Where would Medieval farmers have sold their crops?

Hello all!

Did they just trade for things they needed? Or would they have sold them from a shop of their own, or a little cart? Would they, maybe, have sold them down streets with a wheelbarrow and call out their ware? Sell them wholesale to a merchant?

Appreciate any help anyone can give me!

The Medieval period has a wide timeline, with many internal changes, and with many regional variations, even if we talk only about Europe.

Even so, generally speaking, after all the payments that the small farmer would need to do, the most reasonable would be to trade his goods with his neighbours, and to sell them in the nearest village, where he could go one day a week, one day a month, in the holly days, or in some regional market (fair). Also, if there was a near abbey the friars could be good costumers. Naturally it would also depend of the product.

Whilst I have no studies in this to give a proper answer consider that there is likely no single answer:
1) Many farmers during those times would not have owned the land that they farmed; thus those working for different lords/church/etc... might well have produced and used their produce in different ways. Some well might have been more free to trade; whilst others might well have been forced to give all to their landlord.

2) Consider that different areas of the country and different regions within those areas might well have had different approaches to things. Clearly there was trade as there was the urban scene; but there were also extensive country settlements. Thus food was likely just as much sold and traded at local markets as it was sold to traders to be taken on to sell and use in the larger urban environments.

3) The period in itself covers a good chunk of time and thus social; economic and technical changes through that time would have changed behaviours and varied practices. Thus you might well get conflicting answers from sources that look at this kind of question in a very "snapshot" approach. Each being correct but each only covering one time and location period.

Thanks for the responses, Tulius and Overread! I'm using that time period as a sort of guide for my fantasy world. My farmers are free men owning their own land, which I should probably have mentioned up there. This gives me an idea of how it was, though, so thanks again for the help!

If they are freemen owning their own land then chances are that they'd be free to trade the produce; having to then pay their dues (tax/protection/services etc...) to their local lord/king/knight/church). Depending on their produce; the produce of the area and the nature of how taxes are paid they might pay in trade of goods or they might sell their goods for coin to then pay in coin instead.

It should be noted that once you leave behind the matter of landlords and the like the next factor to consider is time. It takes time to travel and travel means risk. Thus many a farmer might well trade to a merchant locally; or might travel to a nearby large town to trade. The merchant(s) then taking that produce on to trade in other settlements; as the farmer likely wouldn't have the resources nor time nor likely inclination to make up a caravan to trade long distance - and yet I'm aware that in Victorian times farmers used to walk their geese to market in London - though I'm unsure if the farmers did this direct or if it was done by traders.

A factor to consider on this would be the nature of the travel network - how well made it is and how safe it is.

At a market or as door to door salesmen. All over the United Kingdom are mediaeval market crosses where the market would have been held. Weekly fairs were held at this one in Duffus which is now in a churchyard (the village itself moved several times)

I agree with previous answers - few people owned the right to farm land and even fewer actually owned land - most farmers had no surplus and their Lord or the Church who owned their land took most - any surpluses would be traded very locally - however, as London increasingly grew in size it needed a proportionally larger area of land to feed it. London was always huge compared to other towns. So, most produce was traded locally, but a small proportion would go to London. Animals had always been moved around the country using drovers trails. Young cattle from Scotland were even sent down to Cambridgeshire and fattened up before taking them to market in London.

I expect you don't wish to have a city the size of London in your world building. It is not a coincidence that most towns are situated within one day's walking distance of the next town, around 10 miles. It means that no village is more than a days walk (5 miles there and 5 miles back again) from the nearest weekly market.

mediebay?

Ama (little) john

Darkranger85 said:

Did they just trade for things they needed? Or would they have sold them from a shop of their own, or a little cart? Would they, maybe, have sold them down streets with a wheelbarrow and call out their ware? Sell them wholesale to a merchant?

Click to expand...

So far as I can tell, excess would be sold at market. Most people lived within a day's travel of a town that held a regular market - perhaps once a week. However, there would be potentially bigger market fairs through the year, especially in spring and summer.

