Five How-To Guides for Medieval Peasants
A shortlist of agronomy treatises from China to England.
Nile Floods and Mamluk Farmers
Have you ever wondered what life was like for Mamluk farmers? In this episode, Lucie Laumonier talks with Omar Abdel-Ghaffar, a PhD candidate at Harvard University about Nile floods, landscapes and village communities in late medieval Egypt.
The grain supply of the Byzantine empire revisited: history, archaeology, palynology
We’re going to talk about in this paper the way the production of cereal, such as wheat, barley, millet and so forth, developed and was managed across the Byzantine period.
Summer in the Middle Ages
When air conditioning was not yet a thing – how people in the Middle Ages coped with the summer months.
Were medieval cities greener? Urban agriculture in the Middle Ages
This article looks at the urban farmers of medieval France and discusses the roles of the gardens that were found throughout medieval cities.
Medieval Sámi were using draught reindeer, researchers find
Archaeologists at the University of Oulu observed that draught reindeer were used in Finnish Lapland at least 700 years ago.
How to Grow Organic Food like Medieval Farmers
If nothing else works, you could bring the vermin to justice.
Sheep-Rearing in Medieval France
This article investigates the way in which medieval farmers practiced sheep-rearing and looks at the profits they made with their herds.
The Humble Medieval Pig, with Jamie Kreiner
One of the most influential animals of the medieval world, both in the barnyard and on the table, was also one of the most troublesome: the pig. This week, Danièle speaks with Jamie Kreiner about how the humble pig influenced everything from culture to theology.
Sustainable and Innovative: The Medieval Art of Fishing
How did people catch fish in the Middle Ages, and what efforts were made to keep this resource sustainable?
Medieval Eels with John Wyatt Greenlee
Medieval historians can sometimes study quirky things. For John Wyatt Greenlee it is researching eels in the Middle Ages. This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Surprised Eel Historian about the impact of this fish on the medieval world – who was eating them, how they were eating them, and why they were sometimes a great way to pay the rent.
Treat… or Treat? How Did Medieval People Get Their Sugar Fix?
Have you ever wondered how medieval people sweetened their dishes?
Medieval Rabbit Farming
How rabbit farming was a lucrative business in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Silkworm Farming: A Global Perspective
How silkworms have influenced trade and agriculture throughout the world in a story spanning millennia.
Farming with Charms in the Middle Ages
By Kathryn Walton When medieval farmers were faced with a particularly difficult problem, they would turn to magic for a solution. Medieval farmers used…
Who were the peasants in the Middle Ages?
Our new columnist Lucie Laumonier explains the four common characteristics of what is a peasant in the Middle Ages.
The Zanj Revolt: A Slave War in Medieval Iraq
After generations of oppression, an army of slaves rose up to challenge the Abbasid Caliphate.
What was farming like in medieval Iceland?
How did Icelanders build and run farms in the Middle Ages?
The Macclesfield Cattle Enterprise of Edward the Black Prince, and why it failed, 1354 to 1376
Most of the Macclesfield cattle were not bought, but transferred from other places on the prince’s estates. One major source at the beginning was the other manors of the earldom in Cheshire as cattle farming was wound up in them, mostly from Frodsham and some from Drakelow and Shotwick
The Templar Lands in Lincolnshire in the Early Fourteenth Century
The focus of the study is the Templar estates in Lincolnshire during the first four decades of the fourteenth century. Within this context, two themes are explored: the characteristics of Templar farming and estate management and the fate of the former Templar properties between 1312 and 1338.
Was a lease effective as a weapon of lordship? The use of documents in the principality of Salerno (10th-11th Century)
This paper attempts to examine the strategic use of the agrarian contracts by the landlords of the principality of Salerno in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Beekeeping from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages
Beekeeping from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages By Gene Kritsky Annual Review of Entomology, 2017. 62:249–64 Humans and honey bees have a long history…
The prehistory of medieval farms and villages: from Saxons to Scandinavians
Those seeking to unravel the biographies of settlements, communities and landscapes back into the Early Middle Ages must chiefly rely upon material evidence locked up in the landscape, to be extracted and interpreted using approaches drawn from archaeology and related disciplines.
Fish on Friday III: From Fish Weir to Table
It’s no mystery that medieval people ate fish. The fish industry was a vital element of the medieval European economy, and fueled lots of movement around the continent. However how did they get onto the trestle tables and trenchers?