Honey was used as payment of
dues and taxes. In Medieval Wales, honey was a common payment for rent. “After
Muslin Arabs conquered Spain in 711 AD, a list of dues payable in Murcia
includes honey, wax and slaves paid half as much as other” (Crane 1999, 490).
Around the same time in Ireland ,
if a bee stung a man, the owner of the bee had to give him, “a man’s full meal
of honey”. (Crane 1999, p490) In England ,
under the law of King Ine of Wessex ,
the annual rent for ten hides of land was ten vats of honey. One hide of land
would support a free family and its dependents.
Charlemagne refers to dues
paid in mead, wax, and honey in his Capitulaire de Villis. In Poland ,
serfs who owned hives had to pay dues. Owners of upright log hives paid in
liquid honey. Those who owned horizontal log hives paid in comb honey. The
Domesday Book, compiled between 1087 and 1187, has many references to dues paid
in honey, but not wax. This suggests that the dues were of a pre-Christian
origin, as wax was required by the Church to make candles. (Fraser 1958, 21)
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