Le bâton de comptage, un moyen de paiement oublié et pourtant officiel jusquen 2016 en France !

Hi, it’s Martouf. So today I’m going to talk to you about a way to payment that was quite extraordinary and almost disappeared memories. It’s not that old, though. this is the tally stick, a a piece of wood, but it’s got plenty of of extraordinary properties that I is going to talk to you now. For me it’s much more reliable than anything crypto-currency. We haven’t done better since long, tamper-proof and also terms of etymology (which are related to the origin of the words) is incredible on used a lot and then forgot that it comes from there and then we’ll see how it’s used. concretely. So here we go. [Music playing] So here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to make an example how to use a tally stick In fact, I’m gonna set an example for you. with the bakery.

We’re gonna figure out that 00:53 - I have an account to buy bread at the size in a bakery, so this what we call size is effectively with this tally stick so here I have the stump that’s going to be used for register my account in the bakery is here I have what we have call the sample I’m going to use wallet so here I am, showing up with this at the bakery and I say: Good morning, madam. baker, could I have a good kilo of bread I get my kilo of bread and then we’re going to record this transaction so both of them take out their piece of tally stick. Indeed they coincidentally, they have the same mark here as I did some pyrography, but then this… matches and then you can see that he’s easy to make a small notch so if I find my knife somewhere …and there at the bottom of the pocket… Maybe not quite enough for that… Nice Swiss Army knife! Here we go, we add a notch and if clac clac clac clac clac and then it’s good and so here I have several nicks that have already been done but then we added a new notch.

It indicates to 02:03 - each proof of purchase and the transaction, so that’s the account side. and that’s the sample side of the the person’s wallet. Regularly we balance the accounts because that we register and debts to each other with the others and from time to time we releases those debts we turn them off. So this is the principle of the tally stick so here I have little notches. They can be used for different things because there are different uses tally sticks. Nowadays it’s almost gone.

It still exists 02:35 - two three ways that are almost a not very folkloric, especially in the bisses in Valais. So it’s to be able to manage the aqueducts, water supply, actually, we’ve been doing little canals all over the place. a whole mountain and in the bisses it’s still very common to have land that needs to be irrigated. they actually have water rights that are tied to the land and each family has a family trademark and is entitled to a certain amount of water, and they’re indicates on sticks like this, so it’s a contract in which we memorize that such and such a family is entitled to maybe half an hour a day on a a quarter of a leap. The durations are indicated with symbols that are different.

03:14 - I’ve also had fun doing other tally sticks. I’ve been having a lot of fun with all of this is. super simple to do. We’ll see everything at the hour how it’s made by example I’m trying to find the mark here with the two circles with the mark and the two circles so they’re gonna tac set here’s my stick is full I can check is actually there there are cuts that are different so I have made this cut with my little Swiss Army knife, so it works here tac tac tac. here I made straight cuts, so… That could be one, one unit. and abducted like this tock this could be a dozen or so, and then you can make larger species of niche markets, and this is a lot of hundreds with that could represent several hundred thousand so maybe it’s pretty convenient So this is a tally stick. Well, you’d think at the grocery store they have multiple accounts with each times a brand of different families so the family the gap and the future we is here we have the sample that match that can find them so it looks a lot like the system participatory grocery store in which I am each counting groceries except no does so by computer with the Epicerio software and we all have a account I’m number 166 Well, this is the brand that match we could have also put a number on it with a register of some leaves, and there it was.

04:43 - very particular use now we always use the same principle so I’m gonna charge my account regularly by making a transfer bank on it and then over there they are exchanged with coins. of the confederation, pieces of official currency, that sort of thing. So there’s also another use which is still relevant today is the the cows in the mountain pastures so here I am in the Swiss Alps so it’s also still using a little little therefore let’s say I have my cows that I bring in… high up in the mountains so we make a stick with the sharecropper. I am the owner of which I this part here.

I got the knife by the 05:22 - sleeve and then here we’re going to make a check mark for every single one of my cows so if I put three cows in the pasture… I’m gonna have three notches like that on my stick and then when there’s the thirst quenching in autumn I hope to recover as much cows than what I’ve brought to the mountain pasture would still be nice. But It’s not just that, because it’s also useful. especially the amount of cheese that I can get back. Because cows they recognize themselves well. They have a necklace with their name on it and everything, but… the amount of cheese is more interesting so here it is important to know that even so, in order to a large 40 kg grindstone of Gruyère cheese he takes 100 cows so it takes about a hundred cows to a day at the mountain pasture. We do everything the summer and then we’re going back down the cheeses and then the owner he would like to recover the amount of cheese that corresponds to the number of cows he brought in. His contribution so that’s a way that’s great. interesting and is super simple something that has worked for centuries and we’ve kind of forgotten about it! I have.

