold, how eels
our the Medieval Economy and another one is on Historia
(01:03):
Carterum dot org and that's the Eel Rents Project. So
once again, thank you so much. The citations are important
and much of what you will hear in today's episode
comes directly from the work of Dr Greenley. Ridiculous History
is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome back to
(01:48):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. We've got our super producers Casey Pagram,
got our super producer Max Williams, live and direct here.
My good Palin co host Noel Brown is on Adventures
will be returning soon. I am Ben, and I am
(02:09):
not going into today's episode alone. Found out that my
very old dear friend, my writer die Matt Frederick himself
is into the concept of this episode. No spoilers yet,
but Matt, there you are. How's it going? Man? Hello back,
(02:32):
Hi everybody? Yes, yeah, can we get around of applause
in there? Max for yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, unnecessary unnecessary?
You know why why not while we're while we're throwing
Max under the under the producer bus, Max, give yourself
a round of applause for that applause to here. I
(03:09):
didn't know. I didn't know you could do that. I
didn't know either, So so Matt, thank you so much
for joining us today. Uh hit you up a little
a little while ago, like yesterday off air and asked
you about your position on eels in general. Right, Yeah,
(03:31):
Ben straight up slapped me in the face. With an
eel right before this with the question that doesn't work?
But yes, yes, this is all coming together very quickly.
But Ben, I have to tell you I couldn't be
more excited to discuss this topic with you today. Yes, yes, Now,
just before the three of us started recording today's episode, Matt,
(03:53):
you had a question for Max. What was that question? Oh? Yes,
how do you feel out sushi in general? That's the
first question? So in general? Yeah, all about it? Totally,
will do it? Okay? Okay? Is that like public sushi?
Is that high end sushi? Any sushi? I don't really
have much standards. I mean I'll eat like other lower
(04:16):
than publics. I don't know how much lower is really
than publics but I'll go there. Okay, I don't care,
got it? You heard that quick trip? Max? Is there
ready for your sushi? Uh? But okay? But what kind
of thing do you order? Is eel on the menu
for you when you get sushi? So it's been a
long time. I mean, look, you know, you go to Kroger,
(04:36):
you go to public, you get like the one that's
been sitting there for a couple of days. I mean
it's usually just like a California roll like that, they
might put something else in there also, like you know,
it's usually just like slim pickings. But if I'm getting
some nice sushi, yeah, I'll give me the weirdest thing
you have. I mean to call back a previous episode.
I mean, I'll do a cricket sushi roll. I'll do it. Yeah, okay, yeah,
(04:58):
dare to dream. I'm on board with this. I think
we're all kind of sushi fans. What about you, Matt,
you are you a sushi guy? But only if it's revolving.
If the sushi is revolving in some way, then I'm down.
If it's just yeah, yeah, if it's just static sushi,
not interested, Yeah yeah, because it's supposed to be fresh,
and what's more fresh than watching it rolled toward you
(05:20):
on a belt? Yeah. We we are big fans of sushi.
I'm also a big fan of Unagi specifically, which is,
you know, the Japanese freshwater eel. And today's episode is
about eels. We got there segue British British eels. Yes,
this ties into a weird dream of mine, an ambition.
(05:43):
I would say that I god, I want to do
at some point in life. But today's episode is also
a weird way about finance. You see, once upon a time,
fellow Ridiculous historians, the British used to pay their not
with money, but with eels, e e l s, eels
(06:05):
and other things like firewood and eggs. So it's it's
really cool. This, this is super cool. It makes me
kind of wish we were still there to an extent,
because I've got lots of just things around the house
I need to get rid of. If I could, if
I could pay rent with kids books, Oh my god. Um,
(06:28):
but yes, that that is what we're discussing today, the
economics of almost it is a barter system or it's uh,
it's so weird to imagine a living and or dead
creature as a piece of currency. Yeah. Yeah. And as
we know, as our fellow listeners of both Ridiculous History
(06:51):
and the show You and I created stuff they want,
you know, are aware, currency has been any number of
bizarre things in the past, from peppercorns two giant rocks.
And while we originally found this via History extra dot com,
it turns out the vast majority of the research in
this episode is the work of one person, Dr John
(07:12):
Wyatt Greenley, who was again the expert on this fascinating story.
I mean, let's look to him for examples. We've got
a cool example to get us into this way. Back
in eleven or some monks at a place called Ramsey
Abbey in Huntingdon's Share and they needed a way across
a local fin f e n. So there was this
(07:34):
landowner whose name was Ralph Tubberville. That's correct. There were
people named Ralph in the eleven hundreds. Uh So, Ralph
had this road and he said, I'm willing to lease
this and it was an elevated causeway. It was pretty
dope as construction went at the time. And so for
the right to use this road, the monks at Ramsey
(07:55):
Abbey said, okay, Ralph, we'll pay you and once a
year we're gonna kind of pay you were rent on
this road. But it's not gonna be in. It's not
gonna be in terms of what we would consider currency today,
was it. No, it would be one thousand eels per annum,
as well as two pounds each of pepper and ginger
(08:17):
and a pair of scarlet trousers that was specifically for
the man of Tuberville. It's just the weirdest attition there.
You know, what were the negotiations, like, you know, did
they start with the eels and then they eventually you know,
they tacked on scarlet trousers, like like seal the deal?
(08:38):
And also how many pairs of red pants do you need? Yeah,
it was Christmas time, and you know they just thought
it would really go with what Ralph had going on
on the upper part of his body. They just thought
the red is just gonna look nice with that green
tunic he had going on. Yeah, Tuberville was all about
the vibe, whether or not he was a clothes horse.
(08:59):
We know that when he passed away. This same abbey
later renegotiated the deal, and Ralph's widow was not as
in the pants as he was. She did not want
anymore scarlet trousers. Instead, she wanted half a mark in coins,
sixty cartloads of firewood. But as Greenley notes, she still
(09:22):
wanted those one thousand eels, which is wild. Do they
get them all at once? Is it? Like? What do
you do with a thousand eels at once? Like even
if you're i mean, if you're one person or a family,
even if you've got twelve kids, a thousand eels there's
not a great way in eleven nine to keep that
stuff good unless you're converting it to fertilize her. Immediately,
(09:48):
it was like eel the bitcoin of its day. You
could convert it to other currencies. I I don't know,
I don't know. Maybe there was a drying technique that
I just don't know about, as salted jelly deel kind
of thing. Well, well, here's the here's the weirdest part.
It was commonplace from like at least the tenth century onward.
(10:08):
People in England, all all across England paid some taxes
in terms of eels. Living eels were dead eels. And
that's because coins were not as common. And as coins
became a little more common, these eel rents did decline,
but they didn't decline for centuries. And this is where
(10:29):
our story takes place, because nowadays, you know, I was
thinking about this guy's During the pandemic, we saw a
lot more people carrying a lot less cash. And do
you guys remember when places like home depot and other
stores literally add signs up about a coin shortage. Did
you guys see any of that? They still have that
in my area. I don't know about you guys. Yeah,
(10:51):
I'm not sure. I haven't been to home depot in
a minute. It probably should be, but yeah, I do
remember that coin shortage completely. Yeah, and there's not enough coin. Well,
in medieval times there also was not enough coin um
and there just wasn't These are precious metals being pressed,
sometimes individually, sometimes in mass, but there aren't that many
(11:13):
coins that are metal going around. So as Dr Greenley
found a lot of places, a lot of landlords would
accept these things that they would call in kind payments
or in kind rent. So it could be eels, it
could be other things. It could be ale, beer, laggers,
those are really popular, eggs, grain, really anything that a
(11:35):
household could make use of. And firewood was also very
very common. That firewood as a whole other episode which
could we could continue into the America's into the times
of you know, the sixteen hundreds and prior to that,
when you could pay all of your rent with firewood
just because of the harshness of the weather and the
(11:57):
winters and the nights. Anyway, we're talking about eels today, Yeah,
we're talking about eels. Eels were not some especially rare
animal at this time. They were in fact incredibly plentiful.
And the lords of England, the rulers at the time,
they wanted their cut, they wanted their vig you know.
(12:17):
So if you look at if you look at the
ten eighties six Domesday Survey, you'll see that they had
more records of rent being paid in eels than they
did of rent being paid in corn. And like, this
was nuts. If you lived in the village of Harmston,
for instance, in Lincolnshire, then your community collectively would oh,
(12:40):
Earl Hugh of Chester seventy five thousand eels per year.
I like the use of per adam though, Matt, that
sounds so much classier. Sure, yes, but listen to this again.
We're talking crazy numbers here. Seventy five dollars to old Earl.
But by the end of the eleventh century there were
(13:01):
more than five hundred and forty thousand eels being paid
as rent in England. Panum. Yeah, so they have see perannum.
