Land Use in Britain - Paleolithic to Agricultural Revolution

Overview:

(For what it's worth, this is an essay that I submitted aeons ago for a Geography course. I might tweak it later.)

Britain has been occupied by man since Paleolithic times. Earliest British agriculture began around 4500 BC. A series of immigrations and invasions affected the populace, the social structure, and the English language. The shifting social structure influenced the utilization of land. The population had expanded to the brink of agricultural crisis by 1500 AD. Spurred by need and greed, agricultural innovation burgeoned after the sixteenth century.

Sections:

Stone Age to Iron Age:
Stone Age.
Bronze Age (around 3000 B.C. to 600 B.C.).
Iron Age (600 B.C. to the first century A.D.).
Climatic trends figure.
Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.

Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.
Land utilization in Britain: Agricultural Revolution in the five hundred years following 1500 AD.
Landholding, tenures, and estates.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
British agricultural changes, 1500-1750.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Footnotes.
Endnotes.

Land Use in Britain – Bibliography.

Early occupation:

Figure 1: An approximate correlation of climatic and technological trends
Date
Climatic trends & pollen zones (PZ)
Agricultural developments & vegetation trends.

43 AD
                
                 Rapid cooling

Sub-Atlantic    Warmer
PZ VIII
                   
                 Marked cyclical deterioration



Sub-Boreal
                    Cooling
PZ VIIb



                 Very warm and humid with high rainfall
Atlantic
PZ VIIa



                 Increasing wetness

Boreal
PZ VI
                 Pronounced dryness

PZ V
                 Very rapid warming

PZ IV
Ash, beech, birch, and hornbeam increasing.
Roman invasion of England.
Rapid population growth.  Agricultural surplus and full landscape utilization.  Iron tools.

Increasing use of valleys and of wetlands.  Retreat from the highlands.
Peat increasing and maximum upland farming.
Forest clearance.  Husbandry.  Permanent, allotted fields.  Manure utilized.  Bronze tools.
Stonehenge.
Increasing environmental impacts and expanded land utilization.

“Elm decline”  Extensive cultivation and grazing. 
Neolithic agricultural tools
First communal monuments.

“Vegetational optimum”  

Immigrants introduce domesticated animals and cereal cultivation.
Increased exploitation of favorable habitats.
Mixed oak forest and alder.
Relationship between hunters and herds developing.  Mesolithic tools.

Fire creates gaps in forest cover.

Mixed oak forest, hazel and pine.


Domestication of dog.

Birch and pine.

Upper Paleolithic tools.
0



1000 BC



2000 BC



3000 BC



4000 BC



5000 BC



6000 BC



7000 BC



8000 BC

back to Land Use in Britain – Stone Age to Iron Age : Stone Age.

Playlist Wild Food.

Land Use in Britain – Stone Age to Iron Age

Stone Age.
Bronze Age.
Iron Age.
Bibliography for all segments (opens in separate page)

Stone Age:

Palaeolithic people probably lived as small bands of hunter-gatherers. Britain’s climate, flora, and fauna were vastly different than they are today. The bones of rhinoceros, lion, and deer were found within the deposits that yielded Britain’s earliest Homo sapiens skull (found in a terrace of the Thames at Swanscombe.)

Home, stone age home

Prior to the introduction of agriculture, Mesolithic peoples in Britain subsisted mainly upon hunting, fishing and gathering. Native flora included nuts and berries. The native fauna comprised red and roe deer, pigs, horses, wolves, and wild aurochs (ancestral to the Celtic shorthorn.) Cereals, sheep, goats, and domesticated cattle were not native to Britain. It is believed that Neolithic immigrants, already familiar with agriculture, introduced these species from the continent around 4500 BC. The only evidence of possible immigration over the following 500 years was the appearance of the highly influential “Beaker” peoples, named for their distinctive pottery. Alternatively, the Beaker folk may represent a ruling elite emerging from within the indigenous population.

3,500 years old, 40 cm (16 in) high "Giant Beaker of Pavenstädt"
Evidence of early forest clearance is scattered across Britain. The earliest farming in Britain probably dates from as early as 5000 BC – predating the Neolithic immigrants. Prior to 6000 BC dry conditions had prevailed in Britain, resulting in natural fire-cleared openings within the forests. The beginning of animal and plant husbandry may have been associated with the serendipitous discovery of concentrations of desirable fauna and flora in the forest clearings that had resulted from natural fires. Mesolithic farming probably involved simple fostering of species already present, or the intentional introduction of desired “stranger” plants into forest clearings.

An array of Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools. Neolithic stone implements are by definition polished and, except for specialty items, not chipped.
A great deal of forest had been permanently converted to cultivation by 3000 BC. Long-term woodland regeneration dating from around 3500 BC does suggest that farmers moved to clear new land as cultivated fields became exhausted. Permanent grasslands also replaced previously cultivated tracts – this has been interpreted either as evidence of a transition to pastoral farming, or of population decline.

Ploughing with ard and oxen.


The ard was a primitive form of plough used to gouge cross-hatches into the soil. The ard broke the soil but did not turn a furrow.

ard
Increasing generation of bog and peat accompanied a climatic change (climatic trends figure) from the warm, dry Boreal phase to wetter Atlantic conditions. The Neolithic agricultural transition, dating from 4000 to 3000 BC, roughly coincided with the climatic change and was marked by technological advances in stone artifacts. The Neolithic agrarian communities also left archaeologic evidence as “causewayed enclosures” and collective tombs – stone “megalithic or chambered tombs,” timber “long barrows,” and earthen “round barrows.” The great henge monuments of the “Wessex Culture” date from the third millennium. Stonehenge had been erected by 2000 BC – at this time British agriculture was well established in the most fertile areas. The population of Britain around this date is very difficult to determine. Extrapolating from burials in collective tombs, authorities estimate a population of around 10,000 to 15,000 people.


Stone Age.
Iron Age.

Video (new window): Building Celtic roundhouses .
BBC interactive: construct a Celtic roundhouse.
BBC video: Archaeologists recreate Neolithic huts for Stonehenge project (new window).





Bronze Age:(around 3000 B.C. to 600 B.C.)

The sites of many Bronze Age settlements, typified by stone walls or ditches enclosing clusters of round huts, have been discovered in the British Isles. The size and make-up of agrarian communities differed regionally. Construction and agricultural techniques varied from one geographic area to another, as did the soils. The lighter lowland soils, particularly those overlying chalk and gravel, and the heavier Keuper Marl soils bear evidence of long-term crop cultivation. Bronze Age immigrants expanded the population and pushed settlement into the poorer upland and forest soils. There is ample evidence of extensive sectors of arable farming in the Highland regions, in contrast to the modern pastoral farming of these areas. However, most upland cultivation appears to have been small-scale and exploitive (cultivate, abandon, move on) – unlike the permanent, conservationist agriculture then beginning in the lowlands. Transitory cultivation of the Highlands probably destroyed the forest regeneration cycle, transforming the uplands into the “wilderness” of today.

It is believed that cooler, more extreme weather, associated with the transition from Atlantic to Sub-Boreal and then to Sub-Atlantic conditions influenced or provoked the Bronze Age agricultural expansions and the immigrations from the continent. The climate during the Sub-Atlantic phase was similar to Britain’s recent climate – but, the much less efficient agricultural techniques supported a considerably smaller population. An agricultural community has few effective responses to shortages – cultivate previously idle land, improve agricultural techniques, migrate, or face privations and starvation.

recreation of "sweet track" on Somerset Levels

At the “Somerset Levels” trackways of logs, were laid down across a wet raised-peat bog to permit access to dry fields. The bog evolved atop former woodland over a period of one and a half to two millennia. Evidence indicates that the environs had been exploited as early as the third and fourth millennia, but that the drier climate in the second millennium BC made trackway construction unnecessary. The climate appears to have become colder and wetter after about 1250 BC, deteriorating further around 850 BC when construction of trackways intensified. The British climate appears to have been wettest around 650 BC.

artist's impression of bronze age hill fort settlement

The period of Neolithic monument construction ends with the appearance of hill-top enclosures around 1000 BC – these semi-fortified settlements were typical of the Iron Age and the Belgae, immigrants from continental Europe. The changes in construction preceded both the arrivals of continental “Celtic” immigrants and of Iron implements. The shift in the emphasis and location of human activity appears to be related to population pressures and shifting societal power balances. Today, the best example of an iron-age fort is Maiden Castle near Dorchester – built on the site of a causewayed camp around 300 BC, the fort fell to a Roman attack led by Vespasian in 44-45 AD.



Stone Age.
Bronze Age.

Iron Age:
(600 B.C. to the first century A.D.)
model of oppidum

The beginnings of a permanently cultivated field-system date from the Iron Age. The landscape gradually changed as agricultural practices and styles of landholding evolved. The focus had shifted from construction suggestive of a powerful ruling elite (monuments and burial chambers) to enclosed hill-top structures for the communal defense of permanently cultivated fields. This trend culminated, by the eve of Roman invasion, in construction of hill-forts in the north and west, and of Belgic oppida in the south-east (large scale settlements delimited by banks and ditches.) The inhabitants of oppida used coinage of their own issue, and lived in a proto-urban community. Later Roman and medieval urban settlements were also established on low ground adjacent to water.

outlines of iron age settlement

Areas to be ploughed were delineated by ditches, earth banks plus ditches, earth banks, fences, and stone or sarcen walls – boundaries were even marked by reference to round barrows. In contrast to deliberately constructed field borders, lynchets developed as a result of the accumulation of erosive debris at the edge of fields. The field boundaries generally employed local materials and followed local geology, but defied natural topography in some regions. These “Celtic” fields, irregular squares of about one acre, were cultivated in a regular cycle of crops (and perhaps fallow) by cross-plowing with the ard, a sharpened bough drawn by oxen. Iron Age tools included spades, hoes, small sickles, and a rotary hand mill called a quern.

top: saddle quern and rubbing stone
bottom: rotary quern with holes for wooden pegs
Circles of post-holes mark the locations of Iron Age dwellings and sheds. The rather flimsy structures of medieval villages were constantly rebuilt. Dwellings consisted mostly of huts with “wattle and daub” walls framed by rough-hewn timbers. Buildings most often took the form of a longhouse or byre-house. Latrine trenches were often dug down the center of dwellings, separating people from livestock. Dwellings must have been extremely uncomfortable by modern standards – dark, stinking, smoky, draughty, leaky, muddy, and vermin-ridden.


