Tally stick
A tally stick, also called notch floor, Zählholz or Zählstab, is a prehistoric and medieval count list; it served mostly to document bilateral obligations forgery.
A suitable elongated slats or a stick was marked with symbols. Then the stick was split lengthwise, so that debtors and creditors were documented each half of the incised mark on their floor half. Reassembled showed unequivocally whether the two halves belong together or whether one half was subsequently manipulated. Besides wood were, for example, bone, and this probably since the Paleolithic ( Ishango bone ) used.
At a certain date ( payday ) the notched wood was presented, compared with the counterpart and asked the debtor to pay.
Cultural History
From this counting and accounting technology is still in use today saying " something to answer for have " her forwards. It means in the real sense " debt have " and transferred as much as " they are guilty ."
At the time of the Middle Ages in a largely illiterate and münzarmen Europe notch floor from the 10th to 12th centuries was common. The notched stick was in medieval courts as evidence. Still, the Napoleonic Code mentions the notched stick as a debt instrument in the 1333 Art in the Alpine countries of the notch floor still in the 20th century has been -. Uses - especially in the alpine and alpine farming.
The origin of this technique remains dark. Prehistoric artifacts that resemble the notched stick, as the Ishango bones were 20,000 years before the development of writing and number in use. Herodotus reports already of knotted cords ( a similar technique, still preserved in the rosary ) and was used by the Incas probably (also) used as an accounting system; Pliny the Elder describes the most appropriate wood for notched sticks, and Marco Polo mentioned the use of the notched stick in Imperial China in his travelogue ( "Il Milione "). So-called messenger sticks were known in various cultures. Some evidence suggests that the split notch floor came from the Danube region to Central Europe.
Not only monetary obligations were held by the notched stick. In the agriculture and livestock sector notched stick used to document payable in kind ( for example, how much head of cattle were entrusted to a shepherd ); Merchants served the notched stick as a storage document; Landowners and communities managed using the notched stick their tax debts; for village obligations as night fire stations or control special rights (water rights ) was used the notched stick. In 17th century England the royal notched sticks circulated ( claims on the crown) as "Securities" - in part with a significant discount from face value.
At the founding of the Bank of England in 1696 were notched sticks ( tallies; see Tally, Hand Counter and Tally ) of the king in part be inserted as capital. The Bank of England has worked until 1826 with notched wood.
In England it was common until the 19th century to issue tax receipts in the form of notched wood ( exchequer tallies ). In 1834, this ancient method was finally abolished by a tax reform. A huge number of notch woods had become superfluous, and on October 16, 1834 the decision was made negligently, they burn in the courtyard of the parliament building Palace of Westminster, which was then detected even by the flames and largely burned down.
Traditional use
- Bills
- Liabilities in a commercial
- Tax receipts ( " exchequer tallies " )
- Catch ( eg herring ) the fishing communities (eg, Hiddensee )
- Won or lost pieces of money at cards
- Bought bread at the bakery
- Water rights to irrigation channels in the Valais ( Switzerland ), here are the notch woods " Tässel " called
- Payment of day laborers, oblique notch = half a day, just notch = a whole day's work
In mining notch woods came in earlier centuries used to document inter alia, the daily production, the sale of minerals extracted or wage payments. For example, saw the draft mining order for the Saxon mining district Berggießhübel end of the 15th century that two trusted men " ... cut to ire kerbholczer and so mergkn as vil Auss iczlicher dug komen is. " To capture the flow rates notches From the cutting of the notch wood, the mining term gating derived.