I'm not sure whether it was sold all at once - if parbaked, grain could store really well. Some towns might have a requirement to hold 2 years of grain against siege. Merchants can and did speculate on grain prices, buying in bulk when it appeared to be cheap and selling at profit later on.

Grain yields increased from 2:1 to 4:1 over the Middle Ages due to improvements in technology - fields could be ploughed fastest using horses attached to a plough with horse collars. Not all farmers would be able to do this, though.

It's worth noting that different crops would be grown. Among the grains, wheat was the most prized but prefers rich, dark soil. Barley was required for brewing. Oats might be grown specifically for horse feed, but if the land was cold and wet - such as northern Scotland - then hardy oats might be the ordinary grain crop.

All sorts of beans, pulses, and root vegetables would be grown - some of which specifically as feed for animals. Carrots had yet to be developed. Animals would be commonly slaughtered in autumn and eaten/salted due to the cost of keeping them in hay and feed over the unproductive winter months.

If we're being strictly mediaeval then one tenth of all produce is tithed to the church. Taxes would vary - IIRC one twentieth of produce is something I've seen mentioned.

Darkranger85 said:

My farmers are free men owning their own land,

Click to expand...

These were increasing common through the mediaeval period, but it could get complicated - a significant number of farmers would work their own and their lord's land.

The big caveat is that there is no standardised practice across mediaeval Europe, and there could be significant differences by town and region, and of course, period you're basing your world-building on.

Ken Follet's novel World Without End - the sequel to Pillars of the Earth - has quite a lot on mediaeval farming.

Was going to say 'market town' but Brian got there first.

Should be stressed such towns could be pretty small and as the old definition of a city was somewhere with a cathedral, the old definition [not technical, but still] of a town was a settlement big enough for a market.

There's a farm locally which was sold, about a hundred years ago (I've seen the bill of sale on display in the local pub) which had a clause in the contract which required the new farmer to grow a certain amount of produce for the weekly market in the nearest town, and even went into a certain amount of detail about what sort of vegetables they should grow. So the idea of the medieval farmers selling their surplus at the local weekly market was still going on into the 19thC in Wales! Many farms locally also produced cheese and butter for market - nearly every old farmhouse has a dairy or buttery as part of the building, with thick walls to keep it cool.

Your medieval farmer also needs to think carefully about what/how much to sell. If you don't have enough dried/salted/cured etc produce for the winter, you will starve.

My fingers are a bit erratic on the keyboard this morning as I spent yesterday stacking 200 bales of hay - winter feed for our small flock of sheep. If we've estimated wrong and it runs out too soon in the spring, I will drive to Cornwall Farmers and buy some bags of sheep feed (300kg will do 7-10 days). If your medieval farmer didn't have enough fodder for the breeding stock then animals died, or lambs/calves etc come out undersized.

There was a really good TV series called Tudor Monastery Farm which looked at Medieval farming and had an episode on the local market, also the relationship between the farmers and the local monastery. BBC Two - Tudor Monastery Farm, Series 1, Episode 2 I think for the set up you're describing a local market would have been made way of trading.

aThenian said:

There was a really good TV series called Tudor Monastery Farm...

Click to expand...

Ruth Goodman has done a number of these historical reenactment programmes. The first was called Tales from the Green Valley and filmed at a place called Greyhill in south Wales, run by a guy called Stuart Peachy, who also runs Historical Management Associates and publishes booklets on topics over a wide range of periods.

It might be getting more detailed than you want, but it's worth a look. A lot of what Stuart does (he mostly focuses on Engilish Civil War period) is based on historical research and practical experiment. (You seriously have no idea what real mead tastes like until you follow the period recipe and take two pints of honey...)

Biskit said:

Ruth Goodman has done a number of these historical reenactment programmes.)

Click to expand...

Yes, the same team did one on building a medieval castle - a real project ongoing in France - which was also fascinating.