The population of Britain just prior to the Romans’ arrival has been estimated at around 2 million people. (Approximately 1/30 of the current population.)

Shelter - Mesolithic to Viking (new window):



Stone Age.
Bronze Age.
Iron Age.

Playlist Wild Food.

Land Use in Britain – Overview.
Land Use in Britain – Romans and Vikings.
Land Use in Britain – Normans bring Feudalism.
Land Use in Britain – Beyond Early Modern.
Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.


Land Use in Britain – Bibliography.

Land Use in Britain - Romans and Vikings

Roman Britain (43 B.C. to 442 A.D.).
Some impacts of man on the environment by 500 AD.
Anglo-Saxon and Norse Invasions (fifth to ninth centuries AD).
Bibliography for all segments (opens in separate page)


Roman Britain (43 B.C. to 442 A.D.)
more detail in: Roman impact on Britain.


In 54 BC, Caesar landed five legions and two thousand cavalry on the shores of Kent. Caesar repulsed the British counterattacks, crossed the Thames, and captured the king’s stronghold – the British were forced to sue for peace, to supply hostages, and to pay tribute to Rome. Almost one hundred years later, the emperor Claudius sent an expeditionary force to Britain. In 43 AD, fifty thousand men under the command of Claudius’ general, Aulus Platius, landed in Kent to begin the conquest of Britain. Within eight years Britain, from the borders of Wales to York (Eburacum), had been converted to a Roman province. The Romans showed no interest in the tin mines of Cornwall and never penetrated far into Devon or Cornwall.


Roman conquest of Britain, 43-84 CE.
The Romans built roads and constructed fortresses around which sprang cities. The Romans built their main roads wide in order to facilitate movement of their legions. Most of the countryside, however, was accessible only on the narrow tracks of the native population.

Roman occupation introduced slave-manned plantations of 400 to 650 acres, centered upon stone villas. Similar plantations were worked by peasants, or serfs, who cultivated their own plots and those of their lord.




Reconstructed Roman villa, Wroxeter, Shropshire.
The rich farmlands bordering the Fens provided grain for the Roman legions of the North. The grain was transported along the Fen’s natural waterways and on canals constructed by the Romans.

fen canal
The Romans did not revolutionize the organization of the rural population – throughout Britain, Gaul, and the Roman Empire the populace continued to live and work in villages, hamlets, and isolated homesteads. The population has been estimated at three to five million by the third century AD. Only London, St. Albans, and Colchester had populations above 5,000.



Growth of London from Roman Londinium to present.

 The people of Roman Britain remained quite mobile and predominantly agricultural. Population density was very low, with only two to five persons per square kilometer. With so much land and so few people, there is ample evidence that new land was found and cleared when cultivated soils were partly or completely exhausted. The main obstacles to food production continued to be loss of soil fertility, the vagaries of weather, and losses due to weeds, animal pests, and diseases of plants and animals. Fields that had been under prolonged tillage must lie uncultivated for one or more years to recover their fertility. The principle of allowing fields to lie fallow was practiced by the Roman Age. Early farmers discovered that cultivation decreases fertility, and learned that soil must ‘rest’ to recover its fertility. Although the Romans practiced crop rotation and left fields fallow, it is not clear how the British open field village system evolved.

Sarculum - Roman hoe
The Romans introduced both agricultural engineering techniques and improved tools to Britain. Agriculture benefited from Roman irrigation systems, wells, scythes and large sickles, and the more scientific application of fertilizer. The Romans improved the primitive scratch-plough, the ard. Addition of vertical iron coulters in front of the ploughshare, and of soil-turning wooden mouldboards, rendered the new plough better suited to turning the heavy, wet soils of Britain. The Romans also introduced fruits and vegetables to British agriculture: these including peas, cabbages, turnips, and parsnips. Roman vegetables and fruits supplemented the Iron Age crops of barley, wheat, flax, and vetch.

Roman plough
Roman military action was episodic after the initial Claudian conquest. Nero sent his general to Britain in 60 AD. Paulinus suppressed a rebellion by the Iceni and Trinovantes. The Romans confiscated conquered farm lands and reduced the former owners to serfdom. The conquering Romans enraged the widow and tribesmen of the defeated king of the Iceni. They robbed Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) of her lands, had her flogged, and raped her daughters. A rebellious army, raised by Boadicea, captured Camulodenum, destroyed a Roman legion, and marched upon Londinium (London.) Seventy thousand Romans were massacred in Londinium. Suetonius Paulinus eventually defeated Boadicea’s army. With the “suicide” of the vanquished Boadicea, British resistance to Rome became confined to border raids.



To prevent marauding tribesmen from raiding farms south of the Scottish border, the emperor Hadrian ordered a wall to be constructed from Solway Firth to the Tyne. A section of Hadrian’s Wall took strategic advantage of a the Whin Sill. Antonius Pius (138-161 AD) continued Hadrian’s policies against cattle rustling incursions at the northern border. Antonius pushed the frontier 75 miles northward, and ordered the construction of 37 miles of turf-clay wall between the firths of Forth and Clyde. The Antonine Wall had nineteen forts at two-mile intervals. Around 210 AD, the emperor Septimius ordered Hadrian’s wall reconstructed and led a military expedition into Scotland. Attempts to engage the Scots in battle were thwarted by the natives’ guerilla tactics.