It's just smooth. You're smooth guy. So landlords, what did
they do with these eels? Well, they ate some of them.
But it goes back to the earlier question Max, Matt
and I had, which is what you do? What do
(13:23):
you do with all these eels. Dr Greenley explains how
a landlord would kind of cycle these out. So let's
go back to those Ramsey monks. They had tenants, and
their tenants collectively gave them more than seventy thousand eels
every year, and the monks couldn't need all of those.
They were they were probably at some point sick of
(13:46):
eating eel if you can believe it. Max can't believe it.
He's a big old fan. And and uh. And then
what they would do then is they would use the
eels that their tenants gave them as a way to
pay for stuff they needed at the monastery, Like they
seven a thousand eels a year to Ralph and later
as widow. And then they agreed to pay four thousand
(14:09):
eels each spring to peter Brew Abbey for the right
to take stone from a quarry nearby that the abbey controlled,
so eels could be literally money that you eat, which
I feel like, I feel like it's crazy that it
worked that long, because if you could just eat, like,
(14:29):
if you could just eat a green back right now,
the world would be a very different place. That's very true.
And a greenback is oh, you're talking about the paper
slash fabric stuff that we use. This currency, got it
literally eating money? Yeah, I guess that's the same thing.
Well that that this is a good way to get
(14:50):
into talking about something who already brought up. These are
not fresh eels usually usual. These are not the ones
that are coming straight out, and they were just speared.
As Professor Greenley points out, and he's literally the world's
foremost expert on this, it wasn't as if people were
(15:12):
stockpiling massive pools of live eels. These are actually preserved eels.
We we kind of joked about, you know, a drying technique,
but yeah, salt and time and smoking, drying all that
kind of stuff was very common. It was a common
practice to do that to these eels and then trade those.
(15:33):
So you are you actually would have God, I'm imagining
chests in some wealthy landlord's house, just chests of eel
uh that are required. It's like the medieval MTV cribs
where someone's taking a tour of the abbey and then
some guy who was like the celebrity, you know, host
of the abbey is is like, and this is our
(15:55):
eel room. Stacks on stacks on stacks or should we
say sticks on sticks on sticks, because when the eels
were dried and preserved, they were bundled into sticks. That
would be about twenty five eels per stick. So that
was the definition of bawling. How many eel sticks do
you have? You know what I mean? I'm so I'm
so sad that there wasn't some equivalent of poetry or
(16:19):
hip hop bragging about the amount of eels people had.
I wonder if it would hold up. I'd listened, I'd
listened to that mixtape once. Oh dude, yes, that would
be in my car right now. I wonder if they
if they had like quarter sticks. That was a quarter stick. Uh,
and just it's five eels just kind of wrapped up
but some kind of maybe red trousers. I don't know. Um,
(16:42):
it's really weird, man. We know this because there's an
historical record of who paid who what and what that
currency was. And the currency was sticks, right, That's how
you know it's a stick of eel. So um. There's
a quote here from an article on Dr green Mainly's
eel rent project on his website Historia carter Um, where
(17:04):
he walks us through the difficult business of calculating the
worth of an eel x mill owed y abbey z
sticks of eels per year, But really, what what does
that mean? And then there's another thing here when you're
talking about taxes, because you know, in medieval Europe as
everywhere else, you always had to pay the king in
(17:25):
the in that case or the rulers a little bit
of that eel off the top. How much eel did
they get off the top? And how do you figure
that out when you're dealing in sticks of eels. Yeah,
this is actually beyond the capacities of our great inflation calculator.
So we're going to refer to some excellent work by
(17:46):
Historia carter Um. Here we go, when we try to
make an educated guess about how much, you know, cold
hard scratch and eel was actually worth. We could see
that a single translates to about thirty six to seventy
two cents in dollars today, So a stick of eels
(18:09):
would equal something between nine dollars and six cents and
eighteen dollars and eleven cents in the modern day. So
Historia Carterum argues that if we take those two measures
as kind of our spectrum of high and low end
price points. Then we get a window of understanding that
we didn't have otherwise, and that gives us an even
(18:32):
better sense of just how many eels were moving in
this weird dried eel market. So there's a flip side
to this. Let's let's try to think of what what
we in the modern day could use to understand the
value of eels, and Dr Greenley has a great answer
(18:53):
here as well. If you are a friend of Jeff,
which is our euphemism for Amazon Prime subscribers, then you'll
be happy to do well. I don't know if you'll
be happy to know, but if you'll be fun at parties.
When you say an Amazon Prime membership is like what
a hundred nineteen dollars If you paid an eels, that
(19:14):
would only be about a hundred and sixty five to
three hundred and thirty eels, So just six to thirteen sticks. Man,
that's pretty great on a on a yearly basis, that's
not that many eels. I'm just kidding. Imagine how much
how much actual work that would take for an individual
to go out to a river and catch three hundred
(19:36):
and thirty eels, Like that's a lot of days and
hours and just to get your Amazon Prime membership. I
don't know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, you're You're absolutely right, Matt.
It's it's weird because now I'm I'm going to spend
the weekend. I don't know about you guys been to
spend the weekend thinking like how much is this an eels? I'll,
(19:58):
you know, I'll be at the local bookstore or something,
and then yeah, I might try it. I might just
try it, see if I can. I can pay in
a in a stack of eels. That's really I just
see the headline already, like local lind A man arrested
for trying to shove eels down a man's pocket. You
(20:19):
guys don't understand history, he said, So you know what
I just thought of. Guys, let's have we have forgotten
to take into account the smell? We didn't even think
about the smell. Everybody's got eels up in their house
in a chest somewhere on sticks in a room. They're
(20:40):
carrying them around to pay for rent. What is what
is the smell like out there? Success bro money, The
fishy smell of some eels would be a dead giveaway
that the person you were talking to is just bawling
out of control. So uh yeah, well, you know, smells
(21:04):
in general were treated differently on a cultural basis back then. Right,
this is kind of pre deodorant. It does make you
wonder what that did for the I don't know how
to put this lightly, the sex drive of everybody waltson around. Yeah,
that's oh, that's a segue for sure, nicely done, Matt,
because I think the Church comes into play here. You know,
(21:27):
the Church is one of the biggest authority figures at
this time, and they are historically very concerned with sex
and very concerned with lent l e n T. Yes,
it's that lent rent. So we're just gonna be rhyming
all over the place. Yeah. So, so let's talk about
(21:49):
the species of the British river eel. Yes, so um,
most of the eels that end up being used in
this old rent situation are caught in autumn, that's to know, right,
And the reason for that is because there's a yearly
downstream migration. And back to Dr Greenley's article for History
extra fishing for Gold, how eels powered the medieval economy? Okay,
(22:13):
that are that are occurring in autumn? So lots of
them are being caught, but the rent wasn't due until
the start of Lent, so late winter or spring. So
everybody's catching, drying salting, doing whatever they do to those
eels to get them on the sticks. Um. And the
reason why rent was due at this time because there
was during Lent, you were prohibited from eating meat. Okay,
(22:38):
this is very important. So if you cut any fresh eels,
you can't eat them. Got dried eels, They're still good
for eating, but you can't eat them because you're not
allowed to. So the church understood this explicit connection between meat.
They believed there was an explicit connection between eating meat
and um carnetas. No, I'm just showing um the carnal urges. Yeah, yeah, Carnea,
(23:06):
I know. I was just saying, because they're so good,
they're almost sexual. They're so good. You're on the money, man,
you're on the eel money. Because they believe that the church,
that is, believe the eating meat, which they would you know,
define is like be for sheep, etcetera, what have you,
was going to inevitably make a person kind of nusty, right,
(23:29):
kind of amorous? And why is that? Because a creature
that was created va sex would in some way in
in inform your body or I don't know, symbolically make
you get all torned up. That's the concept. Yeah, you're
charged up. It's interesting too because, unless you think we're
(23:53):
picking on Europe too much, the consumption of certain animal
parts across the world has long been believe to increase libido,
you know, like especially eating sexual organs of animals. For
the Church at this time, it was just enough that
the animal was created through good old reproduction. And we
know what you're thinking, Hey, guys, don't fish also reproduce?
(24:19):
Don't they also kind of have a sexual union? Yes,
fish reproduced, But the Catholic Church wasn't worried about that,
probably because they couldn't walk to a nearby field and
just see, you know, I'll say it, eels getting down,
getting skin a max with each other the way they
can see cattle. But think about what an eel looks
like thin, think about the touch of an eel so slippery,
(24:44):
it's so it's so very penis Like I don't know,
just you think it would be the opposite, like, don't
get the eels, don't eat the eels. There's way too
much sexual stuff going on there, But no, it was
it was. It was the opposite of that. Yeah, you
bring up a great point. It is it is sort
(25:04):
of weird for us to look back and say, like, hey,
wasn't that one of the most phallic animals you could
have allowed? But but instead they were They said, no, nope,
it's a lent and even if you're married, you need
to be abstinent for this time. So meat is off
the table because it might make you violate this spiritual system.
