A Long ‘Agricultural Revolution’

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Abstract
This chapter considers the implications of the evidence presented in Chapters 3–6. It concludes that the ‘long eighth century’ was a period of innovation in farming regimes that brought a new emphasis on surplus production. The tenth to early eleventh centuries saw the establishment of ‘proto-manorial’ settlement complexes alongside more widespread take-up of the mouldboard plough and systematic rotation, as well as a calibration of cropping regimes to local conditions. The mid-eleventh and twelfth centuries, when planned, ‘nucleated’ villages were established in many parts of the country, are not obviously associated with agricultural innovations but did see a ‘scaling up’ of production and increasing take-up of systematic rotation and the plough. The potential drivers of these developments—technological innovation, demographic change, local lordship, climate change, long-distance trade, etc.—are considered in relation to regional patterns. The conclusion revisits the question of whether there was a medieval ‘agricultural revolution’.

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