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Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVa: Subsistence and a Little More

How to save in middle ages?

“Some amount of moveable property might be worth keeping safe as security against catastrophe or as a supply for payments – fabric was a good option for this, being immediately useful, valuable and portable – but there were sharp limits to this too. Of course the primary production of the farm – food, mostly in grains – doesn’t keep forever. There was no way to, for instance, stockpile enough grain ‘to retire on’ because grain spoils, it gets eaten by pests and so on. As noted, fabric is a little better for value preservation, but only a little and once you have a lot of it, it ends up being exposed to the same theft-or-taxation risks as money.”

https://acoup.blog/2025/08/22/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-iva-subsistence-and-a-little-more/

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