As long as cereal farming prevailed over livestock farming, poultry products were used as currency before becoming consumer goods. In fact, during the Middle Ages, poultry was often part of the tributes paid by farmers and subjects to their lords.
The trend is also confirmed in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland where, although there is not much information about poultry farming until the late Middle Ages, eggs and chickens - together with other agricultural products - were a common means of payment for various rents. In Mendrisiotto, for example, the rents paid seasonally by tenant farmers to the owners of the farms of Mezzana (Coldrerio) and Vigino (Castel San Pietro) often also included eggs, chickens, pullets and capons, according to contracts regulated in written form.