Ancient and Medieval Economy

>>2103817
>Weren't the peasants taxed produce like grain and they paid that to live on land? How did they even make money from this?

They made more produce than was taxed, and they ate it. Making money wasn't the goal, there wasn't much to buy yet.

Economics as a field didn't even exist until after the medieval period was over.

>>2103827
I meant more like how did the Ruling class make money for it to develop infrastructure, pay armies, become patrons to artists

That sorta stuff

>>2103869
The taxed grain was sold for money

>>2103869
The ruling class made money by taxing the peasants, gathering natural resources, and trading.

But, again, there was not much to buy yet. In the medieval proper, they "paid" for armies by the fact that those men couldn't work the fields anymore. There was a lot of tension around this, because the local nobility wanted the men to be farming, so as a campaign went on, more and more nobles would peel off and go home with their men.

It helps to forget most of what you know about economies. Most people didn't 'have jobs' and 'make money'. They 'were someone's man', meaning they were loyal, did what they were told, and got room and board.

>>2103817
Pretty simple, it was a mix of feudalism, agrarian and market towns. There was no income tax or anything for the vast majority of people, just expected to provide their lords with services and tax on goods produced in exchange for land. Landowners collected a percentage of of farming produce the peasants made, vassals also had to provide services for their lords such as farming the lord's fields as well as their own. Towns were slightly different as they could collect a toll at gatehouses and harbours into the town.

Taxes didn't need to be all that efficient anyway, the only two big things the state funded were security (guards, castles, etc) and infrastructure (roads, harbours, etc). There was no welfare, education or mass immigration to pay for back then.

>>2103869
By selling their crops in the market towns. Lords give peasants land, the peasants give the lords crops, the lords sell the crops in town, the townies make shit the lords want, the lords buys the shit and go back to the estates to get more crops to etc, etc, etc.

Anybody perhaps know the worth of an 'Asper'. It's an old currency but I can't find the worth of it anywhere.

>>2103817
>Did anybody ever get tax exemptions?
Generally the clergy.
Why? Because their support is very valuable to the ruler. It helps with legitimacy.

>>2103869
You have a really, really big question and it's hard to give generalizations as there was tremendous change across the approximately 600 years of the period.

Posts like >>2103884 - forget what you know about modern economics. Today's societies are different in that they're groupings of specialists.

Generally speaking pre-modern societies are very "self-help" - if you were a peasant and needed a new set of shoes, you went out and made them yourself. Alternately, you might borrow a pair of shoes from a friend or a neighbour, and then maybe do him a favour later.

>>2103817
early to high medieval Europe, ex England:
All land belongs to the king
King hands some land out to his vassals, which in turn hand some to their vassals.
Everybody works his own land, you don't pay taxes, you only have to serve as warrior in times of war, and lend advice in times of peace.
"Taxes" was only payed by unfree subjects in form of free labor or sometimes food & provisions for the lord. Lords live of the income of their land, even the king runs his own farms and stuff to provide for his household.

>>2105111
Check up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manorialism

>>2103833
Physics wasn't formalized up until 300 years ago either.

>>2103888
You're forgetting the taxation burden of the Church (which wasn't the state, granted, but still had a significant presence both in taxation and public spending.)