by Desconhecido
One way to adapt to the shortage of manpower was to shift to more extensive cultivation, for instance by sowing seed more thinly and to cut down on labour-intensive weeding and manuring. It would lead to decreased land productivity (yields per hectare) but also to an increased labour productivity (yields per head).69 Also slash-and-burn cultivation was an efficient way to get decent yields with a dwindling labour force and became common in some Swedish upland areas during the crisis.70
Another way to adapt to the new situation was to turn more to animal husbandry. Because of the basic principle of the loss of energy (typically 90%) in each step of the food chain, the possible food production per hectare of animal husbandry is only about one-tenth of that of cereal growing.71 While animal husbandry is land demanding, cereal growing on the other hand is more labour intensive. In a period characterised by an excess of land but a shortage of labour we would therefore expect an increase in animal husbandry in relation to cereal growing. That such a change indeed happened in the Late Middle Ages is evident from documentary sources, in particular from England, which has a wealth of detailed records.72 Also in Sweden there are indications of a relative increase in animal husbandry. One such indication is the mentioning of deserted farms in cadastral registers from the fifteenth century and later. According to these records deserted farms were frequently used by neighbouring farms for pasture or hay meadows.73 Another indication is the increased production of butter, reflected in gradual declining prices of butter relative to grain prices.74 That abandoned farms in some cases were used for pastures has also been shown by pollen analysis (see Chap. 4 for new results).75 However, it is still difficult to quantify the importance of animal husbandry and there may have been regional differences.
Even though animal husbandry was less labour intensive than cereal growing the number of people available to take care of the animals was still a limiting factor. In particular the collection of grass hay for winter fodder was labour intensive and the time of hay harvest was one of the busiest during the year. The development during the Late Middle Ages of longer scythes and better rakes – the two important tools for hay mowing – helped to make fodder collection more efficient and less time consuming but it still remained a bottleneck for the possible number of animals that could be kept.76 Another change that may have facilitated animal husbandry in a time of labour shortage is reflected in the way herding was organised.77 In Sweden, as in the rest of Europe, herding before the Black Death was carried out mostly by adult men. In Continental Europe this situation persisted into later periods, but then with a higher degree of collaboration, usually with a common village herder. In Sweden most villages and hamlets were too small to employ a village herder and there were still many single farmsteads. Instead the herding task in late-medieval Sweden was taken over by children and women. By so doing, adult men became increasingly available for other duties. This shift from male herders to children and women started in the fifteenth century and probably reflects an adaptation to the shortage of manpower after the Black Death. However, the system with female herders became so well established that it continued all the way up to the early twentieth century, until the very end of traditional herding. In addition, other aspects of animal husbandry, in particular milking but also for instance summer farming in northern Sweden, became strictly female domains.78
The plenty of land together with low rents in the mid-fifteenth century meant the beginning of the end for the crisis. Society slowly started to recover and although there were still outbreaks of plague, population numbers were gradually starting to increase. Plague outbreaks during the fifteenth century could still be locally disastrous but on a larger scale the plague had lost some of its former force. This was probably due to a more resistant population shaped by natural selection but also to better awareness of how to avoid the disease. The agricultural expansion that went hand-in-hand with population recovery started slowly but took off during the