Abstract
This chapter investigates the relationship between climate, phenological state of the crop and the grain harvest. Only under exceptional circumstances as during plagues or in times of war might the phenological signal in the grain harvest be disturbed. The grain harvest constituted the climax of the agricultural calendar and would provide the people with the bulk of the food supply for the coming year. Hence its economic, social and cultural importance can not be overestimated. This chapter outlines the management and work organisation of the medieval grain harvest. Data safety is high with regard to the harvest, because the information on the harvest of a manor is recorded at various points in the manorial accounts, allowing cross-checking. Additionally the harvest information comes from a variety of manors and landowners, so that dates and trends can be compared. The setting of the harvest date within the possible time window of the phenological state of the grain with the help of the ecclesiastical calendar and in the working week are analysed.
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Notes
- 1.
Tusser, A hundreth good pointes of husbandrie, point 96. Thomas Tusser lived in Suffolk as a farmer, when he wrote the text in the mid-1550s.
- 2.
NRO, MC 120/07, 21–27 August 1774.
- 3.
Tusser, A hundreth good pointes of husbandrie, point 97–99.
- 4.
Collins, Harvest technology, 456, 465.
- 5.
Ault, Open-field farming, 28.
- 6.
Ault, Open-field farming, 28.
- 7.
Pfister, Getreide-Erntebeginn und Frühsommertemperaturen.
- 8.
Brázdil, Kotyza, History of weather and climate (1000–1500), 143–151.
- 9.
Tarand, Kuiv, The beginning of the rye harvest.
- 10.
Nordli, Reconstruction of nineteenth century summer temperatures in Norway.
- 11.
Možný et al., Cereal harvest dates.
- 12.
Kiss et al., Reconstructed May–July temperatures.
- 13.
Wetter, Pfister, Spring-summer temperatures.
- 14.
Ault, Open-field farming, 28–34, Bennett, English manor, 110–111.
- 15.
Ault, Open-field farming, 60–63.
- 16.
Bennett, English manor, 178–180.
- 17.
Evans, The farm and the village, 65.
- 18.
Harvey (ed.), Manorial records of Cuxham, 163–604, Kershaw, The Bolton Priory compotus, 35–570. The manorial accounts of the Bishopric of Winchester were checked for the years when the rolls were edited and published, in: Hall (ed.), The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester, 1208–1209; Holt (ed.), The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester, 1210–1211; Page, The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester, 1301–1302 and idem, The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester, 1409–1410. Stern, A Hertfordshire demesne, although considering a wide range of climate related agricultural activities, never refers to the grain harvest date.
- 19.
Dyer, Food consumption, 212. The lord’s table formed a high point in the diet of the workers.
- 20.
Stern, A Hertfordshire demesne, 28–29.
- 21.
Hallam, The climate of eastern England 1250–1350, 125.
- 22.
NRO, DN/EST 11/05 for 1352–1353 and NRO, DN/EST 01/10 for 1353–1354. For other manors no such paragraph exists, or as for Flegg it does not list these items.
- 23.
Including the few dates from the stray episcopal accounts in NRO, DCN 95.
- 24.
For 1291–1292 the account of Thornham is included in the Sedgeford roll, NRO, DCN 60/33/09, as the Hindolveston account is incorporated in the Hindringham account, NRO, DCN 60/20/08. The following year the Hindolveston information again is set in the Hindringham account, NRO, DCN 60/20/09. For those accounts it is assumed that the harvest date merely refers to the manor the accounts were primarily made for, Sedgeford and Hindringham, and no information or account has thereby been registered for Thornham and Hindolveston in this study. The administrative personal responsible for the agricultural affairs in the Hindringham/Hindolveston rolls 1291–1292 and 1292–1293 is partly met again in the Hindringham roll for 1294–1295, NRO, DCN 60/20/10, but not in the contemporary Hindolveston account, NRO, DCN 60/18/11.
- 25.
On the importance of choosing manors that were not all owned by the same landlord, Stern, A Hertfordshire demesne, 31–32.
- 26.
Ault, Open-field farming, 33–34.
- 27.
Ernle, English farming, 12.
- 28.
For example the manors Sedgeford and Gnatingdon used cockers from the mid-1350s to the early 1390s respectively the middle of the first decade of the fifteenth century. The numbers of works performed by them, varied strongly from none to 174, the highest numbers were reached in the 1380s (especially the late 1380s), after which they dwindled quickly. As in Gnatingdon, cockers helped in the harvests of Hindolveston until c.1406. On the other hand Martham did not turn to cockers after the 1360s. Often sharp alterations in the number of works done by cockers in the harvest were associated with changes of the manorial management personnel.
