Mediaeval living questions

[Brian G Turner]

A couple of issues have left me somewhat stumped about mediaeval living:

1. Food storage

From my reading, 10 acres of land is considered subsistence living for a serf, and that people would normally have more - ie, 15-20 as more common.

If we presume 15 acres, for the sake of argument, and assume a third is left fallow in any given year, then that's still 10 acres of food production, even assuming a single crop and not both winter and summer crops.

I find it hard not to imagine that this will result in a few tons of food stuff being produced, even with mediaeval farming methods and crop yields.

In which case, where is it all stored?

I can grant boxes, barrels, crates, dried herbs and meats left to dry storage, and a silo for grain dug under the floor or behind the house. But even then, I have difficulty accounting where it's all going to go.

Presumably some significant amount will be sold, in which case the lord or merchants will have their own dedicated storage sheds, silos, and barns for all the beans, grains, etc.

But I figure there's still going to be a lot of perishable crop that needs some way to be stored - and in volume.

A bit stumped.


2. Grain, baking, and ovens

My reading suggests that wheat is a primary crop, and bread is a staple food.

Yet my same sources also tell me that most homes will not have an oven.

In which case, how do they make bread without an oven? Is there is a communal one?

I remember in Scouts we made a paste from flour and water and when thick, wrapped it around sticks and cooked it over a fire. However, I have difficulty imagining mediaeval people eating this form of "bread" and presume they'll be eating loaves.

But how can they without an oven?

Again, a bit stumped!


Any comments or suggestions gratefully received.

 

[The Judge]

I'm useless with trying to imagine acreage and the like, but those figures seem a bit high to me. Anyway, if this is based on the English manorial system, don't forget that most of the land is owned by the lord, and the serfs work his land for him -- they have their own strips but many would have barely enough to allow them to live without having to buy from others. I'm pretty sure a book I've got has some more precise details, and I'll check through it and find out. I certainly don't think your average peasant -- serf or otherwise -- is selling much to the lord in the early middle ages, since he'd have to feed himself and his family with what is being produced, as well as paying taxes in kind to the lord and to the church.

As for the baking, definitely there would be one main bakehouse in a village -- again usually owned by the lord -- and people would have to pay to have their bread baked, in the same way they had to pay to have their wheat/barley milled (in the mill owned by the lord, of course...).

The lord himself might have his own bakehouse, or a small oven in his kitchen, but your ordinary oik has only a small fire and the cooking is mainly done in a pot which hangs suspended over it.

EDIT: forgot to mention, the lord's manor would usually be built on top of an undercroft/cellars which is where all his produce would be stored. Food arks were available in commoners' homes, which would be raised off the ground to protect the contents from vermin, and barrels would be used to store both wet and dry goods.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I thought the acreage sounded high, but I found the same repeated in Ken Follet's World Without End - with some of the more prosperous serfs have 60 acres or more. There was also the point that while this land didn't belong to the serfs, they did have the right to harvest from it - with the lord demanding 2 days a week of labour to farm his fields.

Which again leads to the point of peasants with large land holdings and therefore harvests. I can see some of the food being sold - but with the caveat that crop options would be limited - meaning markets for any particular crop being flooded. If everyone is suddenly bringing broad beans to market then I can't imagine it all selling. And I'm not sure where you'd store tens of acres of beans, barley, or wheat. I presume a lot of this is going to have to be bought by the lord.

And while grains can be stored, and I know beans can be dried, I figure there's still going to be a lot of perishable veg that will need storing, or eating.

Hm, I dunno - I just can't get my head around the agrian system of economy in play, and where all this food produce is going, because it is going to be a lot - in good years, of course. I just find little mention of storage and amounts stored.

Cheers for the comment on the bakehouse - I'll factor this in.

 

[Abernovo]

I'd agree 10 acres would be a lot of land for a serf to have for personal use. There were a lot of cottagers/cottars with only the land around their cottage or hut for growing food. There would, of course, also be common grazing, which would factor into the equation.

One cow needs an acre of good grass. As there was little 'improved' grass back then, you're looking at 1.5-2.5 acres (0.5-1 Ha). These are the factors I used to work on with Highland Cattle on poor ground. One cow equals about four to six sheep, or ten goats. So, with grazing, the usable acreage for crops reduces significantly, and still has to be rotated, because the ground gets poached, or churned up.

