"The return from cows and sheep in cheese is worth much money every day in the season, without calves and lambs, and without the manure, which all return corn and fruit"
About this Quote
Grosseteste is doing something deceptively modern here: turning pastoral life into a spreadsheet, then using the numbers to smuggle in a political argument. On its face, the line is a calm claim about dairy economics - cheese pays out daily through the season. Underneath, it’s a rebuke to short-term, extractive thinking: even if you strip away the headline “outputs” of livestock (calves and lambs) and even if you ignore the less glamorous but crucial byproduct (manure), the system still clears a profit. The point isn’t cheese. The point is resilience.
That matters in Grosseteste’s world, where wealth was often imagined as fixed in land and rents, and where lords could treat peasants and soil like things to be squeezed. He frames husbandry as a compounding investment: manure cycles back into “corn and fruit,” converting animal keeping into broader agricultural abundance. It’s an early articulation of what we’d now call circular economy logic, pitched in the plain language of the estate rather than the sermon.
As a statesman’s move, the rhetoric is shrewd. He avoids moralizing and instead offers a pragmatic case that can win over administrators and landholders: diversify outputs, respect the hidden infrastructure, think in seasons rather than moments. By listing what he is deliberately not counting, Grosseteste signals integrity while also tightening the screw. If cheese alone is “worth much money,” what excuse is left for mismanagement, neglect, or policies that burn the land for immediate gain?
That matters in Grosseteste’s world, where wealth was often imagined as fixed in land and rents, and where lords could treat peasants and soil like things to be squeezed. He frames husbandry as a compounding investment: manure cycles back into “corn and fruit,” converting animal keeping into broader agricultural abundance. It’s an early articulation of what we’d now call circular economy logic, pitched in the plain language of the estate rather than the sermon.
As a statesman’s move, the rhetoric is shrewd. He avoids moralizing and instead offers a pragmatic case that can win over administrators and landholders: diversify outputs, respect the hidden infrastructure, think in seasons rather than moments. By listing what he is deliberately not counting, Grosseteste signals integrity while also tightening the screw. If cheese alone is “worth much money,” what excuse is left for mismanagement, neglect, or policies that burn the land for immediate gain?
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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