How Many Acres - Medieval Answer

[dlskidmore]

Open field system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The fields would be split into sections a furlong (220 yards, about 200 metres) wide, each of which would be subdivided cross-wise into strips covering an area of half an acre (about 0.2 hectares) or less. Under their commoner's rights, each villager was allocated a set number of strips in each field (traditionally about thirty) which they would subsistence-farm. The strips were generally allocated by lot in a public meeting at the start of the year. The individual holdings were widely scattered, so that no single farmer would end up with all the good or bad land.

So, that's about 15 acres. I'm not sure what the tax rates the lords imposed were like. Given law of the age, each villager probably meant each head of house, so a large family was fed off those 15 acres. In this system they also had access to common grazing land, and common woods (where generally hunting was not allowed but wood collection and grazing was.)

There is a lot of talk of high-intensity systems that can be run on 1/4 -5 acres, but it looks like some of our ancestors would have considered that insufficient.

[FarmboyBill]

Ld Wilhelm Da Kaalavo, Aug, 1112 The only wood allowed to be cut was low hanging branches that could be in the way during hunting season, and dead wood/trees. Trees that lightening hit, or a tornado blew over was OK to harvest, and for a tree it usually took several men to get it all cut and split, and they still able to keep up with their normal farming duties.

Remember also, that each farmer was required to work his Lords land so many days a year, depending on the amount of land held by him. Those drawings were held so that a farmer who had had so many acres for generations would get enough in the drawings to equal that amount One farmer might draw 5 times to get his 15 acres. another might draw 10 times to get more than that because his family had had X amount for generations, and unless they sold those rights to acres, or were taxed out of them, they could reasonably expect to get that amount of land each time the drawing was held, and if not they would see the shire reeve as to why they were short changed. The shire reeve became out sheriff.

[Ken Scharabok]

For an interesting look at medieval farming in Poland read "Poland" by James Mitchner. Your local library should abke to get a loaner copy.

[65284]

Strange you should mention that book I just finished reading it last night. Good read,as everything by Mitchner is, he is one of my favorite authors.

[texican]

More acres were needed, because there were no Big Ag Corporations breeding super plants...

[Forerunner]

Not much has changed, in re the deeper mechanics.

Your property tax is your payment to the overlord, and the shire reeve still sets the delinquent on the street if he doesn't pay.

[FarmboyBill]

yup. Course, in the movies, the deleiquent usually gets killed in the eviction

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by texican

More acres were needed, because there were no Big Ag Corporations breeding super plants...

No iron plows either. You were lucky if they let you have a pointed stick with the pointy end charred in the fire.

[FarmboyBill]

Actually, they had plows. They had the pointed stick your talking about. Maybe shaped right into a Y. One end was sharpened and ran into the ground, sometimes with a cast iron shod schovel, or hoe sized covering, one end drilled with a hole so as to run a clevis and rope it to a ox, and one smoothed off for a hand hold. THEn they had a mouldboard plow. HEAVY on the board. And thats where the word comes from, from a time when the turning surface of a plow was made out of wood. This type of plow was used for tough clay ground. Then they had a wheeled plow. The furrow wheel sometimes was bigger than the land wheel to allow for to keep the plow straight while plowing. This plow had a landslide also, but was more used in sandy loam soil.

[silverseeds]

There were also broadforks over there as well. Pretty sure they are atleast that old.

Even before industrial ag, around the late 1800s and early 1900s breeding did indeed increase yields greatly. BUT we also moved away from landraces, which were what buffered us from harsher years to a degree. and diseases as well... We CAN have both of these by the way!

Also there is still yield gain ANd diversity to be had with most crops. We did NOT bring all desirable traits to our modern crops when we selected them for tastiness as early farmers.

[WV Farm girl]

The measurement of an acre was the amount of ground oxen could plow in 1 day with those early plows. Also I read somewhere that it could take 7 out of every 10 people farming to keep the populace fed. Wow.

