agriculture, medieval

In the Middle Ages, the open-field system system of communal farming was prevalent in England during the Saxon period and under the feudal system of landholding which became dominant after the Norman Conquest. Medieval agriculture varied from place to place, depending on the land, the climate, and local customs. However, during the early part of the Middle Ages, much of England was farmed according to a two-field system, while towards the end of the Middle Ages, many villages transferred to a three-field system. An example of open-field farming still survives at Laxton in Nottinghamshire.

A typical two-field system in the north of England would have an in-field (used to grow crops in summer and keep the animals in winter) and an out-field (where the animals were pastured in summer). Gradually, however, after the Norman Conquest, more and more lords began to convert the arable land on their estates to a three-field system. The villagers would leave one of these fields fallow each year, allowing the sheep and cattle to graze the land so that the soil could recover its fertility. On the other two, wheat (for bread), barley (for beer), oats, or other crops such as peas or beans could be grown in a simple rotation. For example, in a village with a West Field, North Field, and East Field, in year one the West Field would be planted with wheat, the North with barley, and the East left fallow; in year two the West Field would be left fallow, the North planted with wheat, and the East with barley; and in year three the West Field would be planted with barley, the North left fallow, and the East planted with wheat.

Other key areas of the village might be the demesne (the land belonging to the lord of the manor), the meadow (the only source of fodder), some common land (on which the villagers were allowed to graze some animals), and the forest (for firewood).

Under the feudal system, villages were farmed communally, and much of the produce went in dues to the lord. The reeve would organize the villagers to farm the lord's demesne and the communal open-fields. The fields were divided into strips of roughly an acre (0.405 ha), signifying a day's work with a plough, and each villager would farm a few strips scattered around the three fields. The heavy, iron-shared plough, pulled by a team of oxen, could cut a furrow of roughly a furlong (201.2 m), or a ‘furrow long’, before the team had to stop to rest. Because it always turned the soil to the right, medieval ploughing created the undulating, S-shaped ‘ridge-and-furrow’ landscape which still survives in some parts of England. All the rest of the work – sowing broadcast, weeding, cutting the hay and reaping the crops with a sickle, threshing, and winnowing – had to be done by hand.

A typical medieval village would consist of a cluster of huts around a village green. On the green might be the smithy and the pinfold (for stray cattle). Each hut would have a garden (sometimes called a toft) on which the villein (serf) might keep a few hens, grow additional food such as vegetables, herbs, and fruit, or keep bees to provide a little honey, the only form of sweetener. The lack of fodder crops meant that all the animals which were not needed for breeding next season had to be slaughtered in the autumn, and their meat smoked or pickled. Another drawback of the communal system was that its small scattered strips, theoretically intended to share good and bad land fairly, made efficient farming difficult, and common grazing made it easy for disease to spread quickly among livestock.