(25:26):
Eating fish was thought to not excite the libido in
any way at all, so you could have as much
fish as you wanted. Eels were a great choice because
they were everywhere right in the rivers and the waterways.
And eel pies we're super, super popular. Eel pies are
(25:47):
still a storied, if declining tradition in the UK today,
and that is because virtually every medieval European at the
time believe that these fish reproduced a sexually, and it's
a very very old belief system that dates back to
Aristotle and the somewhat unique life cycle of the eel,
(26:08):
which is ugly. Just for the record, I think they're ugly,
but they probably think we're ugly. Too. Yeah, I'm sure
they would get real, real weirded out by us if
there were just some studying going on. I bet it's
happened in the past. But the reproductive cycle of these
eels really is fascinating. They would go out into the
(26:28):
open Atlantic, the the ocean there, and that is where
they would breed. Then they would migrate to land, and
this is when they're in a very small state as
a fairly new creature. So the young, the young essentially
called Elver's there's a term I did not know e
l V E r s. And they're heading up the river.
(26:50):
Once they find a home that's you know, somewhere amongst
the river. There they stay and then they grow for
over a decade around it decade until they eventually head
back to the sea to get it on and then
send their little young ones back up the river. And
then they die. Oh yeah, they do die after after coitas, no,
(27:15):
just after doing it, after doing it, they die. Uh.
And Aristotle very smart dude, right, he'd never made the
connection between Elver's, this juvenile form, and the growing form
we call eels. So he wrote with a lot of
self assurance that eels springs spontaneously out of the Mud.
(27:38):
And then other writers followed his example and said, that's it.
They come, they come from the Mud. This was so
well established in the European zeitgeist that persisted into at
least the fifteen hundreds, maybe longer. And part of that
was because if you look at an eel before it,
you know, gets to its final form, you wouldn't normally
(28:02):
see sexual organs. They only develop ovaries and testes at
the very very end of their lives, right before they
head out for that fatal romantic encounter on the high seas.
That's how they know. They gotta go like one, Oh
I got sorry, guys, I got balls. Now it's over
for me. That's how that's how it goes. That's so
(28:23):
messed up that that's like their death sentence or their
death cry or I don't know, that's just so weird
or is it awesome. There's a great way to go.
I suppose I like that optimism. Yeah, let's go with that.
And so people were searching for eel ovaries and test
these for centuries. It wasn't just Aristotle. We're not picking
(28:46):
on just one guy. Sigmund Freud also looked and he
couldn't find anything. So because these eels were not seen reproducing,
and because if you searched one of their bodies you
would not see anything that indicated they could reproduce, it's
kind of understandable that they were like, no, I don't know,
there's weird things that come from the mud. They go
to the sea. You can pay rent with them. What's
(29:07):
not to love? Seriously, And it wasn't until seventeen seventy
seven that an Italian dude named Carlo Mondini actually located
and eel Ovary and there was much rejoicing. So everybody
thank that guy because he made an important discovery that
may sound kind of irrelevant today, but it was something
(29:29):
that confused people for a very long time. And Sigmund Freud,
just to clarify, he was specifically looking for eel testes.
He he didn't find them, but so they knew. Just
imagine that. I could just see that just going out
getting another eel, just like holding it up, got a
(29:51):
microscope and he's just like the testes. The test is, yeah,
it's gotta paint, you know U. I imagine I imagine
Sigmund like being disappointed that he's known for his work
in psychology, and he's like, but I'm an eel man.
I'm on the quest for the balls. Psychology is very secondary.
(30:14):
But he would do a Reddit A m A and
people would be asking about Freudian theory, and his response
would be like, hey, guys, can we keep our questions
focused on eel tests? Please? That's right, that's right. Please
save all your questions unless they're about eels. There are
no eel test these they say they reproducing a dream,
(30:37):
a subconscious thought of another eel coming out of them.
You're nailing it. Sorry, it's perfect, it's perfect. I want
to read that Reddit A m A. So, so this
is the thing. Their unique position in religion and culture
of the time helps us understand why pay eel rent
(31:01):
remains such a long lived practice, even after coinage was
a little more common. Most of the other in kind
rents had disappeared by the century or so, but not
eel rent. Landlords continued to collect that from the thirteenth century.
You can see records that show people are paying with
(31:22):
the eel, like more than four hundred and fifty thousand
eels annually, and they were still making new inc and
new deals that we're all in Eel. You're right, we
are accellently rhyming a lot on this. I should tell you, Matt,
I think you missed it. Um, but Max was there
a few episodes ago Nolan got really close to freestyle
and I think, I think, yeah, I think he's gonna
(31:43):
I think I'm gonna get do it. Some finally finally
respond to the culture kings. Shout out to them, Man,
they're good dudes too, and yeah they're and uh, back
to eels. Dr Greenly also has an explanation for the
decline of this practice, the Black Death. Sorry, that's an
(32:08):
unexpected heavy twist, but yeah, the Black Death. Yeah, I
guess it was seen as a little less clean in
a lot of ways. And I can imagine that. Yeah,
it wasn't until after nine. Oh what a great year,
(32:30):
thirty nine. That's when red meat started to become way
more available to people, and you know, I would say
probably became pretty exciting given all the eel consumption over
the centuries. And at the same time, you know, the
population was much lower after Black Death, and that meant
there's way more currency per person out there, you know,
(32:54):
floating around. So you can imagine that the demand for
eels over all began to drop, and around that time
there were only I think around thirty four thousand eels
that were paid that I don't know, how do you
say this eel rent was only paid with thirty four
thousand individuals. I don't know how to say this stuff, guys.
(33:17):
And so we see this precipitous decline four hundred and
fifty thousand eels every year during the thirteenth century or so,
down to just thirty four thousand eels in the game
a little later, and then in the fifteenth century and
the fourteen hundreds we see another huge drop and by
(33:37):
fifteen hundred. By the year fifteen hundred, which is a
good one, but it doesn't stack up the thirteen forty nine.
To Matt's point, by hundred eel rents had mostly disappeared,
but not all the way. Nope, Nope. In the sixteen eighties,
there's this amazing mill in Norfolk that's still rented out
(33:58):
for thirty pounds. That's not all and sixty eels. Oh yeah,
so good luck to you you, Okay, I gotta ask
the question, like, can you like borrow that? He like
discussed that somebody like, hey, so I only got twenty pounds,
but I got like ninety eels with me. It's non
negotiable eels. You just have those exact measurements right there.
(34:23):
That's correct. They don't make eel change either. And like
you can't have sixty one eels because you have to
pay four eel storage when you're there, cost two eels
to store your eels. Right, it is weird sixty eels
because that's two sticks and a portion of another stick. Yeah, weird,
two five of a stick sticks on sticks. Uh. Next,
(34:49):
your questions are so astute that I feel like you've
been in this hustle before. I'm not gonna answer that.
I want to leave you just wondering a little bit.
All right, Okay, I respect, I respect an enigmatic man.
But you make a really great point, Max, Because there
it was this family, the Windham of family. Uh that
sounds so familiar. If you can get off exit eleven
(35:12):
here on Highway four hundred and you'll find Wyndham maybe
it was their family, Oh my god, connecting the dots um.
But they were of Felbrigg Hall and they really did
have a hard time collecting the payments because people weren't
pay and eel rents anymore. Sorry, we don't. We didn't
dry them this past autumn, you know, for Lent the
(35:33):
way we were supposed to because of the whole naughty thing.
But yeah, sorry, we don't have any eels, but we
do have that thirty pounds. So they felt like what
we can say from the Windhams is they felt like,
you know, they didn't want to change the old ways.
It is possible that this was a lent thing l
(35:55):
e n t for them, but it may also be
possible that they were super into eel. Pie is where
I'm gonna diverge just for a second, So I'm just
sending you guys a picture over our zoom call today
about pie mash and eels. Pie Mash and eel shops
have been in London since at least the eighteen hundreds
(36:19):
and they serve stewed or jellied eels. I desperately want
to try it out. What do you do? You guys
want to describe the picture? The second one? I said,
I have these saved on my computer sometimes. Oh man, Ben,
you know, I like recently haven't saying I'll try everything
(36:40):
and I'll try this with you, buddy, But this is
this is disgusting. It's like it looks like ice cream
that went bad and got like gooey on top, and
just Matt take over. The eel isn't the setting part,
(37:00):
it's the jelly. It's the Yeah, it's just so slippery
and it's just so gelatinously and transparent and you can
seal the you can see the eel bits in between
the jelly parts. Yeah, but I do want again, I
do want to point out it comes with sides. Okay,
(37:21):
I don't know why that was the saving gracy. It's
a combo meal. What do the sides look like? Like?
