Tally sticks as media of knowledge in the contexts of medieval economic and administrative histor

From Firenze University Press Book: The knowledge economy: innovation, productivity and economic growth, 13th to 18th century

Tanja Skambraks, Universität Mannheim

Tally sticks worked as ubiquitous stores of numerical knowledge and tools of accounting and administration in medieval Europe. Previous research emphasized both the potential and value of the wooden notched sticks not only for the social and economic history of the Middle Ages, but also for the history of writing, intellectual history. This article combines the analysis of archival objects and written sources from England and Germany analysing their various contexts of use. These involve the centralised, highly professional and ritualised tax accounting at the English Exchequer, husbandry and agriculture, consumer taxation as well as public credit and circulating money-substitutes. Furthermore tallies were often used as evidence in court and functioned alongside written administration.

This paper will present and discuss tally sticks as ubiquitously used objects that played a vital role in medieval and early modern book-keeping, in the administration of goods in trade and agriculture as well as for the public financial sector of some medieval societies. These objects have a very long history as means of quantification, counting and accounting. They were stores of operational knowledge necessary in all spheres of economic life. Furthermore, their long-lasting role as proofs in court highlights their perception as wooden charters — a function that can be traced up to the Code Civil from beginning of the nineteenth century. Tally sticks are modest-looking objects: wooden sticks of varying length carved in different ways and manners. As mentioned, they were used in a wide field of contexts, from agriculture, demesne production and consumption, to the Hanse trade and the tax collection of the English Royal Exchequer. The first part of this article will discuss some of the specific formal features and the production of those objects. The second part will deal with the functions of tallies in several contexts, linking them to the general themes of this conference asking: how was essential numerical knowledge stored, inscribed and administered? And how did tally sticks work as basic instruments of counting, as wooden charters, as receipts of taxes collected by English sheriffs and as an alternative currency in England? Thirdly, the paper will analyze the relationship between written sources and the objects asking in what ways these two means of documentation and storage of knowledge corresponded and interacted. Obviously, the topic of knowledge and economic productivity will not be approached from the perspective of a history of ideas and concepts, but rather from the perspective of material culture and the practices linked to it. Thus, the paper will contribute to the more general question, how innovations and/or respectively long-term techniques of documentation fostered effectiveness in administration and economic productivity.

DOI: 10.36253/979–12–215–0092–9.09

Read Full Text: https://books.fupress.it/chapter/tally-sticks-as-media-of-knowledge-in-the-contexts-of-medieval-economic-and-administrative-histor/13605