The Role of Agriculture in the Middle Ages

The Role of Agriculture in the Middle Ages

In the middle ages the peasants of the manor labored in the fields and produced the crops. They had a system that worked for them, but it was not sufficient enough and they needed to find a way to produce more crops more efficiently. They used a system call the open field system which allowed a number of households to work on a single field. They did not fence in the property which allowed each family to take turns working the field. Around 1000A.D. they started looking for innovations to improve their agriculture. They used a two field system that only allowed them one half of the land to use per year. Which left the other half of the land lay dormant to allow the nutrients to return to its soil. They used a style of plowing called criss-cross double field plowing. Eventually they came up with three major innovations which would change their production and provide much more efficient ways of producing crops throughout their fields.

The three innovations that were used started with the three field system. The next would be the mold board plow. Finally the horse collar would be introduced. These three things would drastically improve the economy. They gained efficiency from the land with the three field system. The mold board plow would prove to be a much easier way to churn the soil and turn the nutrients. Then the horse collar would make production much quicker due to the combination of the horses' strength and speed.

With the two field system that the peasants used they had problems keeping the soil fertile enough to provide a sufficient supply of crops. "Soil exhaustion was a constant problem, and the peasants were usually engaged in the laborious process of clearing new land to supplement their old, worn-out fields" (Nelson). They needed to come up with a better way to produce the crops and keep all of the available land in good use. This is when the innovation of the three field system came from. Instead of using one half of the land per year they would be able to use two thirds of it and still have plenty of nutrients within the soil. They would use two parts of the field for their crop each year and leave one empty, or a fallow field. This would allow the empty field to regain the required nutrients while the other two were used. Each year they would rotate fields to give part of the land the time to recuperate. Along with this innovation came the introduction of new crops, some of which were considered "fall crops". This provided a set pattern for the production of these crops because of the growth during certain seasons.

Along with the three field system came the innovation of a new way to plow the fields. The previous system was time consuming and extremely laborious for the peasants. The moldboard plow was introduced and provided an easier way to open and churn the soil. This provided the buried nutrients to be turned up and provide nutrition to the crops. It also took the labor that the peasants had to put into the field and allowed them to use animals for this labor. "The problem with using the heavy plow was that it took a great deal of tractive power" (Landon). Since so much power was needed they used a team of oxen to pull the plow which was directed, normally, by a team of two peasants. Shortly after they came up with the heavy-wheeled plow which allowed them to reduce the team of four oxen to two, and create more plowing teams. Although the oxen were very powerful animals they were still quite slow. The use of the plow would also be the introduction to strip farming. This would be caused by the plow being pulled equal distances along while they worked creating a square field.

Horses were much faster than the oxen and were nearly as strong. If they could use the horse to plow the fields they could get the job done in a fraction of the time. This is when the innovation of the horse collar came into play. There