Nothing thus far is really at appetizing. I'm pretty sure
it's just parsley and lemon mashed potatoes. You know what
does the mashed potatoes look like? That you cover it
(37:41):
with the same sauce. Though, I really want to try it,
so sorry guys, folks, ridiculous histories. Please please check out
jelly to eels or let us know if you have
had an experience with them. We'd like to hear your take.
Here's the thing, like you said at you you were
pressed it when you talked about firewood, right payment and
(38:03):
firewood carrying over to the early United States or the colonies.
In the early days of what would become the US,
people also liked old eel pie. They just didn't like
paying eel rent. So today sushi may be the most
common use of eel in the US, Like we talked
about the very top unagi. But if you go back
(38:25):
just a few centuries ago, eel pie was the business.
People were all about it. Yeah, and we got some
great info here from Libby O'Connell who wrote The American Plate,
a culinary history in one hundred bytes, and she's discussing
just how big eel was everywhere Cape Cod. It was huge,
(38:49):
local streams all over the place, and they were so
sought after. Imagine this, you guys. They were using lobsters
as bait to catch the eels. Why, I mean, come on,
you get you're gonna tell me that you well, I
guess imagine jelly to lobster, Like I don't. I don't
(39:09):
think that's much better. So if you're going to prepare
your eels in that way, um, really, you prepare anything
in that way and you lose me. But the thought
of using a lobster to catch an eel just frustrates me.
Man well, you know, back in the day, lobsters didn't
have the same reputation they enjoy in the modern age.
(39:31):
And just to be clear here, that's because they were
served to people, often disadvantaged members of society, in a
really gross preparation. They weren't shelled, people didn't take the
meat out. They crushed it all together and made it
like this kind of gross soupy thing so delicious. Well,
(39:52):
you're fine as long as it's not jelly. Huh yep. Uh.
If it's crunchy, cool cool. If it's slurpy, I like it. Uh. Yes,
So this to turn into a little bit of a
gross food episode for some people, but I I definitely
(40:12):
want to try this. Like you said, eels were a hot,
hot commodity, but something happened. There was a decline in
the supply of eels. They were no longer as plentiful
as they were once upon a time, and this led
to a decline of interest in savory eel pie and
over time, o'caddle notes people in the US started to
(40:36):
move away from eating animals consumed in their natural form, like,
for instance, a lot of us listening to the show
today have never killed a chicken that we ate. We've
never slaughtered a cow or dressed a deer. We've gone
to a grocery store, We've gone to a restaurant or
something like that. So O'Connell argues that maybe that's what happened.
(40:59):
Maybe people got further and further away from the natural
state of the creatures they were consuming. And the Smithsonian
notes that eel has seen a resurgence and popularity driven
by the rise of sushi, but that lack of supply,
that dearth of supply continues to be an obstacle because
(41:19):
today the eel has been classified as endangered on the
International Union for Conservations Red List of Threatened Species because
the seafood supplies run low in Asia. There's also been
more poaching in the US, further depleting regional resources. You know,
that makes a lot of sense if there aren't as
many eel around and people are kind of changing their tastes,
(41:42):
and then eventually the eel, you know, are protected. We're
just not going to be eating him in the same way.
But it does make me sad that there isn't some
even if it's not iel, that there's some kind of
one to one like that that would be valuable enough,
like I can't there can't be a rat infestation in
(42:03):
somebody's rental home and then you take out all the rats,
you get a stick of rats, and then you can
use that to supplement your rent um. I mean you
can imagine it kind of in the way like a
pest control service would cost x amount of money. So
you may be able to work that in if you're good,
if you're a good negotiator. But it's not the same
(42:23):
thing as having a stick of eels. Yeah. Yeah, we
would need a perfect storm of economic factors to make
to create an animal that could be used as a
widespread regional currency. Right, we would need cultural Moray's that
not more a deels. There we go. We would need
(42:45):
we would need yes, we need cultural more ales. Uh,
we'd need some authority figures saying that there was some
necessity behind the food stuff. And then we would also
need uh for we would need for people to not
reject idea of eating it, and would also need to
be plentiful. Rats are plentiful, but people generally in the
(43:08):
West reject the idea of eating rats for sustenance. They're
seen mostly as vermins, sometimes as pets, but not as
not as like you wouldn't need to Okay, wait, no,
it's we're towards the end of the week. Oh that's
a weird question, Matt Max. Given the choice you had
to eat one, would you eat an eel pie or
(43:30):
a rat pie? Yeah? I worked in restaurants for like
a decade. I know how disgusting rats are. Like, no,
absolutely not. And I actually had some in a rental
home that I lived in and caught around thirty eight rats,
that's my estimate. But here's my problem, and I think
(43:50):
I may have told this story before. I'm kind of
an idiot. I didn't understand how rats function and how
a depth they were at finding their way back, even
if you take them away a couple of miles. I
think I did not want to kill them. They they
weren't hurting me in any way. It was just gross.
So I would trap them where you know there it's
(44:13):
a live trap where it just closes behind them after
they go for that sweet sweet peanut butter, and I
would take them away. There's a large airport near me,
and I would release them kind of out into the wilds,
out there where there's no civilization, thinking, oh, they'll find
a way to live over here. You know what I
caught thirty eight because I'm pretty sure I caught many
(44:36):
of the same rats, like three or four times. Oh
the rats are going back and they're like, yeah, I
got locked up for a second. But peanut butter. You know, dude,
get the peanut butter. It's so worth it. This guy
gives you peanut butter and he drives you back. You
might be a legends. Glad I moved out. Well, I'm
(45:02):
glad you made it here to Matt, and I'm super
glad you were able to join us on the show today,
ridiculous historians, thank you for tuning in. We want to
hear from you, folks, especially if you've lived in the UK,
you've visited, have you tried eel Pie and mash? Isn't
any good? You know? I think our our crew here
(45:24):
is a little bit um. Collectively, we're a little bit
dubious on whether or not this is worth a shot.
Some people not going to name names on the zoom call,
might play it safe and get some fish and chips,
you know what I mean, And there's nothing wrong with that.
Those are delicious, But let us know what your experiences like.
You can do that on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
(45:45):
I think we may also have our email working Ridiculous
at I heart media dot com. Uh, Matt, it feels
It feels just a tad weird for me to ask
you this, because we do hang out pretty much all
the time. But this is usually the point in the
show where we give our illustrious guests a second to
(46:06):
talk about some of their own upcoming projects or where
people can learn more about their work. Oh well, sure,
of course stuff they don't want you to know. I'm
assuming everybody that listens to this show is aware of
that one, just because you and Noel host this one.
I don't know, maybe not. We talked about you a lot. Okay, cool,
well thanks, Wow weird, no, but stuff that I wanted
(46:29):
you to know. I would highly recommend this brand new
show that our team is making with Tenderfoot TV. It's
called Algorithm. It is out right now. Yeah, you'll be
able to get I think three episodes by the time
you're hearing this fantastic stuff. It's hosted by Ben Kiebrick,
one of the producers on Monster of the Zodiac Killer
and Monster d C Sniper, as well as Camp Hell
(46:51):
and Awaki that's hosted by Josh Stain, another one of
the producers from those Monster series, but this time they
are hosting their own series, both through crime shows, both
compelling as all heck and scary. Highly recommend both, and
if you'd like to hear more about the history, culture,
and strange science of food, do check out our peer
(47:13):
podcast Savor, which is hosted by Andy Reese and Lauren
Vogelbaumb Thanks as always to our super producers Kasey Pegraham
and Max Williams. Over there, who will eat an eel
pie with me? If a rat pi is the only choice?
Thanks to Gabe Louizier, our research associate, Christopher Hasiotis, Eve's
Jeff Coche and of course Jonathan Strickland. I don't know
(47:38):
his position on eel pie, but something tells me we
will learn about it soon. I forgot to do that.