Pigs are good for breaking soil up for future crops, but have to be watched, or they'll snaffle anything that stands still for five seconds.

Goats and a good cow would give the milk to trade with the village baker. The grain had to be milled, a specialisation, and it would be easier to sell/pass all grain to the miller, then to the baker than to try to reclaim your portion.

If you do have flour, or other bready stuff, you can produce flatbreads over a fire, similar to naan bread. I learnt to make them over a campfire, and they're still a staple in many countries, and remembered in some communities. They can also be quite thick and filling.

A final note that a lot of the vegetables grown would not be like the modern shop vegetables, but much smaller. The amount of selection that's been done in the last few centuries is amazing. Even without fertilisers and insecticides, many modern vegetables are larger and more regular in shape. The older (now heritage) carrots tended to purple, not orange, as well.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

It is 10-15 acres but thinking back to my degree I am sure that 10-15 acres is split into strips and shared amongst more than one Serf. In modern day we need about 3-4 acres to be self sufficient.

There was probably a communal oven but it was unlikely to have been used. They'd have made the wheat version of porridge.

I know they had storage pits, dug into the ground. Grain pits I think they are called.

 

[The Judge]

Right, I've had a look at my book!

All the following is taken from Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies. It was first published in 1990, so might be a little out of date, but it's a very readable book and details life in Elton in England in the 12th and 13th centuries. If you can get hold of a copy, I'd recommend it.

Acreage -- yep, your understanding was right and my guess was wrong. They report various views re subsistance level farming, and one in 1988 said 12 acres was needed for a statistically average family of 4.75. However, more would be needed in a two-field system than three-field as more land is lying fallow each year.

Ownership -- "A few villagers held many strips, most held a few, some held none." Poor cottars would work for the others.

Crops -- "Where three fields were used, one lay fallow all year, a second was planted in the autumn with winter wheat or other grain, the third was planted in the spring with barley, oats, peas, beans, and other spring crops. The next year the plantings were rotated." Crop yields are going to be staggered by the sound of it, lessening the need for storage space. and, of course, each cottar is planting a variety of crops, not all one. NB "Spring crops... were usually planted more thickly than winter, about four bushels to the acre" -- I don't know how that works out in weight.

Wheat -- "Because [the villager's] wheat went almost exclusively to the market, his food and drink crops were barley and oats." So you were right about the selling, but only of wheat, not ordinary produce, not for most people. Off hand I can't see who the wheat was sold to and when, so it may be the lord bought it as a middle man to sell on to specialist dealers or the like.

Bread -- In 1408 (after the cataclysm of the Black Death when food was comparatively plentiful, since so many had died) someone complained "Labourers of olden times were not wont to eat wheaten bread; their bread was of common grain or of beans". The Gies say "Most peasant bread was made from 'maslin', a mix of wheat and rye or barley and rye, baked into a coarse dark loaf weighing four pounds or more". Poorer families would have favoured pottage over bread since it required no milling or baking and therefore saved money/the miller's extraction. (NB grinding your own grain was an offence -- people were fined and the hand grindstones confiscated.)

Bakehouse -- I'm sure I read that in Elton there were two bakehouses at either end of the village, though I can't find it now, but the Gies make the point that at the end of the 13th century it was "a large village, capable of summoning 327 residents to a harvest in 1287." Allowing for eg wives, children etc, they reckon on 500-600 peple all told. NB "Three villagers were fined in 1300 for 'withdrawing themselves from the lord's common oven'... Later three villagers were fined for going into the baking business... and had to pay twelve pence apiece."

Buildings -- for Elton manor "Kitchen and bakehouse were in separate buildings nearby, and a granary was built up against the hall." Plus it had two barns (one big, one small), both of timber, where mows of grain were stored. Thinking about it, I've seen huge barns of the late medieval period -- Tudor, mostly -- which would presumably have held the wheat crop, but again they all were associated with the manor or big house.

As for markets, if there is spare produce of any kind, first there are people in the village who will buy it -- the cooper and blacksmith don't have time to till their own fields, though they might have a garden to produce some food, with a chicken or pig or two. After that, there are the nearer market towns, where again people will only have a garden or so.