- 29.
Knighton, Chronicon, vol. 2, 100–101.
- 30.
Možný et al., Cereal harvest dates, 814–815.
- 31.
Blomefield, History of Norfolk, vol. 3, 52–53.
- 32.
In the northwestern Norfolk: Sedgeford, NRO, LEST/IB 37, and close to the marginal Breckland Great Cressingham, NRO, MC 212/10.
- 33.
Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, vol. 2, 70.
- 34.
Campbell, Overton, Norfolk Farming c.1250-c.1850, 54.
- 35.
Ernle, English farming, 9. Concerning the predominant wheat varieties he also states that on light land red rivet or a lost white variety would be used, on heavy soils red or white pollard and on clay soils ‘gray’ wheat, ibid., 8.
- 36.
Campbell, Seigniorial agriculture, 221.
- 37.
Nordli, Reconstruction of nineteenth century summer temperatures in Norway, 206, states that a temperature reconstruction based on grain harvest dates, should ideally be using the dates of one crop from always the same field. However, agriculture can not operate according to those lines. In the Middle Ages the three-course-rotation was widespread (although the productive regions in eastern and northern Norfolk would be cropped in four years out of five (which could include up to three courses of barley), Campbell, Eastern Norfolk, 28–29, idem, Seigniorial agriculture, 267–271); and also in modern agriculture it is for various reasons advisable to change regularly the annual crops on the fields.
- 38.
The first compoti of Norwich Cathedral Priory which name the fields, where a crop was sown, appear after the reform of the accounts in 1354–1355; the naming becomes regular later.
- 39.
- 40.
Rösener, Bauern im Mittelalter, 126–127 and Stone, Medieval agriculture, 250. According to Stone mowing was employed on the East Anglian manors of Hinderclay and Wisbech Barton in times of crisis or when grain prices were low.
- 41.
The accounts distinguish between metere, to reap (wheat), and falcare, to mow. The different methods are described in Ault, Open-field farming, 28.
- 42.
Mowing wheat was established in Norfolk between 1820 and 1837, Wade-Martins, Williamson, Roots of change, 116–117.
- 43.
Campbell, Seigniorial agriculture, 220.
- 44.
Titow, Le climat à travers les rôles de comptabilité, 312.
- 45.
On the inclination of medieval people to allot to each month its proper, representative (agricultural) activity see Henisch, Medieval calendar year, 1–4, and especially on the European hay and grain harvest, ibid., 107–118. The standard autumpnus season is also employed in some of the manorial accounts of Norwich Cathedral Priory. The late North Elmham compoti 1391–1392 to 1410–1411, NRO, DCN 60/10/28-35, limit their information on the harvest date in the works account to the standard harvest season, although the duration of the harvest remains variable and hence reflects reality. On the other hand, in the works accounts of the Taverham rolls between 1362–1363 and 1373–1374, NRO, DCN 60/35/33-42, first the standard harvest season with the standard duration is named, but then the real start and duration are specified.
- 46.
Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, vol. 1, 81–83; Cheney, A handbook of dates, 15.
- 47.
Eaton, Gnatingdon, Hindringham, Martham, North Elmham, Plumstead, Sedgeford and Taverham. These are almost all the places included in the analysis of individual manors.
- 48.
Between 1256 and 1390, 60% of all harvests began on a Sunday at North Elmham. This is due to the feast day data holding the comparatively low share of 36%. Since feast days often cover the normal week days Monday to Saturday, those are underrepresented here. A small mid-week high is situated on Thursday, formed as usually by non-feast day data.
- 49.
Bennett, English manor, 115–118.
- 50.
NRO, DCN 60/08/11A.
- 51.
NRO, DCN 61/19 for 1304–1305; the account of 1305–1306 is in the account for Eaton, NRO, DCN 60/08/12.
- 52.
In the first three accounts 1331–1333, NRO, LEST/BG 2, 4–5, both groups started on the same date, but in NRO, LEST/BG 6, 9, 11–13 the different kinds of work are listed separately and differ either by zero, two, three, six or 14 days, though the last appears to be excessive and is probably a simple writing error.
- 53.
The year 1305 was one of the rare cases when SPC fell on a Sunday. This increased the attraction of SPC as a harvest date. The summer 1305 and the growing season 1306 were also very warm, so normal arrangements might have been overtaken by the need for an early harvest.
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Pribyl, K. (2017). The Medieval Grain Harvest. In: Farming, Famine and Plague. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55953-7_3
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