Jonathan Strickland. Jonathan, Nope, that's it. We're going. We're going
see you next time, everybody. For more podcasts for my
(47:58):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio, a Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everyone, Before we get into today's episode, we want
to cite Dr John Wyatt Greenley, who is a world
class authority on not just deals but many things from
the medieval world, and want to cite his work because
he has put a lot of time and research into
(00:22):
the story that we're going to explore today. You can
also find his website, which we mentioned in the episode,
Historia car Tarum dot org if you would like to
learn more about his past, present and future work. Hey,
and as we're going through this episode, we've collected a
bunch of research from a bunch of different outlets, and
(00:43):
what we didn't realize is that much of the writing
that's done on this topic comes directly from the research
that Dr Greenley has performed. And two of the main
articles will be pulling from today are from history extra
dot com. The article is Fishing for Gold, how eels
our the Medieval Economy and another one is on Historia
(01:03):
Carterum dot org and that's the Eel Rents Project. So
once again, thank you so much. The citations are important
and much of what you will hear in today's episode
comes directly from the work of Dr Greenley. Ridiculous History
is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome back to
(01:48):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. We've got our super producers Casey Pagram,
got our super producer Max Williams, live and direct here.
My good Palin co host Noel Brown is on Adventures
will be returning soon. I am Ben, and I am
(02:09):
not going into today's episode alone. Found out that my
very old dear friend, my writer die Matt Frederick himself
is into the concept of this episode. No spoilers yet,
but Matt, there you are. How's it going? Man? Hello back,
(02:32):
Hi everybody? Yes, yeah, can we get around of applause
in there? Max for yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, unnecessary unnecessary?
You know why why not while we're while we're throwing
Max under the under the producer bus, Max, give yourself
a round of applause for that applause to here. I
(03:09):
didn't know. I didn't know you could do that. I
didn't know either, So so Matt, thank you so much
for joining us today. Uh hit you up a little
a little while ago, like yesterday off air and asked
you about your position on eels in general. Right, Yeah,
(03:31):
Ben straight up slapped me in the face. With an
eel right before this with the question that doesn't work?
But yes, yes, this is all coming together very quickly.
But Ben, I have to tell you I couldn't be
more excited to discuss this topic with you today. Yes, yes, Now,
just before the three of us started recording today's episode, Matt,
(03:53):
you had a question for Max. What was that question? Oh? Yes,
how do you feel out sushi in general? That's the
first question? So in general? Yeah, all about it? Totally,
will do it? Okay? Okay? Is that like public sushi?
Is that high end sushi? Any sushi? I don't really
have much standards. I mean I'll eat like other lower
(04:16):
than publics. I don't know how much lower is really
than publics but I'll go there. Okay, I don't care,
got it? You heard that quick trip? Max? Is there
ready for your sushi? Uh? But okay? But what kind
of thing do you order? Is eel on the menu
for you when you get sushi? So it's been a
long time. I mean, look, you know, you go to Kroger,
(04:36):
you go to public, you get like the one that's
been sitting there for a couple of days. I mean
it's usually just like a California roll like that, they
might put something else in there also, like you know,
it's usually just like slim pickings. But if I'm getting
some nice sushi, yeah, I'll give me the weirdest thing
you have. I mean to call back a previous episode.
I mean, I'll do a cricket sushi roll. I'll do it. Yeah, okay, yeah,
(04:58):
dare to dream. I'm on board with this. I think
we're all kind of sushi fans. What about you, Matt,
you are you a sushi guy? But only if it's revolving.
If the sushi is revolving in some way, then I'm down.
If it's just yeah, yeah, if it's just static sushi,
not interested, Yeah yeah, because it's supposed to be fresh,
and what's more fresh than watching it rolled toward you
(05:20):
on a belt? Yeah. We we are big fans of sushi.
I'm also a big fan of Unagi specifically, which is,
you know, the Japanese freshwater eel. And today's episode is
about eels. We got there segue British British eels. Yes,
this ties into a weird dream of mine, an ambition.
(05:43):
I would say that I god, I want to do
at some point in life. But today's episode is also
a weird way about finance. You see, once upon a time,
fellow Ridiculous historians, the British used to pay their not
with money, but with eels, e e l s, eels
(06:05):
and other things like firewood and eggs. So it's it's
really cool. This, this is super cool. It makes me
kind of wish we were still there to an extent,
because I've got lots of just things around the house
I need to get rid of. If I could, if
I could pay rent with kids books, Oh my god. Um,
(06:28):
but yes, that that is what we're discussing today, the
economics of almost it is a barter system or it's uh,
it's so weird to imagine a living and or dead
creature as a piece of currency. Yeah. Yeah. And as
we know, as our fellow listeners of both Ridiculous History
(06:51):
and the show You and I created stuff they want,
you know, are aware, currency has been any number of
bizarre things in the past, from peppercorns two giant rocks.
And while we originally found this via History extra dot com,
it turns out the vast majority of the research in
this episode is the work of one person, Dr John
(07:12):
Wyatt Greenley, who was again the expert on this fascinating story.
I mean, let's look to him for examples. We've got
a cool example to get us into this way. Back
in eleven or some monks at a place called Ramsey
Abbey in Huntingdon's Share and they needed a way across
a local fin f e n. So there was this
(07:34):
landowner whose name was Ralph Tubberville. That's correct. There were
people named Ralph in the eleven hundreds. Uh So, Ralph
had this road and he said, I'm willing to lease
this and it was an elevated causeway. It was pretty
dope as construction went at the time. And so for
the right to use this road, the monks at Ramsey
(07:55):
Abbey said, okay, Ralph, we'll pay you and once a
year we're gonna kind of pay you were rent on
this road. But it's not gonna be in. It's not
gonna be in terms of what we would consider currency today,
was it. No, it would be one thousand eels per annum,
as well as two pounds each of pepper and ginger
(08:17):
and a pair of scarlet trousers that was specifically for
the man of Tuberville. It's just the weirdest attition there.
You know, what were the negotiations, like, you know, did
they start with the eels and then they eventually you know,
they tacked on scarlet trousers, like like seal the deal?
(08:38):
And also how many pairs of red pants do you need? Yeah,
it was Christmas time, and you know they just thought
it would really go with what Ralph had going on
on the upper part of his body. They just thought
the red is just gonna look nice with that green
tunic he had going on. Yeah, Tuberville was all about
the vibe, whether or not he was a clothes horse.
(08:59):
We know that when he passed away. This same abbey
later renegotiated the deal, and Ralph's widow was not as
in the pants as he was. She did not want
anymore scarlet trousers. Instead, she wanted half a mark in coins,
sixty cartloads of firewood. But as Greenley notes, she still
(09:22):
wanted those one thousand eels, which is wild. Do they
get them all at once? Is it? Like? What do
you do with a thousand eels at once? Like even
if you're i mean, if you're one person or a family,
even if you've got twelve kids, a thousand eels there's
not a great way in eleven nine to keep that
stuff good unless you're converting it to fertilize her. Immediately,
(09:48):
it was like eel the bitcoin of its day. You
could convert it to other currencies. I I don't know,
I don't know. Maybe there was a drying technique that
I just don't know about, as salted jelly deel kind
of thing. Well, well, here's the here's the weirdest part.
It was commonplace from like at least the tenth century onward.
(10:08):
People in England, all all across England paid some taxes
in terms of eels. Living eels were dead eels. And
that's because coins were not as common. And as coins
became a little more common, these eel rents did decline,
but they didn't decline for centuries. And this is where
(10:29):
our story takes place, because nowadays, you know, I was
thinking about this guy's During the pandemic, we saw a
lot more people carrying a lot less cash. And do
you guys remember when places like home depot and other
stores literally add signs up about a coin shortage. Did
you guys see any of that? They still have that
in my area. I don't know about you guys. Yeah,
(10:51):
I'm not sure. I haven't been to home depot in
a minute. It probably should be, but yeah, I do
remember that coin shortage completely. Yeah, and there's not enough coin. Well,
in medieval times there also was not enough coin um
and there just wasn't These are precious metals being pressed,
sometimes individually, sometimes in mass, but there aren't that many
(11:13):
coins that are metal going around. So as Dr Greenley
found a lot of places, a lot of landlords would
accept these things that they would call in kind payments
or in kind rent. So it could be eels, it
could be other things. It could be ale, beer, laggers,
those are really popular, eggs, grain, really anything that a
(11:35):
household could make use of. And firewood was also very
very common. That firewood as a whole other episode which
could we could continue into the America's into the times
of you know, the sixteen hundreds and prior to that,
when you could pay all of your rent with firewood
just because of the harshness of the weather and the
(11:57):
winters and the nights. Anyway, we're talking about eels today, Yeah,
we're talking about eels. Eels were not some especially rare
animal at this time. They were in fact incredibly plentiful.
And the lords of England, the rulers at the time,
they wanted their cut, they wanted their vig you know.
(12:17):
So if you look at if you look at the
ten eighties six Domesday Survey, you'll see that they had
more records of rent being paid in eels than they
did of rent being paid in corn. And like, this
was nuts. If you lived in the village of Harmston,
for instance, in Lincolnshire, then your community collectively would oh,
(12:40):
Earl Hugh of Chester seventy five thousand eels per year.
