English Seigniorial Agriculture, 1250–1450

This book, first published in 2000, was the first single-authored treatment of medieval English agriculture at a national scale.

Bruce M. S. Campbell (Author)

9780521026420, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 June 2006

548 pages, 51 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 3.3 cm, 0.822 kg

'This is certainly a book which will promote further discussion of how the late medieval economy and population actually worked, and it will do much to make that discussion better informed.' Local Population Studies Society

Bruce Campbell's book, first published in 2000, was the first single-authored treatment of medieval English agriculture at a national scale. It deals comprehensively with the cultivation carried out by or for lords on their demesne farms, for which the documentation is more detailed and abundant than for any other agricultural group either during the medieval period or later. A context is thereby assured for all future work on the medieval and early modern agrarian economies. The book also makes a substantive contribution to ongoing historical debates about the dimensions, chronology and causes of the medieval cycle of expansion, crisis and contraction. Topics dealt with include the scale and composition of seigniorial estates, the geography of land-use, pastoral husbandry, arable husbandry, land productivity, levels of commercialization and the size of the population in relation to the consumption of food at any given time.

List of figures
List of tables
Preface and acknowledgements
1. Introduction: agriculture and the late-medieval English economy
2. Sources, databases and typologies
3. The scale and composition of the seigniorial sector
4. Seigniorial pastoral production
5. Seigniorial arable production
6. Crop specialisation and cropping systems
7. Arable productivity
8. Grain output and population: a conundrum
9. Adapting to change: English seigniorial agriculture, 1250–1450
Appendices
Consolidated bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]