There may be several things going on here.  I have been struck since moving from the Great City to deepest rural Cornwall how much exchanging of goods without the intervention of money (or the taxman) goes on.  People keep a rough mental record of what is owed:  eggs for firewood, leeks for raspberries -- over long stretches of time.  Nowadays, as I say, this is partly about tax, but chiefly I think convenience and neighbourliness.  You've got the stuff (felled trees, hens, garden), so use it!  My neighbour keeps sheep.  He will be giving me the fleeces (which you can hardly give away at market);  after a friend spins it for me (and I pay her), I'll knit him a sweater, and have loads over....

 

Not quite on the other hand, but overlapping in many cases, is cash-poverty.  Someone uses your field to keep pigs and can't afford to pay you rent, but he can leave you a shed full of firewood because he also works as a tree surgeon.

 

My grandfather, a general physician in New Jersey 1924-51, kept a record, sadly now lost, of how his patients paid him.  Quite a few never used money, but what they were able to provide instead in mid-twentieth century East Rutherford (hardly a rural spot) I don't know!

 

All of these considerations, with different emphases, would have applied over the ages, surely.