I like the use of per adam though, Matt, that
sounds so much classier. Sure, yes, but listen to this again.
We're talking crazy numbers here. Seventy five dollars to old Earl.
But by the end of the eleventh century there were
(13:01):
more than five hundred and forty thousand eels being paid
as rent in England. Panum. Yeah, so they have see perannum.
It's just smooth. You're smooth guy. So landlords, what did
they do with these eels? Well, they ate some of them.
But it goes back to the earlier question Max, Matt
and I had, which is what you do? What do
(13:23):
you do with all these eels. Dr Greenley explains how
a landlord would kind of cycle these out. So let's
go back to those Ramsey monks. They had tenants, and
their tenants collectively gave them more than seventy thousand eels
every year, and the monks couldn't need all of those.
They were they were probably at some point sick of
(13:46):
eating eel if you can believe it. Max can't believe it.
He's a big old fan. And and uh. And then
what they would do then is they would use the
eels that their tenants gave them as a way to
pay for stuff they needed at the monastery, Like they
seven a thousand eels a year to Ralph and later
as widow. And then they agreed to pay four thousand
(14:09):
eels each spring to peter Brew Abbey for the right
to take stone from a quarry nearby that the abbey controlled,
so eels could be literally money that you eat, which
I feel like, I feel like it's crazy that it
worked that long, because if you could just eat, like,
(14:29):
if you could just eat a green back right now,
the world would be a very different place. That's very true.
And a greenback is oh, you're talking about the paper
slash fabric stuff that we use. This currency, got it
literally eating money? Yeah, I guess that's the same thing.
Well that that this is a good way to get
(14:50):
into talking about something who already brought up. These are
not fresh eels usually usual. These are not the ones
that are coming straight out, and they were just speared.
As Professor Greenley points out, and he's literally the world's
foremost expert on this, it wasn't as if people were
(15:12):
stockpiling massive pools of live eels. These are actually preserved eels.
We we kind of joked about, you know, a drying technique,
but yeah, salt and time and smoking, drying all that
kind of stuff was very common. It was a common
practice to do that to these eels and then trade those.
(15:33):
So you are you actually would have God, I'm imagining
chests in some wealthy landlord's house, just chests of eel
uh that are required. It's like the medieval MTV cribs
where someone's taking a tour of the abbey and then
some guy who was like the celebrity, you know, host
of the abbey is is like, and this is our
(15:55):
eel room. Stacks on stacks on stacks or should we
say sticks on sticks on sticks, because when the eels
were dried and preserved, they were bundled into sticks. That
would be about twenty five eels per stick. So that
was the definition of bawling. How many eel sticks do
you have? You know what I mean? I'm so I'm
so sad that there wasn't some equivalent of poetry or
(16:19):
hip hop bragging about the amount of eels people had.
I wonder if it would hold up. I'd listened, I'd
listened to that mixtape once. Oh dude, yes, that would
be in my car right now. I wonder if they
if they had like quarter sticks. That was a quarter stick. Uh,
and just it's five eels just kind of wrapped up
but some kind of maybe red trousers. I don't know. Um,
(16:42):
it's really weird, man. We know this because there's an
historical record of who paid who what and what that
currency was. And the currency was sticks, right, That's how
you know it's a stick of eel. So um. There's
a quote here from an article on Dr green Mainly's
eel rent project on his website Historia carter Um, where
(17:04):
he walks us through the difficult business of calculating the
worth of an eel x mill owed y abbey z
sticks of eels per year, But really, what what does
that mean? And then there's another thing here when you're
talking about taxes, because you know, in medieval Europe as
everywhere else, you always had to pay the king in
(17:25):
the in that case or the rulers a little bit
of that eel off the top. How much eel did
they get off the top? And how do you figure
that out when you're dealing in sticks of eels. Yeah,
this is actually beyond the capacities of our great inflation calculator.
So we're going to refer to some excellent work by
(17:46):
Historia carter Um. Here we go, when we try to
make an educated guess about how much, you know, cold
hard scratch and eel was actually worth. We could see
that a single translates to about thirty six to seventy
two cents in dollars today, So a stick of eels
(18:09):
would equal something between nine dollars and six cents and
eighteen dollars and eleven cents in the modern day. So
Historia Carterum argues that if we take those two measures
as kind of our spectrum of high and low end
price points. Then we get a window of understanding that
we didn't have otherwise, and that gives us an even
(18:32):
better sense of just how many eels were moving in
this weird dried eel market. So there's a flip side
to this. Let's let's try to think of what what
we in the modern day could use to understand the
value of eels, and Dr Greenley has a great answer
(18:53):
here as well. If you are a friend of Jeff,
which is our euphemism for Amazon Prime subscribers, then you'll
be happy to do well. I don't know if you'll
be happy to know, but if you'll be fun at parties.
When you say an Amazon Prime membership is like what
a hundred nineteen dollars If you paid an eels, that
(19:14):
would only be about a hundred and sixty five to
three hundred and thirty eels, So just six to thirteen sticks. Man,
that's pretty great on a on a yearly basis, that's
not that many eels. I'm just kidding. Imagine how much
how much actual work that would take for an individual
to go out to a river and catch three hundred
(19:36):
and thirty eels, Like that's a lot of days and
hours and just to get your Amazon Prime membership. I
don't know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, you're You're absolutely right, Matt.
It's it's weird because now I'm I'm going to spend
the weekend. I don't know about you guys been to
spend the weekend thinking like how much is this an eels? I'll,
(19:58):
you know, I'll be at the local bookstore or something,
and then yeah, I might try it. I might just
try it, see if I can. I can pay in
a in a stack of eels. That's really I just
see the headline already, like local lind A man arrested
for trying to shove eels down a man's pocket. You
(20:19):
guys don't understand history, he said, So you know what
I just thought of. Guys, let's have we have forgotten
to take into account the smell? We didn't even think
about the smell. Everybody's got eels up in their house
in a chest somewhere on sticks in a room. They're
(20:40):
carrying them around to pay for rent. What is what
is the smell like out there? Success bro money, The
fishy smell of some eels would be a dead giveaway
that the person you were talking to is just bawling
out of control. So uh yeah, well, you know, smells
(21:04):
in general were treated differently on a cultural basis back then. Right,
this is kind of pre deodorant. It does make you
wonder what that did for the I don't know how
to put this lightly, the sex drive of everybody waltson around. Yeah,
that's oh, that's a segue for sure, nicely done, Matt,
because I think the Church comes into play here. You know,
(21:27):
the Church is one of the biggest authority figures at
this time, and they are historically very concerned with sex
and very concerned with lent l e n T. Yes,
it's that lent rent. So we're just gonna be rhyming
all over the place. Yeah. So, so let's talk about
(21:49):
the species of the British river eel. Yes, so um,
most of the eels that end up being used in
this old rent situation are caught in autumn, that's to know, right,
And the reason for that is because there's a yearly
downstream migration. And back to Dr Greenley's article for History
extra fishing for Gold, how eels powered the medieval economy? Okay,
(22:13):
that are that are occurring in autumn? So lots of
them are being caught, but the rent wasn't due until
the start of Lent, so late winter or spring. So
everybody's catching, drying salting, doing whatever they do to those
eels to get them on the sticks. Um. And the
reason why rent was due at this time because there
was during Lent, you were prohibited from eating meat. Okay,
(22:38):
this is very important. So if you cut any fresh eels,
you can't eat them. Got dried eels, They're still good
for eating, but you can't eat them because you're not
allowed to. So the church understood this explicit connection between meat.
They believed there was an explicit connection between eating meat
and um carnetas. No, I'm just showing um the carnal urges. Yeah, yeah, Carnea,
(23:06):
I know. I was just saying, because they're so good,
they're almost sexual. They're so good. You're on the money, man,
you're on the eel money. Because they believe that the church,
that is, believe the eating meat, which they would you know,
define is like be for sheep, etcetera, what have you,
was going to inevitably make a person kind of nusty, right,
(23:29):
kind of amorous? And why is that? Because a creature
that was created va sex would in some way in
in inform your body or I don't know, symbolically make
you get all torned up. That's the concept. Yeah, you're
charged up. It's interesting too because, unless you think we're
(23:53):
picking on Europe too much, the consumption of certain animal
parts across the world has long been believe to increase libido,
you know, like especially eating sexual organs of animals. For
the Church at this time, it was just enough that
the animal was created through good old reproduction. And we
know what you're thinking, Hey, guys, don't fish also reproduce?
(24:19):
Don't they also kind of have a sexual union? Yes,
fish reproduced, But the Catholic Church wasn't worried about that,
probably because they couldn't walk to a nearby field and
just see, you know, I'll say it, eels getting down,
getting skin a max with each other the way they
can see cattle. But think about what an eel looks
like thin, think about the touch of an eel so slippery,
(24:44):
it's so it's so very penis Like I don't know,
just you think it would be the opposite, like, don't
get the eels, don't eat the eels. There's way too
much sexual stuff going on there, But no, it was
it was. It was the opposite of that. Yeah, you
bring up a great point. It is it is sort
(25:04):
of weird for us to look back and say, like, hey,
wasn't that one of the most phallic animals you could
have allowed? But but instead they were They said, no, nope,
it's a lent and even if you're married, you need
to be abstinent for this time. So meat is off
the table because it might make you violate this spiritual system.
(25:26):
Eating fish was thought to not excite the libido in
any way at all, so you could have as much
fish as you wanted. Eels were a great choice because
they were everywhere right in the rivers and the waterways.
And eel pies we're super, super popular. Eel pies are
(25:47):
still a storied, if declining tradition in the UK today,
and that is because virtually every medieval European at the
time believe that these fish reproduced a sexually, and it's
a very very old belief system that dates back to
Aristotle and the somewhat unique life cycle of the eel,
(26:08):
which is ugly. Just for the record, I think they're ugly,
but they probably think we're ugly. Too. Yeah, I'm sure
they would get real, real weirded out by us if
there were just some studying going on. I bet it's
happened in the past. But the reproductive cycle of these
eels really is fascinating. They would go out into the
(26:28):
open Atlantic, the the ocean there, and that is where
they would breed. Then they would migrate to land, and
this is when they're in a very small state as
a fairly new creature. So the young, the young essentially
called Elver's there's a term I did not know e
l V E r s. And they're heading up the river.
(26:50):
Once they find a home that's you know, somewhere amongst
the river. There they stay and then they grow for
over a decade around it decade until they eventually head
back to the sea to get it on and then
send their little young ones back up the river. And
then they die. Oh yeah, they do die after after coitas, no,
(27:15):
just after doing it, after doing it, they die. Uh.
And Aristotle very smart dude, right, he'd never made the
connection between Elver's, this juvenile form, and the growing form
we call eels. So he wrote with a lot of
self assurance that eels springs spontaneously out of the Mud.
(27:38):
And then other writers followed his example and said, that's it.
They come, they come from the Mud. This was so
well established in the European zeitgeist that persisted into at
least the fifteen hundreds, maybe longer. And part of that
was because if you look at an eel before it,
you know, gets to its final form, you wouldn't normally
(28:02):
see sexual organs. They only develop ovaries and testes at
the very very end of their lives, right before they
head out for that fatal romantic encounter on the high seas.
That's how they know. They gotta go like one, Oh
I got sorry, guys, I got balls. Now it's over
for me. That's how that's how it goes. That's so
(28:23):
messed up that that's like their death sentence or their
death cry or I don't know, that's just so weird
or is it awesome. There's a great way to go.
I suppose I like that optimism. Yeah, let's go with that.
And so people were searching for eel ovaries and test
these for centuries. It wasn't just Aristotle. We're not picking
(28:46):
on just one guy. Sigmund Freud also looked and he
couldn't find anything. So because these eels were not seen reproducing,
and because if you searched one of their bodies you
would not see anything that indicated they could reproduce, it's
kind of understandable that they were like, no, I don't know,
there's weird things that come from the mud. They go
to the sea. You can pay rent with them. What's
(29:07):
not to love? Seriously, And it wasn't until seventeen seventy
seven that an Italian dude named Carlo Mondini actually located
and eel Ovary and there was much rejoicing. So everybody
thank that guy because he made an important discovery that
may sound kind of irrelevant today, but it was something
(29:29):
that confused people for a very long time. And Sigmund Freud,
just to clarify, he was specifically looking for eel testes.
He he didn't find them, but so they knew. Just
imagine that. I could just see that just going out
getting another eel, just like holding it up, got a
(29:51):
microscope and he's just like the testes. The test is, yeah,
it's gotta paint, you know U. I imagine I imagine
Sigmund like being disappointed that he's known for his work
in psychology, and he's like, but I'm an eel man.
I'm on the quest for the balls. Psychology is very secondary.
(30:14):
But he would do a Reddit A m A and
people would be asking about Freudian theory, and his response
would be like, hey, guys, can we keep our questions
focused on eel tests? Please? That's right, that's right. Please
save all your questions unless they're about eels. There are
no eel test these they say they reproducing a dream,
(30:37):
a subconscious thought of another eel coming out of them.
You're nailing it. Sorry, it's perfect, it's perfect. I want
to read that Reddit A m A. So, so this
is the thing. Their unique position in religion and culture
of the time helps us understand why pay eel rent
(31:01):
remains such a long lived practice, even after coinage was
a little more common. Most of the other in kind
rents had disappeared by the century or so, but not
eel rent. Landlords continued to collect that from the thirteenth century.
You can see records that show people are paying with
(31:22):
the eel, like more than four hundred and fifty thousand
eels annually, and they were still making new inc and
new deals that we're all in Eel. You're right, we
are accellently rhyming a lot on this. I should tell you, Matt,
I think you missed it. Um, but Max was there
a few episodes ago Nolan got really close to freestyle
and I think, I think, yeah, I think he's gonna
(31:43):
I think I'm gonna get do it. Some finally finally
respond to the culture kings. Shout out to them, Man,
they're good dudes too, and yeah they're and uh, back
to eels. Dr Greenly also has an explanation for the
decline of this practice, the Black Death. Sorry, that's an
(32:08):
unexpected heavy twist, but yeah, the Black Death. Yeah, I
guess it was seen as a little less clean in
a lot of ways. And I can imagine that. Yeah,
it wasn't until after nine. Oh what a great year,
(32:30):
thirty nine. That's when red meat started to become way
more available to people, and you know, I would say
probably became pretty exciting given all the eel consumption over
the centuries. And at the same time, you know, the
population was much lower after Black Death, and that meant
there's way more currency per person out there, you know,
(32:54):
floating around. So you can imagine that the demand for
eels over all began to drop, and around that time
there were only I think around thirty four thousand eels
that were paid that I don't know, how do you
say this eel rent was only paid with thirty four
thousand individuals. I don't know how to say this stuff, guys.
(33:17):
And so we see this precipitous decline four hundred and
fifty thousand eels every year during the thirteenth century or so,
down to just thirty four thousand eels in the game
a little later, and then in the fifteenth century and
the fourteen hundreds we see another huge drop and by
(33:37):
fifteen hundred. By the year fifteen hundred, which is a
good one, but it doesn't stack up the thirteen forty nine.
To Matt's point, by hundred eel rents had mostly disappeared,
but not all the way. Nope, Nope. In the sixteen eighties,
there's this amazing mill in Norfolk that's still rented out
(33:58):
for thirty pounds. That's not all and sixty eels. Oh yeah,
so good luck to you you, Okay, I gotta ask
the question, like, can you like borrow that? He like
discussed that somebody like, hey, so I only got twenty pounds,
but I got like ninety eels with me. It's non
negotiable eels. You just have those exact measurements right there.
(34:23):
That's correct. They don't make eel change either. And like
you can't have sixty one eels because you have to
pay four eel storage when you're there, cost two eels
to store your eels. Right, it is weird sixty eels
because that's two sticks and a portion of another stick. Yeah, weird,
two five of a stick sticks on sticks. Uh. Next,
(34:49):
your questions are so astute that I feel like you've
been in this hustle before. I'm not gonna answer that.
I want to leave you just wondering a little bit.
All right, Okay, I respect, I respect an enigmatic man.
But you make a really great point, Max, Because there
it was this family, the Windham of family. Uh that
sounds so familiar. If you can get off exit eleven
(35:12):
here on Highway four hundred and you'll find Wyndham maybe
it was their family, Oh my god, connecting the dots um.
But they were of Felbrigg Hall and they really did
have a hard time collecting the payments because people weren't
pay and eel rents anymore. Sorry, we don't. We didn't
dry them this past autumn, you know, for Lent the
(35:33):
way we were supposed to because of the whole naughty thing.
But yeah, sorry, we don't have any eels, but we
do have that thirty pounds. So they felt like what
we can say from the Windhams is they felt like,
you know, they didn't want to change the old ways.