By 400 AD, the weakening Western Roman Empire was under widespread attack by “barbarians.” North Sea tribes, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, raided Britain. In 408 AD, the Saxons made a devastating raid on Britain. By 428 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were establishing permanent settlements along the British coast. The legions were permanently withdrawn from Britain around 442 AD, as the Western Roman Empire continued to collapse. In the hiatus created by their departure trade diminished, towns declined or disappeared, and roads fell into disrepair. Later settlement covered the traces of Roman field systems.

Roman Britain (43 B.C. to 442 A.D.).
Anglo-Saxon and Norse Invasions (fifth to ninth centuries AD).

Some impacts of man on the environment by 500 AD

Areas of present day moorland were previously cultivated, suggesting that the soil was so degraded by agriculture that it is no longer arable. Fossil soils reveal evidence of degradation by erosional loss of physical constituents, and by their lost capacity to support a protective forest cover.

The inability to support a natural forest succession implies a concomitant decrease in the soil’s potential to produce food. The practice of manuring began in the second millennium, presumably in an attempt to maintain arable production. Some soils were abandoned quickly and did revert to woodland – this is seen particularly in some soils on limestone. Examples can be found in the Lowland zones, with the exception of the Wessex chalklands and the lowland heaths. However, soils were exploited excessively in some areas and never reverted to supporting the original flora – they became moorlands. Examples are to be found in the Highland zones, the Cumbrian Lakeland, and the Moors of the south-west. The Wessex chalklands have remained stripped of forest since the third millennium. The lowland heaths result from the agriculture-related podzolizing of Brown Earth into Gley soils, beginning in the third and second millennia BC.

Roman Britain (43 B.C. to 442 A.D.).
Some impacts of man on the environment by 500 AD.

Anglo-Saxon and Norse Invasions (fifth to ninth centuries AD)

Britons (grey), Angles (pink), Saxons (beige), Jutes (yellow) ~ 600 CE
Violent waves of Anglo-Saxon invaders arrived in the fifth century, first looting and pillaging, later returning to annihilate and dispossess the native settlers. Later movements of Anglo-Saxons into the north and west were more peaceable – the Norse farmers cultivated the land alongside their British neighbors. In the North of England particularly, some Romano-British agricultural customs appear to have survived – groups of estates continued to be managed as a single “multiple estate” unit.

The “Saxon” period continued with little change save the conversion of the “English” to Christianity in the seventh. Villagers continued the agricultural practices of their forebears, but barley was now a favored cereal crop. Barley was ground up for baking and boiling, and was converted to malt. Malt attained importance because “the Anglo-Saxons consumed beer on an oceanic scale.” Mead was another alcoholic drink of the period; it was brewed from fermented honey – bee-keeping was widespread, and honey was the only source of sugar. The commonest livestock were pigs – ideal because they could survive by foraging in the woods. Cattle were bred for plough-team oxen, while sheep and goats were raised for milk and cheese. People continued to forage and hunt. Bigger game, deer and boar, was reserved for the lord. The peasants foraged for acorns and caught fish, rabbits, and birds.

Dioceses of Anglo Saxon England 850-1035
A marauding Danish raid heralded another wave of Norse invasion in 793 AD. In 865 a “great heathen army” of Danes landed in East Anglia. Further waves of warriors and their relatives arrived from Denmark, Norway, and Frisia – they occupied lands from Northumberland to Mercia, sharing some territories with native lords, the thegns. Alfred (the Great) of Wessex resisted the Danes, but was forced to sue for peace. Although Danish political power ended in 1042, their influence remained in a number of customs and in place names – holm (water meadow), thorpe (hamlet), and toft (homestead.).

The open field village originated in the Middle Ages, perhaps in response to a combination of increasing population and the custom of partible inheritance. Partible inheritance involved the division of family land among male heirs; this resulted in the fragmentation of arable land into holdings too small to permit efficient pasturing. As the population increased, more land was needed for agriculture, leading to the cooperative practice of “assarting.” A group of peasants would cut brush, fell trees, and remove tree stumps to generate new arable land. The assart would then be divided into arable strips, and allotted to the peasants who had cleared the land. The newly cleared assart added a “furlong” to the village field system. The heavier plough, fitted with iron coulter to break the soil and wooden mouldboard to turn the furrow, was suited to the farming of these long strips of land.

Approximate extent of "champion" open-fields in Britain
The first enduring villages appeared in Europe in the tenth century. The “seigneurial” system, estates held by powerful lords and tended by peasants, initiated permanent settlements. The “champion” country of Britain stretched from the North Sea through the Midlands to the English Channel. Named for champagne (French for “open field,” not “sparkling wine”), the champion countryside was blanketed by vast stretches of fields and meadows, dotted with clusters of village dwellings, and stands of trees. An intricate agricultural system combined individual landholding with cooperative community-consent arrangements for land management. The community organized its agricultural land into two, later three, large fields. One field was left fallow each year. In some areas, fallow periods lasted more than one year. Individual villagers cultivated strips within the communal fields. Many Saxon laws and charters enforced the agricultural process. Communal decisions and effort determined planting, harvesting, and the pasturing of domestic animals on post-harvest stubble. Meadowland for pasturing was scarce, but cooperative agreement minimized the need for hedging and fencing. In contrast to the champion country, the “woodland” country of west and southeast England was characterized by homesteads and small hamlets, where individual families farmed compact fields (bocage).