[Chixarecute]

PBS has had a great special on - something about the village of Kibworth and the history of England. Records going back several centuries, including farming practices, genealogy, trades development, etc.

I really liked the comment one history person (mind blank) said, " And they even kept the ox in the house in winter, the animal was that precious to them."

Snort. They kept the animal in the house in the winter because EVERYONE kept warmer.

Overall, though, it was a very good special.

[FarmboyBill]

And remember that the barn and house were most often together with a low mid high wall with a dutch door to let ones self from house to barn. Especially useful in wintertime. They kept the barn on the S side as much as possible. Kept the hearth if they had one in the N wall. If not, they kept a brazier in the middle of the room. house.

[silverseeds]

i also wonder how much better their yields would have been if more of them owned land rather then this commons stuff. Ive read a good amount about how people of the era grew things, and there is a wide gap between the most skilled and the average folks. there is little doubt to me if they got to use the same land yearly some peoples yields would have continued to increase with their superior methods eventually convincing others to follow suit.

When europeans first came to the states farming skills expanded greatly. Granted many were as poor as ever and relied on new lands, but a good number had a very large knowledge base. there are many great books on google highlighting this. (google has this free book thing for out of print books) This kinda got buried by industrial ag, and the ones who had such skillsets out produced industrial ag for decades until the green revolution came along which was the largest set of breeding projects in history at the time, and bred crops for synthetic ferts. Few projects and none of that scale have tried to breed similar producing varieties for organic inputs, Im not sure why organic folks miss this. there is room to grow..

anyway, if these medieval farmers didnt have to switch up so often, the big advancements in (organic) ag would likely have transpired there hundreds of years before they really accumulated with great frequency in the states. Perhaps not, not all european farmers used set up such as the one described above, but It certainly would have been more likely.

[Raven12]

Originally Posted by Chixarecute

PBS has had a great special on - something about the village of Kibworth and the history of England. Records going back several centuries, including farming practices, genealogy, trades development, etc.

I really liked the comment one history person (mind blank) said, " And they even kept the ox in the house in winter, the animal was that precious to them."

Snort. They kept the animal in the house in the winter because EVERYONE kept warmer.

Overall, though, it was a very good special.

You see this carried over in the architecture of older New England homes. The connected farm - barns attached to houses. From growing up in that region, I can see an added bonus of not having to hike through the snowdrifts to get to the barn.

Also, parcels of common public land in towns were used throughout the region for livestock. Community and small scale townie homesteading were standard practice.

[Paquebot]

Interesting to see how the system was laid out for planting in the map used as an example. It had spring planting, autumn planting, and fallow. The benefits of a 3-year rotation were known way back then and had been learned centuries before.

Martin

[Forerunner]

I'll say it.....if I found myself living under such a forced poverty, slaving on hard clay with little opportunity to experiement due to the lack of time and resources, not to mention an overlord breathing down my neck...... I'd sneak to the coast some night and hollow out a log, if need be, and start paddling.

Whether I made it anywhere or a wave took me, the relief would be overwhelming.

[FarmboyBill]

Thats why Robin Hood became so popular.

[Paquebot]

For those who are against that old system, there was no super food delivery system as exists now and is as old as when the first humans got tired of searching for food and decided to settle down in family groups. Those were the beginning of communal life which evolved into communities. The system assured food for all. Native Americans also practiced it but European immigrants didn't. The massive increase in population growth coincided with trains being able to deliver food from thousands of miles away. Then highways did the same and now it's planes and huge ships. We're also discovering that the old ways weren't so bad after all with a big push to buy local. In order to buy local, the food must be produced local but there's often not enough land to accommodate the needs. Best that can be done now are community gardens. That again allows the villager a chance to grow his own food by the old system where it was done on land owned by someone else.

Martin

[silverseeds]

Everyone owning land, or atleast as long as they could tend it would also assure everyone had food, with the addition that superior systems would have been more likely to develope sooner.