Although ownership of slaves represented wealth in
slave-holding societies and slaves were popular subjects for barter, ancient
Ireland made slave girls, called kumals or ancillae, a unit of
account for measuring the values of goods and services. A legendary king in
ancient Irish literature owned a chessboard, and each chess piece was said to
equal 6 kumals in value. Queen Maeve, a figure in an epic poem dating from
before the Christian era, boasted of a chariot worth thrice seven bondsmaids.
During the fifth century in Ireland, St. Patrick wrote in his
Confessions: “You know how much I have paid out to those who were judges
in all the regions, which I have often visited; for I think that I have given
away to them not less than the price of fifteen humans” (Einzig, 1966). The
wording suggests that St. Patrick did not pay in slaves, but was using slaves as
a standard of value for reckoning what he did pay. St. Patrick would not have
used slaves as a means of payment. Under his guidance the Hiberian Synod decreed
that retribution for the murder of a bishop or high prince demanded either
crucifixion or payment of seven ancillae. The decree also required that if blood
money was paid in specie, one-third must be in silver, a clear indication that
ancillae were only a unit of account, and not a tangible means of payment.
Probably the second century a.d. saw the kumal
transformed into an abstract unit of account. The laws under King Fegus, king of
Uldah, required a blood money payment of “seven kumals of silver” and “seven
kumals of land” for the murder of anyone under the king’s protection. These laws
clearly show that land and silver were mediums of exchange, and kumals were only
a unit of account. These laws were set forth in two legal texts, the Senchus
Mor and the Book of Aicill, both of which contained a table legally
sanctioning the kumal standard. According to this table:
- 8 wheat-grains = 1 pinginn of silver
- 3 pinginns = 1 screpall
- 3 screpalls = 1 sheep
- 4 sheep = 1 heifer
- 6 heifers = 1 cow
- 3 cows = 1 kumal
The example of slave-girl money in Ireland brings to the forefront four
separate functions of money. Money serves as a medium of exchange, a store of
wealth, a unit of account or measure of value, and a standard of deferred
payment. The slave-girl money evolved into a unit of account only, while the
other roles of money were filled by various commodities, land, and precious
metals.
The origin of the social acceptance of the use of kumals as a medium of
exchange may have stemmed from the prestige conferred by slave ownership. Also,
slaves may have been regarded as the rightful spoils of war, and warriors
capturing more slaves than they could employ were free to trade them for land,
livestock, and goods and services that they needed. Perhaps the spread of
Christianity in Ireland and the concept of Christian love helped liberate
Ireland from the base practice of actually exchanging human beings in trade,
making kumals less acceptable as a medium of exchange, but still sanctioned by
tradition as a unit of account.
See also:
References:
Einzig, Paul. 1966. Primitive Money.
Nolan, Patrick. 1926. A Monetary History of Ireland.
Powell, T. G. E. 1985. The Celts. New ed.