sixteenth century. To a large degree this expansion meant the reoccupation of farms abandoned in connection with the Black Death and its aftermath. However, many deserted farms remained uninhabited in spite of the rising population numbers and the increased demand for land. This was because the deserted farms were now owned by and incorporated to other farms, which used them for pasture and as hay meadows. The land of deserted farms was regarded as an important resource and the possession of such land was specifically mentioned in cadastral registers. Above all it was a resource for grazing and mowing but eventually also for cultivation. New research show that many deserted farms that were used for cultivation, mowing and pasture, remained uninhabited even into the seventeenth century.79
The opportunity to incorporate land of abandoned farms did not only result in larger holdings. In some areas it may also have facilitated the introduction of crop-rotation systems. In parts of the South-Swedish Uplands a three-field system was introduced in the sixteenth century, in connection with agricultural recovery after the crisis.80 In this system one-third of the infields were fallowed each year, while the other two-thirds were used for growing barley and some other crop, usually rye. The excess of land that followed upon abandonment may thus have facilitated the introduction of systematic fallow in the infields. The same was probably true for the large-scale establishment of summer farms in northern Sweden during the sixteenth century.81 Although the causal relationships are far from clear on a general level, it is evident that summer farms in some cases represent a secondary use of permanent farms abandoned in the Late Middle Ages.82
The sixteenth century was characterised by strong agricultural expansion and the establishment of new settlement. In spite of the relatively harsh climate of the Little Ice Age, expansion was particularly strong in marginal upland areas that had suffered from extensive farm desertion during the crisis. The agricultural expansion was to some degree the result of successful politics by the increasingly strong state. By declaring outlands to be state property and by offering tax exemption for new holdings, the colonisation of remote woodlands was stimulated. However, the foundation for the expansion were the agrarian and social changes of the preceding century. The shortage of manpower after the Black Death had stimulated the development of more efficient agricultural tools and better techniques, and the larger holdings with emphasis on stock farming had resulted in increased labour productivity. Abandoned farms and the excess of land had facilitated the establishment of agricultural systems based on crop rotation, fallowing and transhumance, which in turn were the foundation for a more sustainable agriculture. And, in addition, the improved living standards and increased consumption by the majority of the population had stimulated non-agricultural production, craftsmanship and trade.
These changes laid the foundation for societal development and the strong economy of the sixteenth century. However, little is known about the more long-term effects of the late-medieval crisis. Hypothetically, the profound changes may have had long-lasting effects – not only within agriculture, economy and consumption – but also in a wide range of areas, from the genetics of European population to social structure, culture and religious belief.83 Less speculatively, however, population drop and farm abandonment also had major impact on the landscape development. Vegetation and fauna naturally changed in response to changes in agriculture and settlement, both in times of expansion and decline, but there may also have been long-term effects on biodiversity. So far little attention has been paid to the ecological and environmental aspects of the late-medieval crisis.
Notes
1 Myrdal 2012a, 228
2 Myrdal 2011, 89ff
3 Myrdal 2012a, 211. These numbers refer to medieval Sweden excluding Finland (which belonged to Sweden until 1809). In Finland peasants owned almost all land
4 For Europe: Livi Bacci 2000, 6; Ponting 2007, 95; for Sweden: Myrdal 2012a, 222
5 Myrdal 2011, 82–86; 2012a, 218
6 For medieval colonisation see Larsson 1975, 97ff; Lagerås 2007, 31ff; Myrdal 2011, 77ff
7 Lagerås & Bartholin 2003; Lagerås 2013a