06:19 - I’m surprised we’ve forgotten so much, so… that it’s something that’s much more recent that the little shells that economists love to talk to us. It’s a… maybe it’s not the same thing as the tokens of value but that it is a currency that depends on a community. We’re getting of the mutual recognition of mutual acknowledgements of debt each other then it also happens to be interesting because it’s got value finally it’s a IOU so at one point in time given I know that this person who has the sample must give 3 to the person who has a so “the stock” is what we call the stock because it’s a tree have tucked up one end and it doesn’t remind you something in words? “ Souche.” that’s interesting because the word “ stock”” here it is also used for checkbooks. A checkbook you make a stock. and you take the check out. Well, yeah, here it comes.

07:09 - the “ stock” and then when you want to remove something from an account we “debit” a account. “Debit” is a word that is used to chop wood. We cut drink and then we debit an account we make a notch here. So it’s coming also from there “debit an account” is making a notch on a stick of counting. They’re very pretty. looking at the beautiful stumps I made… then it turns out that the word stem in English it’s called “stock.” “stocks” ah… interesting and so worth one stump. There we have a recognition of debt of 12. Since there’s a small “V” of 10 and two notches makes twelve, so that makes is worth 12 so I can use it as means of paying for this thing. Maybe it’s… to do a stump deal, it could… be interesting to exchange stocks How do you say it in English? “stock exchange.” “stock market” Oh, yeah, I might have had options. on it. Stock options! But this is…

08:14 - awesome effectively “stock exchange” in English it’s the stock market so yes, the tally sticks are the origin of all these words “debited” “stock exchange” stores the strain on its own and you can forgot about them. But it’s true that in the Anglo-Saxon world it was very used until the 19th century and there by example there was a time when people who said you know your bad checks right now I like it. not so much anymore. I’m just… want gold I want money I want bank notes they had actually set up the bank England’s central office, of which they had more than too eager for people to do without the IOUs between them they were also contracts, so to a at some point the kings had also understood that it was an advantage for them because, for example, they were doing pay the taxes and then he’d put a marks the official who came after It’s okay. You got a brand. You got a brand. paid the taxes and that he exchanges them and then again afterwards because this thing’s worth marc it’s a means of payment i sold for example for a little more dear to my neighbor who hasn’t yet paid his taxes, but this way there’s proof that he paid his taxes and these things have to be kings. and are said good we do a little bit more.

09:21 - him who apparently there’s a deal and and then we can trade and then have a little bit more of this money plate of the time in fact, but on the other hand the merchants who set up the bank central well it bothers them a little bit still because then they have could have bounced the bad checks, so to at some point they’re empty that definitively had to move on to another system they’ve got the site burning all the sticks. of counting therefore at the palace of Westminster there is parliament in England they made a big fire in the big furnace they had and the fire was so big that in 1834 the counting-stick oven has put fire in parliament and it is there that the Westminster parliament burned down in 1834. because of the tally sticks I think it’s the curse. of the tallying stick who take revenge because this is a system that is really exceptional and we’re trying to make it iron out so that’s why I’m bringing it up. again, and it turns out that this way accounting official was very still for a long time an official means of which the Napoleonic code was the article 1333 and that article said that the size a formal means of accounting of course the Napoleonic code has been translated into the French civil code in the Belgian Civil Code and that was still very long is that there’s saying it, and…

10:41 - three years it will be to verify that the size and the tally stick has been removed two of the means of accounting official so there are still people who know what it is again, and I think that maybe the bankers do. no advantage debts irrelevant in the same community so it’s not too much to their advantage then it turns out it’s hyper simple to make, so it took me about about ten minutes knowing that I’m going to be had never done before I did this, too. It was the same thing, so… the tools to do that are in all places a little bit of the time as with the chickens is back here It’s a piece of a hazelnut tree. There’s some. full here that grows all by itself in this mountain pasture we have to cut them all off time here small incisions at the si I didn’t do it with a knife. It’s just… to separate the stock portion of the sample part and then is only half 1, so we need to get not all cut and run and then after here it’s much easier to play took out the ax it’s very easy, you just have to do a and all the people who already have makes kindling, but we hit it like this.

11:57 - tak tak and it just opens the thing It separates on its own. It’s magic. We’re doesn’t have to do much that’s the thing that works and I had never done before is simple so here’s my invitation to give it a try and then, well, just like that. when the power goes out. that we’ll have more bank accounts of a month we’ll still have a way easy to recognize of letters between us to make accounts in all businesses and then to have enough to survive in a community to have something average super simple, so that’s what it was all about. tally stick part and if you want you can still see all my others history of money videos we may learn a lot from things because there’s a lot of stuff unknown as his tallying sticks and his so just keep an open mind and at the next attention the chickens [Music playing] .