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Hello folks!I'm doing some rather extensive research into Norman-era Englishagriculture, c Domesday Survey (1086 AD). (Long story, folks...)Yes, yields have gotten really cool over these last eight centuries, butlet's go back to the medieval farmer turning over the heavy English clayswith an eight-oxen team. I don't know if there's someone out there workingin modern developing-world countries that might be able to shed light onthis sort of material, but anything would be better than my "wag"s(wild-ass guesses).>From what I've been reading, Medieval yields for various grains are asfollows:Rye = seven-fold render (7 bushels on one acre); does better in poor soilWheat = 5-fold render (5 bu/acre) in poor soils...Barley = ?I believe the seed distribution was 1 bushel/acre for planting. Othersources indicate 2 bushels/acre, though this seems rather high to me.This didn't jive with most other estimations I received, which indicatedAnglo-Saxon farm yields for wheat ranging from 6 (poor harvest) to 8(average) to 10 (great) bushels per acre. But I think these also assumedaverage to good plowland.Given the early two-field rotation system, I tried to rationalize howEngland could support the debated-but-seemingly-accepted historicalestimates of 1.2 to 1.5 million inhabitants.Basically, the Domesday survey showed 67,000 some odd "hides", "sulungs" or"carucates" under plow... Each unit can be rounded off to representing 120acres (though this varied *greatly* depending on all sorts of variables...)That's about 12,600 square miles under plow... or 8,000,000 acres (veryroundedfigures). Given 50% utilization for rotation (I'll use the other 50% forpasture below), that's 4,000,000 acres.Okay. Here we go...Given a bad harvest year (famine, but people aren't dropping like flies),that'd be equivalent to a 6 bu/acre render minus 1 bu/acre for replanting =5 bu/acre for food, or 4 million x 5 bu = 20 million bushels of grains.I've heard that a typical human being requires about 24 bushels of food peryear (which would create a loaf a bread a day).But that means 1.5 million people x 24 bushels = 36 million bushelsfood/year!Even 1.2 million (the low-ball accepted value) = 28.8 million bushels/year.So somewhere I'm only 50-75% towards the dietary needs of the population.btw: Even if you break down this equation to the individual farmstead,which we have very explicit survey results for, the equation doesn't worktoo well. The typical farm has about 4 households per "hide" of 120 acres.Estimates of family size are ~4-5/household. Given 16-20 people per 120acres = (16 to 20) x 24 bu required = 384-480 bushels equiv. requiredversus 120 x 50% x 5 = 300 bushels produced! Only 62%-78% the way there...Hmmm...At the same time, I didn't decrease grain yields to account for thesignificant losses due to requirements for brewing into alchohol. (I'veheard *all* sorts of wild guesses for that figure...) Or take into accountlosses due to pestilence in storage, spillage, losses in milling, etc.So somehow people were able to live without starving to death... So my nextthought: "must be their consumption of vegetables and meats!"But the figures don't support this. Or do they?Gardens were dissapointing. Crofts, gardens and other growing areas wererated at no greater than 10% of the arable. Most locations didn't even ratea mention of such. What is the typical vegetable garden's yield?Given an equivalent "5 bushels/acre" yield to grain, then we'd get to addanother 5-10% towards our goal... Now we stand at about 55% (worst case) to88% (best case) of our needs -- or roughly two thirds the way there. Nowlet's turn to the aminal part of the diet...>From a sample of 1.7% of the population (taken from the richest andbest-victualled nobles' farmsteads), I came up with the following stats:2.3 oxen per family (Can't eat 'em... these were the plow beasts)0.24 head of cattle per family0.04 horses per family (Mostly for the wealthy... I only included them since I was trying to figure out how the *heck* people'd survive in the lean years.)0.23 goats per family0.61 pigs per family4.02 sheep per family(Alas, chickens and ducks were not compiled by the tax collectors! ;-)The meadow and pastureland statistics also bear out the above numbers forlivestock. For instance, most meadow -- reserved grazing land for oxen --amounted to 5-20% of the arable. As mentioned already, common pasture wasoften the rotated crop land, but some locations were also lucky enough torate set-aside pastures for their cattle, but not much.Now, I haven't butchered enough animals, but this does not seem like enoughvictuals to make up 30% of your dietary needs over a year. The sheep arethe most promising, but I don't think that'd last you more than a couple ofmonths.How many "bushels" equivalent does 4 sheep, a half-a-pig, and aquarter-of-a-cow equate to? Also, remember that you cannot eat the whole ofthe available livestock, lest you then have *nothing* left for futureyears... I would assume you could consume no more than 30-50% of youravailable animals (depending on the type, gestation period and rate ofmaturation per beastie) if you do not want to adversely affect the overalleconomic and ecologic system.I also considered hunting and fishing, but I don't have any idea how muchthat would change the equation. Rabbit was probably available widely, andvenison to those authorized to hunt in the King's forests. (Poachers werealso quite likely ;-) Renders of eels, fish, sesters of honey and otherfood were mentioned, but not enough to make "great unified theory"equations.So far, so good. Given some good hunting, we can just about scratch ourheads and give them the benefit of the doubt. Now here's the tricky part:TAXES.Food renders were made -- usually 10% of the harvest -- to the church everyyear. If I knock 10% off my values, well... now things *really* look bleak.As well, agriculture renders as "valet" -- taxes -- were about 1-2pounds/hide, or roughly 1.6 to 3.2 pence per acre. And these weren't paidin coinage, but in renders of food as well!(I have not been able to establish the selling price of bushels of grain atthis time... But that's another posting altogher in a different newsgroup!;-)And no, I'm sorry; the clergy did *not* make up 10% of the rural populationof England... More like 1 in 260 -- about what you'd expect! Similarlythose who were getting the taxes were not statistically equivalent to theamount of goods that were being delivered to them. The ratio of taxes wouldbe about 15% of the yield (if, as I've guessed, a bushel as worth 2 pence).This also matches the taxes of "one sheep/pig in seven" that was collectedby the king's men.And, by the way, this 15% rendered as taxes was split amongst only 5% ofthe population -- I think they were *quite* set! :-)So I scraped to get to 100% of food, only to be brought back down by 25%.How well does a population survive on 75% of it's annual requirement?Famine would obviously claim some lives.... but I can't see it being aneven-percentage exchange. Surely there's some resiliency towardsundernourishment.Otherwise, England would have been nearly depopulated after a relativelyshort number of drought or pestilence years.Anyone have figures on such large-scale and primitive agrarian societies?I *know* people survived the feudal era... I'm trying to figure out *how*,and from this, get a good idea of their diet and lifestyle.Any help would be *greatly* appreciated in this endeavour. If I getpublished, I'll be sure to site any assistance rendered. References arealso highly desired.Please e-mail directly back to me (pcorless@cisco.com). I'll try to amassand post the best of the reponses.
Consider: 6 hundreds, so that's one hundred hides per hundred - 600 hundred hides total, which is around 18000 modern acres ?? or around 48000 old acres if each hide is around 80-120 old acres or 30 modern ones. Assuming it takes 2 modern ?? acres to feed a peasant on wheat for a year, the population of the entire region/county is around 9000. The demesne land, aka the land owned directly by the lord himself and on which his manor/estate lies, is around 1200 modern acres, or 40 hides, so could support around 600 people, including peasants, lord and lord's retinue. The remaining land in the hundred could support around 900 people. Note, acres as stated here refer only to arable farmland, not total size of the region.