Roman Britain (43 B.C. to 442 A.D.).
Some impacts of man on the environment by 500 AD.
Anglo-Saxon and Norse Invasions (fifth to ninth centuries AD).

Playlist Wild Food.


Land Use in Britain – Overview.
Land Use in Britain – Stone Age to Iron Age.
Land Use in Britain – Normans bring Feudalism.
Land Use in Britain – Beyond Early Modern.
Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.


Land Use in Britain – Bibliography.

Land Use in Britain - Normans bring Feudalism

The Norman Invasion (1066 AD).
The Domesday Book.
The Manorial economy.
Villages and agriculture.

Bibliography for all segments (opens in separate page)

The Norman Invasion (1066 AD)


Harold Godwinson's death as depicted in scene 57 of the Bayeux tapestry.
The conquering Normans imported feudalism and extended the manorial system of England. William I appointed a number of his followers as tenants-in-chief of large tracts of land, supplanting or deputizing the Anglo-Saxon nobles. William scattered the land grants to each noble to prevent their establishing a power base that might threaten his authority.

Unlike the massive immigrations that led to Anglo-Saxon control of England, the Norman Conquest did not force massive numbers of natives from their villages. However, the Norman tenants-in-chief did displace significant numbers of tenants without regard to their status prior to the Conquest. The confiscated lands became Norman-controlled private lands, called demesnes. Agricultural labor was conscripted from the displaced peasants.


The Domesday Book:

Some twenty years after the decisive Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror ordered an inventory of the wealth of England and its population. With 275,000 heads of households, the population probably approximated 1.5 to 2 million.

(searchable online copy of Domesday Book with links to map)

Closeup of Domesday entry for: The Land of St. Peter of Westminster In ‘Ossulstone’ Hundred
The Norman Invasion (1066 AD).
The Domesday Book.
Villages and agriculture.

The Manorial economy:

After the Norman Conquest, the countryside was organized around permanent manorial units. The lord’s manor comprised both the demesne and peasant held lands. The lord directly exploited the lands of his demesne and collected rents, fees, and services from the peasant tenants. In principle, the king granted lands to feudal lords (military land-owning aristocracy) in return for the lords’ pledges to supply men-at-arms for the king. The manorial system supported the feudal aristocracy – binding the peasants to cultivate manorial demesnes for one week each year, and to provide military service on demand. A feudal lord provided protection and granted land (fief) to a vassal in return for labor and military services. Only petty knights or minor lords, owners of a one or a few manors, resided at their manors to oversee their estates. Earls, counts, abbots and bishops controlled “honors” comprised of numerous manors scattered across many counties.

System of Estates table.

Ultimately, the military role of the great lords shifted to an economic role. Knightly military service and peasant labor service came to hinge upon payment of money. After 1200, the leasing of manors became less frequent as lords began to manage their own estates. The population had expanded and the growth of town markets facilitated the exchange of produce for cash. Tenants and villeins prospered from the sale of agricultural surplus at the town markets, but the lord benefited more – both from the sale of produce and from increased tenant rents.



Aerial view reconstruction drawing of Wharram Percy in the 13th century. Based on the well-preserved and extensive earthworks of the deserted medieval village (below, viewed from different angle).
First mapped by the Ordnance Survey in 1850. The deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy and its environs were intensively excavated and researched by Professor M Beresford and Dr J Hurst from 1952-92. As a result it is the most famous and best understood example of its type. This site is now in the care of English Heritage (2010).






The Norman Invasion (1066 AD).
The Domesday Book.
The Manorial economy.

Villages and agriculture:

Economic prosperity and population growth began in the eleventh century and continued through to the thirteenth century. Settlements sprang up across Britain – homesteads, hamlets, and villages. Villagers comprised the vast majority of the population. Ultimately, the forests were largely cleared, and villages in the densely populated areas impinged upon one another’s borders. The majority of the population of medieval Britain spent their entire lives confined to the neighborhood of their village, and the local fairs and markets.

Village buildings clustered around the nuclear church or manor house, and lay surrounded by cultivated fields, meadows, orchards, marshes, and forest. The buildings, longhouses or sunken huts, straggled around the nucleus, each on small plots bordered by hedges, fences, or ditches. Village buildings and areas were divided into public, communal, and private elements.

Peasants’ dwellings were rarely of stone except in areas like the Cotswolds, which was endowed with plentiful stone but scarce timber. Houses continued to be flimsy – timber framed, with clay daubed over wands of oak, hazel, or willow. Roofs were thatched with straw, broom, heather, reeds or rushes – despite the certain problem of vermin and the potential hazard of fire. Most village houses had attached yards and gardens. The smaller “toft” fronted onto the street and was surrounded by a ditch or fence to contain animals. The toft comprised house, storage sheds, and barns or animal pens for privately owned chickens, pigs, cows and oxen. The “croft” lay to the rear – a large garden cultivated by spade. Ditches aided drainage through the yards, and a latrine trench sufficed for ablutions.

Although some villages had private wells, most used a communal well. Village sheep grazed in fallow fields, meadows or marshes, but were held in the manor fold in winter – manure was a valuable commodity and the lord profited from this arrangement. The villagers cultivated mostly wheat. In addition, they raised rye, barley, oats, beans, peas, and other vegetables. Although the value of manure as a fertilizer was recognized, the scarcity of pasture land in areas devoted to tillage led to a vicious cycle of reciprocal scarcity.

Advances in agricultural techniques accumulated and spread slowly. Technical advancements were afforded by the newly introduced horse collar, and by horseshoes, horsecollars, traces, and whippletrees. Horses offered several advantages over oxen as farm animals. Horses were nimbler, longer-working, and faster for the ploughing of light soils. They were superior to oxen as cart animals. The increased use of horses stimulated cultivation of oats for fodder. Oats as a spring crop (together with barley, beans, peas, and vetch) proved ideal for crop-rotation. Stall-feeding of draught animals increased supplies of manure for fertilizer, and leguminous fodder crops restored soil nitrogen to the fields.

The whippletree linkage enabled multiple horses, or horses and oxen, to push (thanks to the horsecollar, not pull) a load together.
Market gardening began in the thirteenth century – onion, leek, and cabbage seed were sold at markets. The poor grew vegetables for themselves and for the trade of any surplus – peascods, leeks, onions, parley, chervil, and cabbages. The gardeners of royal palaces, large houses, colleges, and monasteries traded fruit and vegetables.

In the middle of the fourteenth century the Black Death ravaged first England and later, Scotland. From 1348 to 1350, the bubonic plague killed about a third of the population – and killed numerous cattle. The devastation was less severe twelve years later when plague broke out again. The plague caused immense socio-economic and cultural impacts. Sporadic outbreaks continued until 1666 (the Great Fire swept through London in September, 1666.)

Severe shortage of agricultural labor resulted from the enormous mortality rate, and intensified the commutation of labor – the transition to wages and rents. Increasingly, tenants paid rents rather than providing services to the landlord, and living conditions improved as rural proto-industry provided the means to supplement incomes. Many landlords turned to sheep-rearing because it required less agricultural labor. Wages were high, inflation was rampant, and attempts at government intervention failed miserably (sound familiar?)

According to the results of a late fourteenth century poll tax, the most densely populated English common-field counties lay in the Midlands.

The Roman Empire gained supremacy by virtue of its superior tactics, discipline, and technology. The second episode of feudalism developed after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. In Britain, Anglo-Saxon chiefdoms and small kingdoms (king, thegn, and coerl) were eventually supplanted by Norman feudalism – the economic gulf between peasants (serfs) and their overlords widened. Societies governed by a powerful ruling or conquering aristocracy are divided according to “free” status – slave, serf, villein, free-man, petty knight, knight, Count, Earl, Duke, Baron, King.

As states evolve, agricultural economies become money-based. Land comes to represent a cash potential. Social schisms come to be based on wealth as well as on hereditary status. At the agricultural level, ambitious, hard-working, or unscrupulous farmers can attain greater wealth compared to other locals. While this situation also favors the already-wealthy, an agrarian middle class is interposed between the hereditary aristocracy and the landless poor. At the end of the fifteenth century, Britain was headed toward a socio-economic position that would challenge the sovereign authority.

The Norman Invasion (1066 AD).
The Domesday Book.
The Manorial economy.
Villages and agriculture.

Playlist Wild Food.

Land Use in Britain – Overview.
Land Use in Britain – Stone Age to Iron Age.
Land Use in Britain – Romans and Vikings.
Land Use in Britain – Beyond Early Modern.
Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.


Land Use in Britain – Bibliography

Land Use in Britain - Early Modern through Agricultural Revolution

After 1500 AD:
Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.

Sections:
Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.
Bibliography for all segments (opens in separate page)

Farming Systems and Landholding:

Land tenure had long been regulated by local custom, but, by the end of the fifteenth century major shifts in landholding occurred – paving the way for agrarian reform and the agricultural revolution.

Social status was determined by birth and social origins, and by property. There was a wide range of wealth within each class, and wealth enabled mobility, usually after one generation, between status groups. The occupational label ‘farmer’ was not widespread until the eighteenth century – prior to this, the terms denoting community status were used. Specific terms were used to denote specialist agricultural activities: Drover, Grazier, Ploughman, Marshman, Shepherd, Gardener, and Fisherman.

Ranked from lowest to highest on the agricultural hierarchy were: laborer, husbandman, yeoman / gentleman, esquire, knight, baron, earl, duke, and monarch. Gentlemen represented only 2% of the population, but owned a quarter to a third of all farmland by the early sixteenth century (doesn’t this sound like the third world?) The wealthier and better educated ‘gentleman farmer’ was able to read about, and exploit, profitable innovations in agriculture – new crops, new plant species and animal breeds, new agricultural and management techniques. Further, economies of scale and political ‘clout’ enabled the wealthier landowners to expand their fortunes at the expense of their ‘inferiors.’

Tables: Tenure table : System of Estates table.

Farming Systems and Landholding.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.

The rhythm and grind of agriculture

Almost all agriculture in the early sixteenth century was mixed-farming, combining both arable and livestock husbandry. Grazing flocks and herds provided manure to the meadows and kept down bracken and sedge grasses.

Arable husbandry produces more food per acre for human consumption than does animal husbandry, however maintenance of some livestock remained essential to the farmer of early modern Britain. Aside from meat, dairy products, eggs, and skins, animals were essential for draught work until the industrial revolution, and for their manure until the twentieth century.


