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A writer of the 13th century credits the Order with 19,000 manors
in Europe...
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The foundation of the Medieval economy was agriculture. Farming has always
been a matter of numbers. While most peasant farmers may have been
illiterate, they knew how to count. Throughout Europe, 80-90 percent of the
population struggled to coax a living, and perhaps a surplus, out of the
soil. Ireland mostly produced cattle, some wheat, barley, peas and oats
being grown, along with vegetables. |
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Medieval agriculture work relied on a horse, ox, or a wife, was used to pull
the plough. Harvesting was done by hand. Crops available for export went
from Rindoon by river boat or sea going ship to market. For local
consumption there were vegetable gardens and fruit trees. Berries, nuts and
anything else edible was also gathered when available. Bee hives were kept
to produce honey . These subsidiary crops kept the farmers busy most of the
time, for the main crops only required a few weeks intense labour at
planting and harvesting time. |
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To compensate for the lack of fertilizer, farmland was treated with animal
manure, and allowed to remain fallow every second or third year. When
fallow, the field was sometimes planted with legumes (peas, beans) that
restored the lost nitrogen in the soil. The normal practice was to leave a
field fallow every other year, and more adept farmers would plant legumes in
the fallow year, which increased the nitrogen content of the soil.
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Normally, however, farmers would switch between the two methods depending on
what they thought they could get away with. Too many "every third year"
cycles would reduce the yields noticeably, at which point the farmer would
have no choice but to use every other year fallowing in order to rebuild the
fertility of the land. |
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Wheat would yield perhaps a tonne to 1.5 tonnes of grain per acre (modern
farming methods, on the same land, yield over 3 tonnes of grain per acre.)
Barley would yield up to two or so tonnes per
acre. The higher yield for barley was partially the nature of the plant,
plus the fact that you put less seed into each acre of wheat than for acre
of barley. While Oats yielded about a tonne an acre. Peas, an important diet
supplement and protein source, gave a tonne per acre, for 108 kg of seed.
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Wheat field: a field of wheat using the technology of the 1200s. |
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Depending on the nature of the land, the size of the farmers holdings, local
weather conditions, and drinking habits, about half the land would be sown
in barley. In beer drinking areas barley would be needed for making
ale—because water was polluted. |
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Barley was also a more productive grain, even though it produced a less
tasty meal than wheat. A third (or more) of the land would be planted in
wheat. The remainder would go for peas and oats.
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