That help?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I was on a tour recently of an old homestead. They had a loft, accessed via a hatch above one of the bedrooms. In the summer it was used as sleeping accomodation for the family and farmhands, but in the winter is was used for storage, and it was pretty cold. It was the length of the house so quite big.

A few other storage bits I know from allotmenting - sand can be used to store turnips in over the winter and you can get a lot of them into a small crate filled with it. Pumpkins etc store for ages just somewhere cold and dark eg the loft.

Also, some produce would have been preserved and stored in larder conditions.

 

[Mouse]

What about ice houses or are those too late for the time period?

As for the fields, they're not gonna be food all the time, are they? Thinking of the fields where I walk the dog - two were maize, then went to turnips, two were sweetcorn and they were being harvested as I walked through yesterday. I'm not sure what they'll put there now. Maybe more turnips? Anyway, I know they then stick sheep in there after the turnips.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Ice houses here are late 1700s onwards. They also tend to be on the coast.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Right. I think I'm starting to get my head around this.

All the following is taken from Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies.

That's one of my main sources, and Ian Mortimer, too. Ken Follet seems to be using the same figures, too, but is presumably referencing Gies or Mortimer (or both).

As for markets, if there is spare produce of any kind, first there are people in the village who will buy it -- the cooper and blacksmith don't have time to till their own fields, though they might have a garden to produce some food, with a chicken or pig or two. After that, there are the nearer market towns, where again people will only have a garden or so.

I think this is the part I was missing. From what I've read, the countryside was going to be pretty sufficient. But I hadn't factored in the towns and cities, and generally larger villages where there will be more specialised roles - people who will need to buy their food, rather than farm the land.

I was on a tour recently of an old homestead. They had a loft, accessed via a hatch above one of the bedrooms. In the summer it was used as sleeping accomodation for the family and farmhands, but in the winter is was used for storage, and it was pretty cold. It was the length of the house so quite big.

Cheers - that makes sense - normally I have it in mind that the peasants are sleeping in a half-loft, which would mean anything stored downstairs would be near the animals and fire pit, which is going to cause problems.

While something of the house design being used will determine this, I can use this insight, I think, so cheers for that.

sand can be used to store turnips in over the winter and you can get a lot of them into a small crate filled with it. Pumpkins etc store for ages just somewhere cold and dark eg the loft.

Ooh, now that is a good one - turnips are going to be a staple of the poor, but I figured they'd go off relatively quickly, and I wouldn't have thought them dried. So this is good - veg kept fresh via clever methods.

A return tip is that I'm told apples are packed with nettles to help keep them fresh for longer.

A final note that a lot of the vegetables grown would not be like the modern shop vegetables, but much smaller.

Indeed, cheers for the grazing comments - and connecting the above with:

In modern day we need about 3-4 acres to be self sufficient.

means that 10 acres minimum makes sense - when you account for the increased food yields we can produce in modern times, not least the size and quality, plus the fact mediaeval families will be large - I would expect 8-10 living per family at any time to be quite typical - so you need the larger land due to poorer yields and larger families.

So, overall, it's beginning to make more sense to me now - many thanks for everybody's comments!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Right, so see if I've got this figured out now:

A cottager family lives comfortably with 30 acres (meaning less risk of starvation, and a little money for extras).

In any given year, 10 acres is left fallow.

Another 10 acres will be given over to wheat. Some of this crop will need to be retained for next year's seed, and in a good season, some portion of the grain will also be stored (via a grain pit behind the home) against any future bad season. Some may be used but most will be sold. This money pays for general expenses - milling, baking, plough hire, replacement tools, building, repairs, etc, as well as additional food such as milk and other dairy, and meat.

The remaining 10 acres are given over to beans, barley, oats, and vegetables. How much of this is required for general living will depend on the size of the family. What is needed will be stored, and any perceived surplus sold (or bartered for services or other food stuffs).

So the actual amount of storage required simply depends on how much grain to go in the storage pit, and how much of the beans and vegatables need to be put into barrels or boxes. Barley will be stored in sacks, as will the milled oats, and any flour from the wheat kept back. Which altogether will cover a couple of acres of surplus, but can be stored tightly.

The back yard of the house can be used to grew herbs, some more veg, fruit bushes, and perhaps even some chickens.

Nearby woods can be foraged for berries and nuts, and there may be a pond or stream where fish can be caught.

I've tried to describe the basic set up (I've not even gone into pastoral farming or orchards) but it's all looking a lot more sensible now.

And that's for a reasonably comfortable family - obviously the less land, the less chance of surplus, and the greater exposure to starvation in bad harvest years. Those with more land can buy more extras, not least meat.

Right, that's my mind set at rest, unless anyone can see any problems with this?

 

[The Judge]

I'm not convinced by the grain pits in the UK, not for medieval villages of 1400 and after, and not where someone has sufficient land and wealth to till 30 acres -- a staddle stone granary is more likely, I'd have thought. I'd put the pits as an older solution to the storage problem. I've done a quick google, but can't quickly find anything after the 11th century Saint-Denis, a town in the Middle Ages : Grain pits (and note that's in a town, with perhaps limited space) so it might be worth checking further if it's important to the plot.

Don't forget common land on which cows and sheep might be grazed, and pigs if they're ringed. Plus the chance of the odd rabbit or better if the woods aren't closely watched by the lord's men to prevent poaching. The river/stream might also be owned by someone, so again fishing might be a poaching issue.


NB when you come down to Brighton, if you can wangle a few spare hours before flying back, try and get over to the Weald and Downland Museum which has medieval houses reconstructed on site, complete with cottage gardens and animal sheds, which might help answer any other questions Weald and Downland Open Air Museum | Home Page

 

[Brian G Turner]

No problem, I can accept that larger grain stores would probably benefit from a granary, depending on the volume required. Cheers for the links as well - very informative.

Looks like I'd need at least a full afternoon for the Weald and Downland museum, which I don;t think I'll have - but luckily the website announces a six-part BBC series on it so I'll definitely want to look out for that.
BBC - Media Centre - BBC Two announces Tudor Monastery Farm

 

[Brian G Turner]

Interesting to note that Tudor Monastery Farm cites a figure of 6 acres, per person, required to feed them with bread and ale through the year. Presumably this does not include fallow land. For the higher figures seem to stack up.

 

[Ivanya]

I recall in one show (Tales from the Green Valley, I think, which is probably a little later than what you need) they mention that there would have been a communal bread oven in most villages.

If you recall the old nursery rhyme pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker's man, they mention 'prick it and stick it and mark it with B, and put it in the oven for baby and me', that's a reference to such things. People would initial their dough, or mark it somehow as theirs to avoid mix-ups since there would be lots of bread going in at once. Another fun fact from the same episode, was that the old phrase 'the upper crust of society' came from how the rich folks would have the top of the loaves, and the bottom, which would generally get burnt by all the cinders and soot from the bottom of the oven, would go to the poorer folk.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Cool tips - cheers!

 

[Aquilonian]

I'll address your interesting question under several headings.

1) Land requirement for subsistence of a family. This would vary greatly according to

(a) what staple crop were they depending on? If you're thinking Medieval Europe then it'd be barley, rye, oats in northern areas, wheat only for the rich. In 19th Century Ireland 1.5 acres (one and a half) of potatoes was enough for a family of six (two adults and four kids). I beleive in China they could support a family on even less, growing rice in paddy fields with three crops per year. European cereal crops with only one havest per year requires much more land though.

(b) what was their standard of living? There was huge range of living standards even within the peasantry. Poorest people almost hibernated during the winter- spending a lot of time in bed to conserve energy.

(c) what was the quality of the soil in that area? For example, in more fertile parts of Medieval France, cereal crop yields were up to three times as good as in more barren areas. In the worst areas they had to reserve 1/3 of each crop for next year's seed. Where cattle were plentiful, manure would fertilise the earth. But 1/3 to 1/2 still had to be left fallow each year, before crop rotation with leguminous plants (which replace nitrogen into the soil) were introduced in 18th Century.

(d) the acreage you quote seems very excessive for European peasants. Bear in mind that much of the land was still forested, there were also commons (communally-owned grazing) and 1/3 to 1/2 of the farmland was left fallow. One interesting land measurement is the "hide". A hide was the amount of land required to support the poorest knight ie a basic mounted warrior with at least one horse (they eat a lot!), his own family (incl servants) and his peasants who would actually do the farming work. A small Anglosaxon kingdom might be 30 hides (before they were unified into the big kingdoms like Wessex. Mercia, etc). About the size of a small English county.

2) You refer to "serfs" but they were the lowest class who did not hold any land at all. Serf is simply the English for slave- up to 16% of the English population in Domesday Book period were slaves. A lot of people don't realise this. Cottars and Bordars were the poorest non-slave peasants, villeins were the more prosperous peasants, finally there were a small minority of freehold farmers (I think mainly in the areas of Danish colonisation). The amount of freedom varied alongside the amount of wealth, unlike in Roman times when some slaves were much wealthier than some free men (indeed some slaves even owned slaves of their own).
Of course there are degrees of slavery- a slave is property, but had some rights at least in theory (although probably almost none at all in practice).

3) Food storage. Don;t you have to parch the grain to stop it from germinating? In pre-industrial societies a huge %age of stored food is eaten by rats and mice. (In modern societies an equal or even greater amount is thrown away but that's another story!) As regards meat, most livestock were slaughtered at Samhain and the meat salted and/or smoked to preserve it. But people had a much higher tolerance for eating partially rotten meat (hence the importance of the spice trade). Some peasants when they killed a pig had to sell half of it to buy the salt to preserve the other half.

 

[Aquilonian]

A "Hide" BTW, since it was defined by the land needed to support one warrior, had no fixed acreage, since the amount of land needed varied according to fertility of the soil etc. So in theory it is quoted as = 120 acres but in practice would have varied greatly.
1 hide = 4 virgates, and a virgate = the amount of land that one plough team (two oxen) can plough in one ploughing season. Theoretically 30 acres. An acre is of course the amount of land that a ploughman can plough in one day (bear in mind they weren't ploughing all year round).
Obviously if each hide required four ox teams, it was supporting far more than just one peasant family. Domesday Book normally gives land area, number of plough teams, and number in each class of peasants, for each village.

An extremely rough estimate of the population of England in Anglosaxon times can be extrapolated from the Tribal Hidage (see wikipedia) from which we see for instance that Essex = 7,000 hides.

Some of the evidence for the definition of the hide comes from a medieval court case involving a knight whose hands were cut off by pirates when the ship he was travelling on was attacked by pirates in the English Channel. Being now totally disabled he applied to the King for help, and was granted one hide of land to support him. So this (120 acres approx) was the amount thought necessary to support one knight in a standard of living appropriate to his status.

 

[Aquilonian]

And here's something a bit clearer, relating to Roman times but the agriculture would not have been much different. This is from "The Ancient Economy" by Moses Finley, a fascinating and very well-researched book. Briefly-

In the time of Julius Caesar, in Italy, 6 acres was reckoned enough to support a veteran with a larger family. This = 10 jugerum, a juga being the amount a man can plough in a day. This would support a family but not an plough ox as well, presumably the oxen and ploughs were shared between several households. (As in Domesday Book, there's always much more peasants than ploughs in each manor). In Italy 1/2 the land was left fallow each year, however these veterans did not have to pay rent or taxes on their produce (see below).

Cato wrote a book about agriculture, in which he assumed his readers would own about 100 jugerum = 60 acres. However his readership were literate middle class Romans who owned slaves to do the actual farm work, ie their farms were on the larger side.

In Egypt many families lived on 2 acres, their land was irrigated and therefore much more productive than in Italy. In Northern countries the land would be still less productive, presumably.

The Egyptian peasants had to pay rent and tax on their two acres, so the amount left to feed them was even less. (Rome itself was fed on Egyptian grain). Rents and taxes varied in the ancient and medieval world, but taxation+rent was often about 30% of total production.

Finally, bear in mind that crop yields varied enormously due to climate and disease. For example in a very wet year, mildew can reduce grain yields by 50%.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Reading Life in a Mediaeval Village by Gies, it's mentioned that the amount of land required to feed a family would vary greatly across Britain - however, at the example village of Elton, now in Cambridgeshire, that the book follows, the statement is made that - in this region - 24 acres was regarded (in Norman times at least) as being the amount required to sustain a peasant family.