page_title: Agriculture in the Middle Ages
section_title: Fields
hierarchical_section_title: Agriculture in the Middle Ages / Fields
caption_attribution_description: English: Rig &amp; furrow marks in a field near Aiket Castle in East Ayrshire. 2007.
context_page_description: Agriculture in the Middle Ages describes the farming practices, crops, technology, and agricultural society and economy of Europe from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 to approximately 1500. The Middle Ages are sometimes called the Medieval Age or Period. The Middle Ages are also divided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. The early modern period followed the Middle Ages.
  Epidemics and climatic cooling caused a large decrease in the European population in the 6th century. Compared to the Roman period, agriculture in the Middle Ages in Western Europe became more focused on self-sufficiency. The Feudal period began about 1000. The agricultural population under feudalism in Northern Europe was typically organized into manors consisting of several hundred or more acres of land presided over by a Lord of the manor, with a Roman Catholic church and priest. Most of the people living on the manor were peasant farmers or serfs who grew crops for themselves, and either labored for the lord and church or paid rent for their land.
context_section_description: The field systems in Medieval Europe included the open-field system, so called because there were no barriers between fields belonging to different farmers. The landscape was one of long and uncluttered views.  In its archetypal form, cultivated land consisted of long, narrow strips of land in a distinctive ridge and furrow pattern.  Individual farmers owned or farmed several different strips of land scattered around the farming area.  The reason for farmers possessing scattered strips of land was apparently to reduce risk; if the crop in one strip failed, it might thrive in another strip.  The lord of the manor also had strips of land scattered around the fields as did the parish priest for the upkeep of the church. The open-field system required cooperation among the residents of the community and with the lord and the priest. "Strips of land were cultivated individually, yet were subject to communal rotations and (typically) communal regulation of cropping."
  Two patterns of cultivation were typical of the open-field system.  In the first, the arable land was divided into two fields.  One half was cultivated and the other one was left fallow every year. Crops were rotated between the two fields every year, with the fallow field being allowed to recover its fertility and used for livestock grazing when not dedicated to crops. The two-field system continued to be  most prevalent throughout the Middle Ages in dry-summer Mediterranean climates in which grain crops were planted in fall and harvested in spring, the summer being too dry for spring-planted crops to prosper.
  A three-field pattern was typical of the later Middle Ages in northern Europe with its wetter climate.  One field was planted in fall, one field was planted in spring, and the third field was left fallow. Crops were rotated from year to year and field to field. Thus, cultivation was more intensive than it was under the two-field pattern.  In both patterns, common areas of wood and pasture as well as fallowed fields were used for communal grazing and wood-gathering.
  The woods and meadows comprising common lands were open to exploitation to all farmers in the manor, but under strict management of the number of livestock allowed each farmer to avoid over grazing.  Fallow fields were treated as common lands for grazing.
  The open-field system had a more individualistic, less-communal variant, usually prevalent in less productive areas for agriculture.  The strips of land cultivated by farmers were more concentrated, sometimes into a single block of land rather than scattered holdings. Crop decisions were often made by individuals or a small group of farmers rather than a whole village.  An individual farmer might possess not only cultivated land, but woods and pastures, rather than the commons of the pure open-field system.  Villages were often strung out along a road rather than nucleated as in the archetypal open-field system.
  An enclosed field system was found mostly in pastoral areas, areas of mixed farming and pasture, and more marginal farming areas.  The enclosed field system was characterized by individual decision making.  Farmers typically enclosed their land with hedgerows, stones, or trees.  The village church was often at a prominent location and houses were scattered rather than collected into a village.  This individualistic field system was found in eastern and southwestern England, Normandy and Brittany in France, and scattered throughout Europe.
caption: The distinctive ridge and furrow pattern of the Middle Ages survive in this open field in Scotland.
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