Medieval Farm Management and Technological Mentalities: Hinderclay before the Black Death

Abstract

A ssessing the progress of agriculture lies at the heart of any discussion of pre-industrial economic development and social welfare, not least with respect to England in the decades before the Black Death of 1348-9, when the country's population was probably higher than at any other time prior to the mid-eighteenth century.Current interpretations of medieval farming are certainly not as gloomy as they were 30 years ago, when Titow reported the low yields prevalent on the estates of the bishop of Winchester in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and Postan declared that 'the inertia of medieval agricultural technology is unmistakable'. 2 But while it is now recognized that technology was in fact far from static in this period and that many yield-raising techniques were known and successfully adopted, it is also clear that such techniques were by no means universally employed.For despite growing evidence from manorial account rolls that landlords in a few regions developed comparatively intensive and productive farming systems, it nevertheless remains the case that less intensive forms of agriculture and substantially lower yields were common on demesne farms across much of the rest of the country.Unfortunately, there are no comparable records for medieval peasants, who in total cultivated a much greater proportion of the land, though it is generally considered likely that landlords and peasants in the same locality followed essentially the same system of husbandry.Consequently, Astill and Grant concluded, we still have 'a slightly depressing picture of medieval agricultural progress and productivity', in which 'opportunities for improvement may have existed but were not taken up'.3 Explanations for the observed differences in demesne land use have focused in part on variations in market opportunity.The more progressive systems operated in areas with access to major urban markets, while in 'remoter parts of the country, removed from major markets and often 4 Campbell, 'Ecology versus economics', p. 85.See also idem, 'Economic rent'; and Bailey, Marginal economy?, p. 21.For discussion of this issue in a European context, see Grantham, 'Agricultural supply'.5 Mate, 'Agricultural technology', p. 251.6 Dyer, 'Medieval farming', pp.309-10.See also the discussion of agrarian techniques in medieval Breckland in Bailey, Marginal economy?, pp.85-96.7 Campbell, 'Economic rent', pp.233, 240, 243; idem, 'Progressiveness and backwardness', pp.544, 552; idem, 'Ecology versus economics', p. 93.8 Idem, 'Progressiveness and backwardness', p. 558; idem, 'People and land', pp.96, 98; idem, 'Medieval arable and pastoral husbandry', p. 50.For a detailed analysis of the geography of demesne farming in this period see Campbell's recent, monumental English seigniorial agriculture, esp.pp.252-75, 309-64, 411-30, though for similar ambiguities in his discussion of demesne management see, for example, pp.363-4 and 418-20.9 Harvey, Westminster Abbey, p. 331.

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