The medieval agricultural year, as depicted by Pietro de Crescenzi (c. 1230/35 – c. 1320)
(Comprehensive description of the medieval farming year.) In August or September arable land was ploughed. Land that had been used for pasture was ploughed up to five or six times, while arable fields were ploughed about four times. In wet areas, several feet separated the top of a ploughed ridge from the adjacent drainage furrow. Soil drainage was a major problem in Britain. Early attempts to control wetness involved the ploughing of deep ridges and furrows, trenching, and the digging of ditches. Hollow drains, filled with bushes or stones and covered with soil, first appeared in the seventeenth century. The modern subsurface ‘tile’ drain was not invented until the nineteenth century.

Remnant ridges and furrows, Wood Stanway, Gloucestershire.
Sheep grazing in curved ridges and furrows. Dumbleton, Gloucestershire.


Seed was broadcast-sown with one of the winter cereals in September or October. Farmers selectively sowed the seeds most likely to yield a good harvest. The winter cereals were wheat or rye, or a mixture of both, called ‘maslin’ or ‘mixlyn.’ From February to April, when the soil had warmed enough for an adequate tilth, the spring crops were sown – barley, or six-rowed bigg in the north; oats; and, peas and beans. Between sowing and harvesting, the fields were cleared of nutrient-competing weeds.

Hay was cut in June and July – scythe-mown grass was raked into ‘cocks’ then stored in the barn or in straw-thatched ‘ricks.’ The cereals were harvested in August or September. Winter grains were harvested before spring crops. Wheat and rye were ‘reaped’ with a small sickle, barley and oats were ‘mown’ with a larger scythe. The cut stalks were bound into sheaves, stacked into ‘stooks,’ and left in the field for a week or so to dry. Later the stooks were stored in a barn, or piled into straw-thatched ‘stacks.’ The fields were gleaned after the harvest – scoured for fallen grain – a laborious process performed by women and children. The labor of marling, creating a fine tilth, sowing, hoeing and pulling of turnips was performed during arable slack-times.

Throughout the year, grain was threshed as needed – this was a skilled procedure whereby grain was separated from the stalk by beating with a hinged, wooden flail. The grain was then winnowed to remove chaff, and passed through a sieve or corn screen to separate valuable grain from the seeds of nuisance weeds.

Pastures required little attention beyond clearing weeds, like thistles and docks, and removing pests such as moles. Livestock required fodder over the winter months – hay, softened barley, peas and beans, carrots, and turnips; and oats for horses. As much as twenty per cent of the arable harvest was reserved as fodder for livestock. Although livestock husbandry required less labor than arable farming, the livestock required considerable attention – young animals were born in the spring, and must soon be weaned. Young male livestock not required for breeding purposes were castrated. Sheep were washed and clipped in June. From May to October sheep were folded, and cattle were sometimes tethered, on arable land – usually on the fallow. Animals were bred in September and October (winter cereals were sown in these months.) Pigs, hens, geese, ducks, bees, and sometimes pigeons, were also raised. Depending upon location, a farmer might also tend a kitchen garden, an orchard, or a section of woodland.

Regular daily chores included the cutting of wood for fuel, and the maintenance and repair of buildings, fences, hedges, and ditches. On a daily basis, dairy cattle and sheep were milked in the morning and the evening – the milk was processed by women into butter and cheese. Many farmers, particularly those who specialized in raising livestock, had time to supplement their incomes through cottage industry, making crafts, or working at a trade.

Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.

Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production

Crops grown and animals raised varied from region to region, and from one farm to another within a region. English agriculture gradually moved from the subsistence-level small farm, characterized by trade of surplus at local markets, to more efficient regional agricultural specialization supplying national and international markets.

Regardless of the local soils, climate, settlement patterns and community organization, all farmers faced similar agricultural challenges. The main obstacles to food production continued to be loss of soil fertility, the vagaries of weather, and losses due to weeds, animal pests, and diseases of plants and animals. After the sixteenth century, limited availability of land became an increasingly widespread problem.

Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Markets.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.

Enclosure and Engrossing


Common rights were initially extended to those who possessed a cottage and some arable land – in areas with plentiful land, all inhabitants had access to common grazing. Rights to common pasture were unlimited in the less fertile pastoral areas of the Pennines and the northern counties, around the lowland forests, and in fen areas. Despite losses due to coastal erosion in some areas, large areas of saltmarsh were reclaimed for grazing. Grazing land was increasingly scarce in all heavily populated mixed-farming districts and in some pastoral areas of the west Midlands.

Wool prices in England in 1343 (Marks per sack).
In England the "mark" never appeared as a coin, but was only used as a unit of account. It was apparently introduced in the 10th century by the Danes. According to 19th century sources, it was first equivalent to 100 pence, but after the Norman Conquest (1066) it was worth 160 pence, or 13 shillings and 4 pence, i.e. two-thirds of a pound sterling (approx. 250 g in silver).

The high price of wool was a stimulus to enclosure. Landowners who acquired control of larger plots of land were able to enclose their fields – containing their own flocks, and excluding their neighbors’ animals. The economic and social consequences of enclosure differed from one region to another. If adequate common-land remained for the grazing of other villagers’ livestock there was no outcry, but riots and disturbances ensued in counties where enclosure caused hardship by depriving the community’s livestock of grazing. The greatest problems occurred in lowland villages with inadequate quantities of common-land, or in those with an expanding population that had relied upon previously large areas of common-field. Sixteenth century enclosures aroused considerable indignation in the East Midlands. However, enclosure caused no difficulties in the sparsely populated, pastoral Pennines. Most land had already been enclosed without consternation in Essex, Suffolk, Kent, Hertfordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall.

Enclosure of common fields between 1700 and 1800 CE. 
Estimates suggest that only 2 per cent of the land was enclosed in the sixteenth century, but that enclosure jumped to 24 per cent of land in the seventeenth century, 13 per cent in the eighteenth century, and 11.4 per cent from 1800 to 1914.

Engrossing involved the consolidation of two or more farms into a single farm. Enclosure and engrossing were independent processes – both procedures could affect farms, or one transformation could proceed without the other. Both processes caused depopulation, but engrossing created a greater problem because it displaced people directly from the land.

Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.

Markets

Markets function to redistribute commodities from suppliers to producers. At the outset of the sixteenth century England had about 1800 market towns, supporting populations calculated to be around 10,000. Each town held markets once or twice weekly for its small hinterland of about 10 miles radius. There was little inter-market trading except during fairs held once or twice annually; goods from a wider area were traded at the market fairs. Prices were governed by customs and regulations, not by supply and demand.

After the end of the eighteenth century, few market towns remained but urbanization had increased. Most commodities were traded at a national level, some items were transported large distance from regions of specialized agriculture. Transportation was commonly along rivers and newly constructed waterways, along much improved roads, and eventually by railroad. Competitive bid-pricing predominated, the variety and quantity of traded goods had vastly increased, and middlemen abounded.

Livestock, being able to transport themselves, and animal products, fetching higher prices per weight, were the first commodities moved from localized markets, through inter-markets, to national markets (by the seventeenth century.) Grain was traded at the inter-market level by the sixteenth century.

Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.

The ingredients of agricultural revolution

A complex accumulation of incremental changes contributed to the revolution in agricultural efficiency that accelerated in the nineteenth century.

The total acreage under cultivation increased through reclamation of marsh, saltmarsh, rough pastures, heathlands, and upland wastes, and through further clearance of woodland. However, agricultural technological advances played a greater rôle in increased productivity – for example, windmills aided the continuing drainage of reclaimed fenlands; and, hollow drains, and later tile drains, improved the management of England’s heavy, wet soils.

Soil fertility was improved through preservation and restoration of soil nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Initially, ‘rest’ periods under fallow allowed soils to recuperate. Marling improved soil structure and pH balance, promoting regeneration of soil nitrogen and rendering soils suitable for ‘fussier’ crops.

Changes in landholding and tenures, enclosure, and engrossing resulted in larger, capital-rich farms. The larger scale farmer was able to adopt innovations and to focus on efficiency, labor management, and profit. Convertible husbandry, combining arable, ‘ley fields,’ and increased livestock (aided by enclosure) improved the ‘recycling’ of nitrogen and increased productivity. Floating of meadows provided early fodder for increasing numbers of livestock. Stall feeding of livestock on fodder, and folding livestock overnight on arable fields, improved the distribution of manure. Ultimately, variations on the Norfolk four-course crop rotations exploited leguminous and root-fodder crops to reduce or eliminate fallow. The sophisticated rotations, coupled with more advanced breeds of livestock, preserved soil fertility, produced greater yields of animal products, and increased the portion of acreage under tillage.

Widening markets, improved transportation, and greater awareness of the optimum use of regional soils led to regional agricultural specialization. Although increasing acreage was devoted to profitable non-edible crops, new food crops were introduced, and more productive food-crops were grown in optimized proportions. Each advance increased product per acre per year – allowing population to expand, and supporting the industrial revolution by fueling the factories with manpower.

Improvements in agricultural education aided more efficient farm and labor management. Agricultural manpower was supplemented by an increase in draught horses, by improved tools (including the seed drill and horse hoe), and by the eventual replacement of draught animals by machinery. The introduction of disease-resistant hybrids, chemical fertilizers (superphoshates were developed first,) fungicides, and pesticides allowed further increases in productivity.



Modern geographers are concerned with the impact of man upon the environment, and with the changing utilization of the land.  The tile-drainage system that greatly improved agricultural productivity is hidden, but essential. Planned tree-farming has reversed a little of the massive deforestation wrought upon Britain both for clearance of land for agriculture, and to supply prime timber for shipbuilding. For the ships that made Britain a rich and powerful colonial nation by the turn of the twentieth century – a position usurped by one of Britain’s former colonies.

A recent concern of geographers in Britain has been the removal of hedgerows, fences, and walls – destroying the quaint patchwork-quilt landscape – the same ‘enclosed’ landscape that had aroused such opposition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In order to permit movement of large farm machines, farmers are opening up their fields – by no means a full return to the medieval open-field system, but a step away from the picturesque ‘Oh-so-British’ scenery.

Farming Systems and Landholding.
The rhythm and grind of agriculture.
Regional agriculture and prevalent obstacles to food production.
Enclosure and Engrossing.
Markets.
The ingredients of agricultural revolution.

Land Use in Britain – Overview.
Land Use in Britain – Stone Age to Iron Age.
Land Use in Britain – Romans and Vikings.
Land Use in Britain – Normans bring Feudalism.


Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.

Land Use in Britain – Bibliography.