Tag: agriculture

It may have been the effect of the plough and the need to feed more draught animals as its use spread that gave rise to a practice that some think caused the centre of European wealth and power to move north of the Alps. The practice was that of running three fields at once. For centuries it had been customary to run two fields: one to grow crops on, and one left fallow for the animals to graze and fertilize with their droppings. With an increase both in population and in the number of animals being used, it may have been the need for more food than could be provided simply by assarting that caused the change to three-field rotation. It may also have been the fact that, unlike the Mediterranean, the north has enough rain in the summer to water an extra crop. Whatever the reason, the new system was to sow oats and legumes (beans or peas) in the spring, and cereals in the autumn, letting the third field lie fallow. Until then the population had lived mostly on cereals, and so legumes were an important addition to their diet. (Small wonder that one eminent historian has described the Middle Ages as being full of beans.) The advantage of legumes is that they fix their own nitrogen from the air, thus being self-fertilizing, and enrich the trace elements in the soil. They also provide a diet rich in protein, or amino acids. With the combination of carbohydrates from cereals, fats from animals, and the 50 per cent increase in output from the three-field system, the population of Europe took off. The way people lived began to change very much for the better.

— Connections, pp. 65-66

The other innovation that came to agriculture at much the same time as the [horse-drawn plow] was the nailed horseshoe, and its origins are equally doubtful. Some dated in the ninth century [C.E.] have been found in Siberia, and there are references from the same period to their appearance in Byzantium. By the eleventh century the horseshoe was in use in Europe. Its effect was to put the horse to work in all weathers and over all terrain, for it protected the animal’s feet against both rough ground and foot rot. The horseshoe also permitted horses to be used more for transport, and because people could now ride their draught animals to the fields at a reasonable speed they could afford to live further away from them. The villages grew, as the peasants sought the benefits of community living.

— Connections, pp. 65