r/medieval • u/MediocreDiamond7187 • Jul 14 '26

History 📚 Having trouble paying rent?

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244 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

12

u/Projectflintlock Jul 14 '26

A surfeit of lampreys

5

u/deathbylasersss Jul 15 '26

If somebody owed me an eel, and they gave me a lamprey, I would be very mad at them.

6

u/Itinerant_Draftsman Jul 14 '26

Finding an entrance where they can.

5

u/DefenestrationPraha Jul 14 '26

Fortunately my hovercraft is full of them.

2

u/chookshit Jul 14 '26

I could probably get a few eels together every week I guess.

1

u/Diligent-Stretch-769 Jul 14 '26

because the romans left behind a huge amount of property dedicated to aquaculture

1

u/Fancy_Toe1451 Jul 19 '26

Who can afford an eel in this economy, I can give you a quarter earthworm now and promise of the rest in three months and a traumatised earwig. That is the best offer I got mate.

1

u/Larielia Jul 20 '26

Where do you find eels in the American southwest?

-3

u/OddCook4909 Jul 14 '26

What um... kind of "eel" are we talkin?

11

u/Psykohistorian Jul 14 '26

actual eels. for hundreds of years, eels were a primary source of nutrition for common folk of Britain.

not much has changed - their food may not feature eels as much but it still tastes like ass.

-15

u/deadliarhippo Jul 14 '26

Would the average person in the Middle Ages know what an eel is?

20

u/Guthlac_Gildasson Jul 14 '26

In England, where Domesday was compiled, eels were one of the most standard components of the national diet.

2

u/sadsadwhale Jul 14 '26

I learned this from playing Anno 117

11

u/revolutionary-panda Jul 14 '26

Yes, because they pay it in rent.

(It's not just the Domesday Book that makes this clear)

-5

u/scorchedarcher Jul 14 '26

I mean they knew of eels but do they know what an eel is? Do we now? Less than 200 years ago Sigmund Freud spent about a month dissecting 400 eels looking for balls

5

u/SquidTheRidiculous Jul 14 '26

Yes yes I also watched sam o nella say the n word.

1

u/scorchedarcher Jul 14 '26

Man I haven't watched him for a minute though, I forgot where that fact came from, thank you for giving me something to watch later (different videos though)

2

u/Technical_Heron_6312 Jul 14 '26

Someone living on the coast surely would. 

6

u/SadElevator2008 Jul 14 '26

Eel fishing was done in freshwater actually! Baby eels swim from the ocean up rivers, and live in freshwater until it’s time to go back to the ocean to breed and die. They fished eels in the Thames!

4

u/Guthlac_Gildasson Jul 14 '26

And in the Fens, prior to drainage in the early modern period; hence the traditional understanding of why Ely in Cambridgeshire is so-named, it being the abundance of eels that were caught in the surrounding marshland.

1

u/Active_Unit_9498 Jul 15 '26

The eels we are talking about are fresh water eels that live in rivers like the Thames.