It is possible that this was a lent thing l
(35:55):
e n t for them, but it may also be
possible that they were super into eel. Pie is where
I'm gonna diverge just for a second, So I'm just
sending you guys a picture over our zoom call today
about pie mash and eels. Pie Mash and eel shops
have been in London since at least the eighteen hundreds
(36:19):
and they serve stewed or jellied eels. I desperately want
to try it out. What do you do? You guys
want to describe the picture? The second one? I said,
I have these saved on my computer sometimes. Oh man, Ben,
you know, I like recently haven't saying I'll try everything
(36:40):
and I'll try this with you, buddy, But this is
this is disgusting. It's like it looks like ice cream
that went bad and got like gooey on top, and
just Matt take over. The eel isn't the setting part,
(37:00):
it's the jelly. It's the Yeah, it's just so slippery
and it's just so gelatinously and transparent and you can
seal the you can see the eel bits in between
the jelly parts. Yeah, but I do want again, I
do want to point out it comes with sides. Okay,
(37:21):
I don't know why that was the saving gracy. It's
a combo meal. What do the sides look like? Like?
Nothing thus far is really at appetizing. I'm pretty sure
it's just parsley and lemon mashed potatoes. You know what
does the mashed potatoes look like? That you cover it
(37:41):
with the same sauce. Though, I really want to try it,
so sorry guys, folks, ridiculous histories. Please please check out
jelly to eels or let us know if you have
had an experience with them. We'd like to hear your take.
Here's the thing, like you said at you you were
pressed it when you talked about firewood, right payment and
(38:03):
firewood carrying over to the early United States or the colonies.
In the early days of what would become the US,
people also liked old eel pie. They just didn't like
paying eel rent. So today sushi may be the most
common use of eel in the US, Like we talked
about the very top unagi. But if you go back
(38:25):
just a few centuries ago, eel pie was the business.
People were all about it. Yeah, and we got some
great info here from Libby O'Connell who wrote The American Plate,
a culinary history in one hundred bytes, and she's discussing
just how big eel was everywhere Cape Cod. It was huge,
(38:49):
local streams all over the place, and they were so
sought after. Imagine this, you guys. They were using lobsters
as bait to catch the eels. Why, I mean, come on,
you get you're gonna tell me that you well, I
guess imagine jelly to lobster, Like I don't. I don't
(39:09):
think that's much better. So if you're going to prepare
your eels in that way, um, really, you prepare anything
in that way and you lose me. But the thought
of using a lobster to catch an eel just frustrates me.
Man well, you know, back in the day, lobsters didn't
have the same reputation they enjoy in the modern age.
(39:31):
And just to be clear here, that's because they were
served to people, often disadvantaged members of society, in a
really gross preparation. They weren't shelled, people didn't take the
meat out. They crushed it all together and made it
like this kind of gross soupy thing so delicious. Well,
(39:52):
you're fine as long as it's not jelly. Huh yep. Uh.
If it's crunchy, cool cool. If it's slurpy, I like it. Uh. Yes,
So this to turn into a little bit of a
gross food episode for some people, but I I definitely
(40:12):
want to try this. Like you said, eels were a hot,
hot commodity, but something happened. There was a decline in
the supply of eels. They were no longer as plentiful
as they were once upon a time, and this led
to a decline of interest in savory eel pie and
over time, o'caddle notes people in the US started to
(40:36):
move away from eating animals consumed in their natural form, like,
for instance, a lot of us listening to the show
today have never killed a chicken that we ate. We've
never slaughtered a cow or dressed a deer. We've gone
to a grocery store, We've gone to a restaurant or
something like that. So O'Connell argues that maybe that's what happened.
(40:59):
Maybe people got further and further away from the natural
state of the creatures they were consuming. And the Smithsonian
notes that eel has seen a resurgence and popularity driven
by the rise of sushi, but that lack of supply,
that dearth of supply continues to be an obstacle because
(41:19):
today the eel has been classified as endangered on the
International Union for Conservations Red List of Threatened Species because
the seafood supplies run low in Asia. There's also been
more poaching in the US, further depleting regional resources. You know,
that makes a lot of sense if there aren't as
many eel around and people are kind of changing their tastes,
(41:42):
and then eventually the eel, you know, are protected. We're
just not going to be eating him in the same way.
But it does make me sad that there isn't some
even if it's not iel, that there's some kind of
one to one like that that would be valuable enough,
like I can't there can't be a rat infestation in
(42:03):
somebody's rental home and then you take out all the rats,
you get a stick of rats, and then you can
use that to supplement your rent um. I mean you
can imagine it kind of in the way like a
pest control service would cost x amount of money. So
you may be able to work that in if you're good,
if you're a good negotiator. But it's not the same
(42:23):
thing as having a stick of eels. Yeah. Yeah, we
would need a perfect storm of economic factors to make
to create an animal that could be used as a
widespread regional currency. Right, we would need cultural Moray's that
not more a deels. There we go. We would need
(42:45):
we would need yes, we need cultural more ales. Uh,
we'd need some authority figures saying that there was some
necessity behind the food stuff. And then we would also
need uh for we would need for people to not
reject idea of eating it, and would also need to
be plentiful. Rats are plentiful, but people generally in the
(43:08):
West reject the idea of eating rats for sustenance. They're
seen mostly as vermins, sometimes as pets, but not as
not as like you wouldn't need to Okay, wait, no,
it's we're towards the end of the week. Oh that's
a weird question, Matt Max. Given the choice you had
to eat one, would you eat an eel pie or
(43:30):
a rat pie? Yeah? I worked in restaurants for like
a decade. I know how disgusting rats are. Like, no,
absolutely not. And I actually had some in a rental
home that I lived in and caught around thirty eight rats,
that's my estimate. But here's my problem, and I think
(43:50):
I may have told this story before. I'm kind of
an idiot. I didn't understand how rats function and how
a depth they were at finding their way back, even
if you take them away a couple of miles. I
think I did not want to kill them. They they
weren't hurting me in any way. It was just gross.
So I would trap them where you know there it's
(44:13):
a live trap where it just closes behind them after
they go for that sweet sweet peanut butter, and I
would take them away. There's a large airport near me,
and I would release them kind of out into the wilds,
out there where there's no civilization, thinking, oh, they'll find
a way to live over here. You know what I
caught thirty eight because I'm pretty sure I caught many
(44:36):
of the same rats, like three or four times. Oh
the rats are going back and they're like, yeah, I
got locked up for a second. But peanut butter. You know, dude,
get the peanut butter. It's so worth it. This guy
gives you peanut butter and he drives you back. You
might be a legends. Glad I moved out. Well, I'm
(45:02):
glad you made it here to Matt, and I'm super
glad you were able to join us on the show today,
ridiculous historians, thank you for tuning in. We want to
hear from you, folks, especially if you've lived in the UK,
you've visited, have you tried eel Pie and mash? Isn't
any good? You know? I think our our crew here
(45:24):
is a little bit um. Collectively, we're a little bit
dubious on whether or not this is worth a shot.
Some people not going to name names on the zoom call,
might play it safe and get some fish and chips,
you know what I mean, And there's nothing wrong with that.
Those are delicious, But let us know what your experiences like.
You can do that on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
(45:45):
I think we may also have our email working Ridiculous
at I heart media dot com. Uh, Matt, it feels
It feels just a tad weird for me to ask
you this, because we do hang out pretty much all
the time. But this is usually the point in the
show where we give our illustrious guests a second to
(46:06):
talk about some of their own upcoming projects or where
people can learn more about their work. Oh well, sure,
of course stuff they don't want you to know. I'm
assuming everybody that listens to this show is aware of
that one, just because you and Noel host this one.
I don't know, maybe not. We talked about you a lot. Okay, cool,
well thanks, Wow weird, no, but stuff that I wanted
(46:29):
you to know. I would highly recommend this brand new
show that our team is making with Tenderfoot TV. It's
called Algorithm. It is out right now. Yeah, you'll be
able to get I think three episodes by the time
you're hearing this fantastic stuff. It's hosted by Ben Kiebrick,
one of the producers on Monster of the Zodiac Killer
and Monster d C Sniper, as well as Camp Hell
(46:51):
and Awaki that's hosted by Josh Stain, another one of
the producers from those Monster series, but this time they
are hosting their own series, both through crime shows, both
compelling as all heck and scary. Highly recommend both, and
if you'd like to hear more about the history, culture,
and strange science of food, do check out our peer
(47:13):
podcast Savor, which is hosted by Andy Reese and Lauren
Vogelbaumb Thanks as always to our super producers Kasey Pegraham
and Max Williams. Over there, who will eat an eel
pie with me? If a rat pi is the only choice?
Thanks to Gabe Louizier, our research associate, Christopher Hasiotis, Eve's
Jeff Coche and of course Jonathan Strickland. I don't know
(47:38):
his position on eel pie, but something tells me we
will learn about it soon. I forgot to do that.
Jonathan Strickland. Jonathan, Nope, that's it. We're going. We're going
see you next time, everybody. For more podcasts for my
(47:58):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio, a Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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