money was employed almost exclusively for social purposes: gifts; fees to craftsmen, doctors, poets, judges, and entertainers; various feudal payments (lords gave gifts of cattle to clients who then had to regularly supply them with food). The authors of the law codes didn’t even know how to put a price on most goods of ordinary use—pitchers, pillows, chisels, slabs of bacon, and the like; no one seems ever to have paid money for them.17 Food was shared in families or delivered to feudal superiors, who laid it out in sumptuous feasts for friends, rivals, and retainers. Anyone needing a tool or
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In mediaeval ireland