8 Moberg et al. 2005
9 Postan 1972. Principally, Postan’s model is based on Thomas Malthus’ writings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. According to Malthus there was a permanent cycle in history, where human numbers increased until they were too large for the available food supply and prevailing technology to support. Famine and disease would then reduce population numbers until they were in balance with the food production
10 Christopher Dyer, among others, argues that demographic pressure should not be seen as an independent force but rather as a result of economical and social factors (e.g. Dyers 2002, 246–263)
11 Kershaw 1973, 6–15
12 Benedictow 2004, 9–10
13 Twigg 1984; Scott & Duncan 2001; Cohn 2002; 2003; Knudsen 2009
14 According to a study by Bacot (1914, 645), quoted in Moseng (2009, 32), the oriental rat flea needs temperatures above 13°C to hatch
15 Haensch et al. 2010; Schuenemenn et al. 2011
16 Moseng 2009, 32ff
17 Karlsson 1996
18 Moseng 2009, 39ff
19 Ponting 2007, 203–216
20 Wagner et al. 2014
21 Grainger et al. 2008, 12ff
22 Christensen 2009, 15
23 Benedictow 2004, 70
24 For a detailed account on the spread of the Black Death see Benedictow (2004)
25 Myrdal 2012a, 223
26 Livi Bacci 2000, 81; Harrison 2000, 72; Benedictow 2004, 383
27 Dyer 2002, 235; Benedictow 2004, 383; Campbell 2012, 121
28 Livi Bacci 2000, 84; Myrdal 2012a, 227
29 Nordberg 1995, 160
30 Benedictow 2004, 173; Myrdal 2009, 82
31 Nordberg 1995, 161
32 Gissel et al. 1981
33 Sandnes 1981, 103
34 Österberg 1981a, 48. The project was later criticised by Janken Myrdal (2003, 165–183; 2012a, 226)
35 Myrdal 1999, 116
36 Harrison 2000; Palm 2001
37 Palm 2001, 28
38 For these two provinces, Palm concluded that there were about one hundred farms per parish in the early fourteenth century and suggested that this was the rule also elsewhere in Sweden
39 Myrdal’s thorough research on the Black Death and the late-medieval crisis was first published in Swedish (Myrdal 1999; 2003) and then later in English (Myrdal 2006; 2009; 2012a)
40 Myrdal 2011, 80; 2012a, 227
41 Myrdal 2006, 154; Bisgaard 2009, 97
42 Persson 2001
43 Palm 2001, 27; Myrdal 2003, 9
44 Linnaeus 1751, 79–80. Also Olaus Magnus, who wrote his History of the Nordic People in the mid-sixteenth century, saw the overgrown fields as an indication of depopulation due to “plague, war and famine” (Olaus Magnus 1555, Bk 1, Ch. 29, Bk 2, Ch. 21)
45 E.g. Larsson 1970; Österberg 1977; Bååth 1983; Myrdal 2003
46 Myrdal 2003, 168
47 E.g. Antonson 2009; Karsvall 2011
48 E.g. Gauffin 1981; Hansson et al. 2005; Åstrand 2006
49 Gissel et al. 1981, 103, 107; Myrdal 2012a, 226
50 Abel 1980, 88–89
51 Johansson (ed.) 2002
52 Svensson 1998; Svensson et al. 2012; Berglund et al. 2009
53 Emanuelsson 2001, 26
54 Berglund et al. 2009
55 Cf. Lagerås 2013b for a discussion on these two opposing views on uplands
56 Postan 1972, 26
57 Widgren 1995, 93
58 Lamb (1982) argues strongly for climatically induced farm abandonment in Britain, in particular in upland areas, both during the Middle Ages and later
59 Moberg et al. 2005, 616
60 Abel 1980, 88–89; Dyers 2002, 352; Benedictow 2004, 261; Myrdal 2011, 80; 2012a, 225, 227
61 Harrison 2000, 33. According to Ole Benedictow (2004, 20), rat fleas could occasionally live off grain and grain debris, depending on blood only for laying eggs, and thereby survive for a while even when their rat hosts had died from the plague
62 Dyer 2002, 271–272; Benedictow 2004, 382
63 Myrdal 2006, 159; 2012a, 227
64 Lovén 1996; Myrdal 2012a, 230
65 Myrdal 2012a, 232–237
66 Myrdal 2012a, 229; cf. Dyers 2002, 296
67 Benedictow 2004, 390
68 The importance of the landesque capital in pre-industrial agriculture is discussed by Widgren (2007, 61)
69 Campbell 2012, 137; Myrdal 2012a, 222
70 Vestbö-Franzén 2004, 225
71 Redman 1999, 41–42
72 Campbell 2006, 185; 2012, 124
73 Myrdal 2006, 169
74 Söderberg 2007, 143–144
75 Lagerås 2007, 69–77
76 Myrdal 2012a, 221
77 Myrdal 2012a, 217; 2012b, 222
78 Larsson 2012, 20
79 Karsvall 2011
80 Myrdal 2003, 237; Vestbö-Franzén 2004, 225
81 Larsson 2012, 26
82 Hansson et al. 2005, 89–90; Antonsson 2009, 636
83 For a discussion on possible long-term effects of the late-medieval crisis in a wide range of areas, see the essays by David Herlihy, published 1997 in The Black Death and the Transformation of the West
3.
