medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
"Although I have some familiarity with 3-field crop rotation, could you
just remind me how the rhyme correlates with rotation. I would love to
use the rhyme in class, and I want to be sure that I get it right."
The "three field" connection is that a triple crop rotation would often
involve 1) leaving the field fallow, 2) growing wheat (the "money
crop"), and then 3) growing the oats, peas, beans (peasbeans?), barley.
There are lots of local variations on this pattern, but, over a full
three year cycle, wheat would generally be a winter crop, the alternate
crops a spring crop, and fallow the default (actually the field would be
grazed when it was "off duty"). Such a model is presumed to be an
improvement over the alternative system (which remained common in some
Mediterranean areas) which involved one year of wheat and one year of
fallow because it keeps the land in production longer and
serendipitously produces all that vegetable protein.
However, just as medieval scholars have been backing away from
"feudalism" because the concept of an ideal "feudal system," against
which all local variations would be explained away as deviations, has
come to seem misleading and sterile, so also some agricultural
historians have been having reservations about the utility of
constructing a theoretical model of an ideal "three field system,"
against which all actual practices would be measured.
--John Howe, Texas Tech
--John Howe, Texas Tech
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|