To ensure that his own crops did not go to waste, the lord of the manor could demand extra labour services called boon-work during harvest time.

If the wheat was too dry the grain would fall off. The timing of the harvest in the Middle Ages was vitally important. However, small farmers could not afford the cost of feeding large numbers of animals and so manure was often in short supply. Farmers knew that the best fertiliser was animal dung. Marl (a mixture of clay and carbonate of lime) and seaweed were used as fertilisers. They were aware that the soil would only give back as much as was put into it. Medieval farmers did what they could to increase the fertility of the land. This system also ensured that the same crop was not grown in the same field two years running. Each year the crops were rotated to leave one field fallow. Wheat or rye was planted in one field, and oats, barley, peas, lentils or broad beans were planted in the second field.

The three-field system of crop rotation was employed by medieval farmers, with spring as well as autumn sowings. As most peasants only owned about two oxen they would have to join with others in order to have their land ploughed. However, heavy clay soils needed a team of eight oxen. On light soils a pair of oxen could successfully pull a plough. These strips were long and narrow because the peasants wanted to reduce to a minimum the number of times the plough-team had to turn round. To ensure that everybody had a fair share of the good land, each family was given strips in all three fields. The three arable fields were divided into strips, each one being separated from the next by balks of unploughed land. The village would also have hay meadows and common land where the peasants had the right to graze their animals. Two of these fields grew crops while the third was left fallow.

The fields were ploughed three times: the first turned the stubble over, the second removed the thistles and weeds and the third prepared the ground for sowing.Īround most medieval villages there were three large arable fields. The plough they used had an iron-tipped coulter in front to make the initial cut and a mould board to turn the soil over in a furrow. Medieval farmers preferred oxen to horses because they were less expensive to feed, stronger on heavy land and could be eaten when they died.

Wickham medieval europe