Societal crisis and environmental change
Per Lagerås
The Late Middle Ages was obviously a period of stress and hardship and the sequence of events that characterises the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are generally referred to as a crisis, depression or decline. It is important to note, however, that medieval peasants were used to stress and hardship. The agricultural system frequently suffered from small returns and peasants and tenure farmers had to carry heavy burdens of taxes and rents. Agriculture was also sensitive to weather, partly due to the absence of draining and irrigation, and yields could vary significantly from one year to another.1 To mitigate these difficulties and to secure survival, farmers in medieval society (as in most pre-industrial societies) were oriented to reducing risks rather than to maximise production and profit.2 In spite of this strategy, poor yields and harvest failures from time to time inevitably resulted in malnutrition, starvation and sometimes famine. Also infectious diseases were common and contributed to the high mortality and low life expectancy of the time. Hence, medieval farmers were all too familiar with small-scale crisis like starvation and disease. For individuals and families these difficulties could be hard enough, but thanks to the social structure with many landless – the reserve of the agricultural labour force – they did usually not lead to farm abandonment or to any significant decrease in agricultural production.
To this background of everyday struggle and of more or less expected setbacks and difficulties, the late-medieval crises stood out as something different. Its widespread distribution and the enormous cost of lives made it a major crisis, challenging the agricultural system and the very structures of society. Why this happened – why familiar problems like harvest failure and disease during the fourteenth century escalated to a major crisis – is the subject of much research and a matter of debate. The complexity of the possible causal relationships has been touched upon in the previous section and may be summarised as a combination of external and internal factors. One of the two major external factors was the rainy summers and harvest failures of 1315–17, which together with epidemics among cattle and sheep and further harvest failures lead to the Great Famine. The other was the Black Death, the plague pandemic of 1347–52, which together with succeeding plague outbreaks caused immense suffering and a dramatic population drop.
There can be no doubt that these two exogenous calamities played leading roles in the crisis. But internal factors like social, political and economic conditions may also have contributed. In particular the Great Famine is frequently interpreted as a combined effect of harvest failures and a stagnated society, although there are different opinions on why society stagnated. Two main directions in the debate may be identified
.3 One of them – usually referred to as neo-Malthusian – focuses on the dynamics of long-term waves in demography and economy. According to this view, a major underlying cause behind stagnation in Western Europe in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries was overpopulation leading to land shortage. The other direction represents a more Marxist view, and criticises the first for being too deterministic and for not paying sufficient attention to class structures. According to this view the major cause behind stagnation was the limitations of the feudal system and its inability (and unwillingness) to change. A major problem of feudalism, apart from the obvious social inequalities, was that too much of the agrarian income was spent on luxury consumption by the elite while too little was invested back into agricultural production. The system left the servants with neither incitement nor financial means to invest in their agriculture.
Without going into this debate, it should be noted that interpretations that identify internal societal factors and their possible contribution to the crisis should not without caution be transferred from one region or country to another. For instance, population density varied greatly across Europe. And even if some areas, like southern England, may have been overpopulated by the late thirteenth century, other areas were definitely not. In much of Sweden and other sparsely populated regions, population density was not a limiting factor and population growth and agricultural expansion probably continued all the way up to the Black Death. Also when discussing the feudal system it is important to note that the system looked different in different countries and regions. Tenants in Sweden during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a better legal position than in many other countries and serfdom proper did not exist.4 Therefore conclusions on a so-called feudal crisis may not necessarily be transferable, for instance, from France or England to Sweden.
