Contrary to pop-history stereotypes, it was quite possible for medieval peasants to grow an abundance. Domesday Book is a fine illustration: peasants are categorised as freemen, villeins/villagers, smallholders, cottagers or freedmen, as well as slaves. While cottagers would likely have been subsistence farmers, potentially smallholders and almost certainly villagers and above would have been farming a surplus which could then have been taxed. In many areas of England and Wales, particularly Dorset and the West Midlands, subsistence arable farming was complemented by large amounts of sheep farming for wool, which was almost completely a cash crop, often exported to Flanders for a large profit.

The early medieval English economy was quite heavily monetised, and it is possible that a tenant could have paid his rent in coin. It's more likely that rents would be paid in kind or in labour. Ryan Lavelle's work on 'farms of one night' explores the way in which Royal vils in England were taxed; providing enough supplies to support the king and his retinue as they progressed through the area. 'Taxation' might be supplied as goods, in the provision of manpower for the maintenance of infrastructure, or in hours of labour on the Lord's land. It was quite common for tenant farmers on monastery-owned land, for example, to work a day a week tending the fields which were directly owned by the monastery alongside lay brothers or the monks themselves. This then supported the lord, or if supplied alongside rents in kind, allowed for 'cash harvests' to be grown for income.