For much of its early history, Ireland’s situation was not very
different than that of many of the African societies we looked at in
the end of the last chapter. It was a human economy perched
uncomfortably on the fringe of an expanding commercial one.
What’s more, at certain periods there was a very lively slave trade.
As one historian put it, “Ireland has no mineral wealth, and foreign
luxury goods could be bought by Irish kings mainly for two export
goods, cattle and people.”14 Hardly surprising, perhaps, that cattle
and people were the two major denominations of the currency. Still,
by the time our earliest records kick in, around 600AD, the slave
trade appears to have died o , and slavery itself was a waning
institution, coming under severe disapproval from the Church.15
Why, then, were cumal still being used as units of account, to tally
up debts that were actually paid out in cows, in cups and brooches
and other objects made of silver, or, in the case of minor
transactions, sacks of wheat or oats? And there’s an even more
obvious question: Why women? There were plenty of male slaves in
early Ireland, yet no one seems ever to have used them as money.
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FarraigePlaisteaċ (sé/é)
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Agrajag
BrikoX
This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥
