Medieval Agrarian Expansion and Societal Shifts
The Weight of Behavior and Social Relations
The production effort was aided by an evolution of attitudes towards work and money. The contempt that weighed on the job was being superseded by the Christian idea that, far from being merely an infamous punishment or stigma, even manual work was worthy and valuable if done with honesty. If during the Middle Ages almost all energies had to be spent to cover subsistence, the profit motive could develop long after the eleventh century. Money was becoming a crucial element of social relationships, and since the late twelfth century, it was no longer considered only for its corrupting power. It has been assumed that the cessation of invasions is what made possible the economic takeoff. This started before. He never got to ensure internal peace in the West. Some have conjectured that a fiscal tightening course by the lords would have forced the peasants to produce more and better, thus acting as an engine of economic development. In Catalonia and in Charente (north of Bordeaux), agricultural expansion began before the increase in the tax burden of the gentlemen took advantage of their results. The small family inheritance or peasant farming was the fundamental framework of economic progress in agriculture.
Agrarian Expansion
Major Breaks
The most prominent phenomenon is the expansion of agricultural settlement. It is difficult to date the beginning. This conquest usually follows an expansion of terrazgos based on a breakthrough on the borders of the incultum, the creation of new villages. The timing of this victory is very variable. Its swing has to be placed between the second half of the eleventh century and 1200, except on the eastern front of the German colonization, which is later. Since 1200, the need to maintain a balance between ager (farmland) and saltus (uncultivated areas) requires curbing the spread of ager and caring for the maintenance and operation of saltus.
The protagonists of the settlement are the villains or peasants. In the early days of this movement, individual peasant initiatives were decisive. They are best known collectives, behind which one can guess the initiative of a ‘sir’, even of a sovereign.
The Basis of the Agricultural Economy
Livestock and Cereal Crop
Cereal bread remained the basic food in the Middle Ages. The expansion of the agricultural economy is measured primarily by the progress of cereal cultivation. Improved tools allowed a rise in yields. In the thirteenth century, the rise in cereal prices is a demonstration of the expansion. This movement of prices does not preclude disparities. In general, in France, the average prices of grain quadrupled between 1180 and 1320. The base of the rural balance lies in the articulation between cereal cultivation and livestock. This balance is inexpensive; peasant farming supplies a nutritional supplement and a complement of income. But this balance is ecological: in the absence of mineral fertilizers, cattle can only fertilize the soil. The only solution is to periodically leave the village land at rest (fallow), which is a crop rotation. This takes two main forms. The first is the one practiced in the Mediterranean area. Villagers have to be content with a biennial rotation in the same plot, fallow and winter cereals. The cultivation of these bakery cereals adds a complex polyculture, which combines legumes with grasses that grow quickly. Elsewhere in Europe, the introduction of spring grains allows for two crops each year. These “grains tremesinos” are mainly barley and oats in particular. These grains allow in some cases a three-year rotation.
An Agricultural Area of Strength
The agrarian economy in the thirteenth century called for a double evolution, forcing lords and rural communities to strengthen their dominance of agricultural land. This is the speculative development of a herd. The demand for the cloth industry encourages sheep raising. Add to this capital city, which often begins to invest in livestock. Consequently, we must organize the migration of these herds that can invade crops. The second development concerns the organization of terrazgos in the regions devoted to cereal cultivation. The techniques of crop rotation lead to a fixed organization of the arable land. The solution is crop rotation, which is a division of the homogeneous fields in several sheets. It involves a remodeling of the land, which implies strong pressure within rural communities. Revaluation of the forest. The forest is a dangerous place par excellence and a wonderful place. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, although this myth persists, the forest is no longer a memory. Major land reclamation has reduced to some solid left wooded areas that provide family support. They are exploited by the wax, resin, and wood. When the tillers attack the forest to destroy it, it is not so much as to tame it. The excessive clearing of the thirteenth century caused a breach of ecological balance, economic and social development. Lords convert forest meadows. The forest becomes a reserved domain of the lord, controlled by guards and vigilantes, symbolizing oppression against former manorial rights of use.