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  • 2 - The Rural Economy and Demographic Growth

  • Edited by David Luscombe, University of Sheffield, Jonathan Riley-Smith, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 October 2004, pp 11-46

  • Summary

    For a deeper understanding of the interlocking phenomena of the years between 1050 and 1190, one would obviously need to turn one's attention to the towns, to long-distance exchanges, to the various social strata, and to both their spiritual and their economic interrelations. This chapter focuses on the dramatic increase in population and then unprecedented surge in agricultural production. South and north, Atlantic littoral and central Europe offer many contrasts in rhythm, in scale or even in the underlying causes determining the development of particular systems for the cultivation of the soil. Cereals may well be the main feature of the rural economy in regions characterised by a sedentary mode of existence and yet by no means all the soil in Europe was given over to the production of grain. Demographic increase, and the development of pack-animals, whether saddled or yoked, exerted considerable pressure upon natural resources.