Lent begins this week. And if you're a medieval English abbot that means one thing: eel-rents! At the start of Lent tenants all over England came to pay their yearly rent in eels. Hundreds of thousands of eels. But how? Why? Well...it's about sex & availability, you see. 1/7 🧪🗃️ - ThreadSky

greenleejw.bsky.social • 414 days ago

Lent begins this week. And if you're a medieval English abbot that means one thing: eel-rents!

At the start of Lent tenants all over England came to pay their yearly rent in eels. Hundreds of thousands of eels.

But how? Why?

Well...it's about sex & availability, you see. 1/7
🧪🗃️

Comments

weregeek.bsky.social•414 days ago

Since Easter and Lent move around a bit on the calendar, would there be a time if Lent started earlier or later when it would be harder for tenants to come by their eel-rent?

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

Likely not. Most of the eels were caught in the fall, between Sept and Nov, and then salted and smoked in a process that took several months. So the variability of Easter shouldn’t have mattered to much

coriolusn.bsky.social•414 days ago

So all the fights that people had in the middle ages about how to set the date of Easter were *not* eel-related? Hard to believe, but I guess you are the expert.

weregeek.bsky.social•414 days ago

I wondered whether they were preserved and saved for making rent. Thanks!

maviscruet.bsky.social•414 days ago

Causing a religious schism so we can go back to the Julian Calendar for Easter just so we can harvest more eels to pay the landlords!

lizardperson.bsky.social•412 days ago

Superb! worth the lurk hereabouts.

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

Firstly...yes. People paid their rent in eels. These were mostly cold smoked eels, caught in the fall & preserved over several months.

At the start of the 12th C. there were more than 540,000 of these eels being paid in rent each year in England. 2/7

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

I mean...think about that. More than 1/2 million eels a year! And that was just the tax on the catch. Eels were a huge part of regional economies.

At a time when there was little hard currency, but folks had a lot of eels, it made sense for monks to take the fish as payment. 3/7

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

"But wait!" you say. "I was promised sex!"

Right. So, during Lent you were supposed to avoid impure thoughts. But eating flesh meat -- beef, pork, etc -- was supposed to make you think of sex. Because it came from animals that reproduced sexually.

Carne --> carnal thoughts. 4/7

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

But fish were OK. They don't usually have obvious sex, and so their meat doesn't bring sex to mind.

But eels? Medieval people thought eels were asexual, & generated spontaneously. This idea went back at least to Aristotle.

And it made eels seem like just the thing for Lent! 5/7

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

That may sound nuts, but eels only breed far out at sea, & for almost their lives they have no discernible reproductive organs. It wasn't until the 18th C. that anyone was able to find sex organs in an eel.

So eel asexual reproduction isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. 6/7

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

So. You're an abbot in medieval England, & Lent rolls around. Your peasants don't have money, but they've got eels. You can't eat beef, but you can eat eels.

So you collect eel-rents, and spend the next 40 days eating eel & thinking pure, no-sex thoughts.

Like a winner. /fin

555tee.bsky.social•414 days ago

I see what you did there.

alpacawhacka.bsky.social•414 days ago

Yulantha: "My cowbell brings all the boys to the yard!"

maviscruet.bsky.social•414 days ago

I'd never betray Yulantha. I couldn't bear to see the pain in those big warm brown eyes.

greenleejw.bsky.social•414 days ago

She appreciates you

desp.bsky.social•414 days ago

Eels causing me to think about sex by making me think about not thinking about it.

mpbreen21.bsky.social•414 days ago

I’ve always wondered why some Cathars were willing to eat eels (to the point where medieval inquisitors were very curious about people’s eel eating habits). This would explain it, I think.