A couple of years later he told the inquisitors that he was "very poor":"i do have anything but two ren ted mills and two fields in perpetual lease, and with these i have supported and continue to support my poor family."
But certainly he must have been exaggerating.
Even if a good part of the income went to pay the rent (probably in produce) on the two mills,in addition to the ground rent on the land,there must have been enough left over to live on and to scrape by on even in difficult time.
when he had found himself banished to Arba, he had immediately rented another mill.
When his daughter Giovanna married (Menocchio had died about a month before), she received a dowry equal to 256 lire and 9 soldi: she wasn't rich but she was not that poor either, considering the practices of the area in those yeara.