The Low Yields of Corn in Medieval England
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3209944 |
|---|---|
| Authors | W Harwood Long, Weitong Long (0000-0001-7410-1697, University of Leeds, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1979 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 459-469 |
| Publication date | 1979-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1468-0289.1979.tb02049.x |
| OpenAlex | W2123264300 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 1 |
R R. H. Britnell2 has recently used the records of an Essex estate, Bourchier Hall, to illustrate some of the features of agricultural technology in the fourteenth century. Amongst other things they show up the exceedingly low corn yields that were usually obtained, and Britnell examines the causes in considerable detail. He draws attention to the rotation of fallow-wheat-oats which was followed on the better soils in Essex at the time, and he discusses the difficulties of maintaining the fertility of the land unless the proportion of dungproducing animals to crop acreage was greater than was then usual. Records of corn sown and harvested in certain years between I 338 and I35I show that in most of them the yield of wheat was less than twice the amount of seed sown to grow it; nor were oats sufficiently better to make the crop worth growing. Britnell refers to failure ofdemesne agriculture which lasted through the 'fifties caused mainly by debility of the grain and exhaustion of the soil. It is not clear what is meant by debility in this context, though in its Latin form the word is frequently encountered in documents of the time, and it occurs in one of the Bourchier Hall accounts now in the Essex Record Office. It is probably a reference either to the poor quality of the seed (bladum debile), or to the poor yield of the crop (propter debilitated). Because of debility of the grain, 22 acres of oats were left unharvested at Bourchier Hall in I 350, and the wheat was apparently affected in the same way. The reference to the other alleged cause, the exhaustion of the soil, draws attention to a subject which has interested agrarian historians for many years
Agricultural economics · Agricultural engineering · Archaeology · Economics · Engineering · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Medieval Literature and History
The Economics of Exhaustion, the Postan Thesis, and the Agricultural Revolution
The cost of capital and medieval agricultural technique
People and Land in the Middle Ages, 1066–1500
Agricultural Investment and the Management of the Royal Demesne Manors, 1236-1240
The Persistence of Harvest Shocks in Medieval England
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 1986 - 2019 (34) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |