The development of agriculture in medieval Europe. The development of the economy and economic thought of European civilization in the Middle Ages (V-XV centuries) Type of economy in the Middle Ages

The vast majority of the medieval population lived in villages. In the countries of Europe, such settlements were, as it were, templated, and if there were any differences between them (depending on countries and cities), they were quite insignificant. The medieval village is a special reminder for historians, which allows you to restore the picture of the past life, traditions and features of the life of the people of that time. Therefore, now we will consider what elements it consisted of and what it was characterized by.

General description of the object

The plan of a medieval village has always depended on the area in which it was located. If this is a plain with fertile lands and spacious meadows, then the number of peasant households could reach fifty. The less useful the land was, the fewer households there were in the village. Some of them consisted of only 10-15 units. In mountain ranges, people did not settle in this way at all. 15-20 people went there, who formed a small farm, where they ran their small farm, autonomous from everything else. A notable feature was that the house in the Middle Ages was considered a moving property. It could be transported on a special wagon, for example, closer to the church, or even transported to another settlement. Therefore, the medieval village was constantly changing, moving a little in space, and therefore could not have a clear cartographic plan, fixed in the state to which it belonged.

cumulus village

This type of medieval settlement is (even for those times) a relic of the past, but such a relic that has existed in society for a very long time. In such a settlement, houses, sheds, peasant lands and the estate of the feudal lord were located "just like". That is, there was no center, no main streets, no separate zones. The medieval village of the cumulus type consisted of randomly arranged streets, many of which ended in dead ends. Those that had a continuation were taken out into the field or into the forest. The type of farming in such settlements was, accordingly, also disorderly.

cruciform settlement

This type of medieval settlement consisted of two streets. They intersected each other at right angles, thus forming a cross. At the intersection of roads, there was always the main square, where either a small chapel was located (if the village had a large number of inhabitants), or the estate of a feudal lord who owned all the peasants living here. The medieval village of the cruciform type consisted of houses that were turned with their facades to the street on which they were located. Thanks to it, it looked very neat and beautiful, all the buildings were almost the same, and only the one that was located on the central square stood out against their background.

village-road

This type of settlement was typical for areas where there were large rivers or mountain slopes. The bottom line was that all the houses where peasants and feudal lords lived were gathered in one street. It stretched along the valley or river, on the banks of which they were located. The road itself, of which, in general, the whole village consisted, might not be too straight, but it exactly repeated the natural forms that it surrounded. The terrain plan of a medieval village of this type included, in addition to peasant lands, the feudal lord's house, which was located either at the very beginning of the street or in its center. He was always the tallest and most luxurious compared to the rest of the houses.

beam villages

This type of settlement was the most popular in all cities, because very often its plan is used in cinema and in modern novels about those times. So, in the center of the village there was the main square, which was occupied by a chapel, a small temple or other religious building. Not far from it was the house of the feudal lord and the courtyards adjacent to it. From the central square, all the streets diverged to different ends of the settlement, like the rays of the sun, and between them houses were built for peasants, to which plots of land were attached. The maximum number of inhabitants lived in such villages, they were distributed in the north, and in the south, and in the west of Europe. There was also much more space for various types of farming.

Urban situation

In medieval society, cities began to form around the 10th century, and this process ended as early as the 16th. During this time, new urban settlements arose on the territory of Europe, but their type did not change at all, only their sizes increased. Well, the village had a lot in common. They had a similar structure, they were built up, so to speak, with typical houses in which ordinary people lived. The city was distinguished by the fact that it was larger than the village, its roads were often paved, and in the center a very beautiful and large church (and not a small chapel) certainly towered. Such settlements, in turn, were divided into two types. Some had a direct arrangement of streets, which could, as it were, be entered into a square. This type of construction was borrowed from the Romans. Other cities were distinguished by the radiocentric arrangement of buildings. This type was characteristic of the barbarian tribes that inhabited Europe before the arrival of the Romans.

Conclusion

We examined what were the settlements in Europe in the darkest historical era. And to understand their essence was easier, the article has a map of a medieval village. In conclusion, it can be noted that each individual region was characterized by its own type of construction of houses. Somewhere clay was used, somewhere stone, in other places frame dwellings were erected. Thanks to this, historians can identify which people exactly belonged to a particular settlement.

By the 11th century, the areas occupied by forests had shrunk in Western and Central Europe. In the dense forest thickets, the peasants cut down trees and uprooted stumps, clearing land for crops. The area of ​​arable land has expanded significantly. The two-field was replaced by the three-field. Improved, albeit slowly, agricultural technology. The peasants had more tools made of iron. There are more orchards, orchards and vineyards. Agricultural products became more diverse, crops grew. Many mills have appeared that provide faster grinding of grain.

In the early Middle Ages, the peasants themselves made the things they needed. But, for example, the manufacture of a wheeled plow or the manufacture of cloth required complex devices, special knowledge and skills in labor. Among the peasants stood out "craftsmen" - experts in a particular craft. Their families have long accumulated work experience. In order to be successful in their business, artisans had to devote less time to agriculture. The craft was to become their main occupation. The development of the economy led to a gradual separation of handicrafts from agriculture. The craft turned into a special occupation of a large group of people - artisans. Over time, wandering artisans settled down. Their settlements arose at crossroads, at river crossings and near convenient sea harbors. Merchants often came here, and then merchants settled. Peasants came from the nearest villages to sell agricultural products and buy the necessary things. In these places, artisans could sell their products and buy raw materials. As a result of the separation of craft from agriculture, cities arose and grew in Europe. A division of labor developed between the city and the countryside: in contrast to the village, whose inhabitants were engaged in agriculture, the city was the center of crafts and trade.

The subsistence economy in Europe was preserved, but the commodity economy also gradually developed. A commodity economy is an economy in which the products of labor are produced for sale on the market and are exchanged through money.

Trade in times of feudal fragmentation was profitable, but difficult and dangerous business. On land, merchants were robbed by "noble" robbers - knights, at sea pirates lay in wait for them. For passage through the feudal lord's possessions, for the use of bridges and crossings, one had to pay duties many times. To increase their income, the feudal lords built bridges in dry places, demanded payment for the dust raised by wagons.

The development of the social structure and statehood among the peoples of Western Europe during the Middle Ages went through two stages. The first stage is characterized by the coexistence of modified Roman and German social institutions and political structures in the form of "barbarian kingdoms". At the second stage, feudal society and the state act as a special socio-political system, described below. At the first stage of the Middle Ages, the royal power played the most important role in the feudalization of barbarian societies. Large royal land grants, as well as the distribution of tax and judicial privileges to the magnates of the church, created the material and legal basis of the seigneurial power. In the process of social stratification and the growth of the influence of the landed aristocracy, relations of domination and subordination naturally arose between the owner of the land - the lord and the population sitting on it.

The economic conditions that had developed by the 7th century determined the development of the feudal system, characteristic of all regions of medieval Europe. This is, first of all, the dominance of large landed property based on the exploitation of small, independently managing peasant farmers. For the most part, the peasants were not owners, but only holders of allotments, and therefore were in economic, and sometimes also in legal and personal dependence on the feudal lords. In the property of the peasant, the main tools of labor, cattle, and estates were usually preserved.

The basis of the feudal system was the agrarian economy. The economy was predominantly subsistence, that is, it provided itself with everything necessary from its own resources with almost no recourse to the market. The gentlemen bought only for the most part luxury goods and weapons, and the peasants - only the iron parts of agricultural implements. Trade and crafts developed, but remained a minor sector of the economy.

A characteristic feature of the feudal society of the Middle Ages was its class-corporate structure, which followed from the need for separate social groups. For both peasants and feudal lords, it was important not so much to increase material wealth as to preserve the won social status. There. Neither the monasteries, nor the large landowners, nor the peasants themselves showed a desire for a continuous increase in income during this period. The rights of individual groups-estates were legally fixed. Gradually, with the development of cities, an urban estate also developed: the burghers, which in turn also consisted of a number of groups - the patriciate, the full-fledged burghers and the incomplete plebs.

One of the hallmarks of medieval society was corporatism. Medieval man always felt part of a community. Medieval corporations were rural communities, craft workshops, monasteries, spiritual and chivalric orders, military squads, and the city. Corporations had their own charters, their own treasury, special clothes, signs, etc. Corporations were based on the principles of solidarity and mutual support. Corporations did not destroy the feudal hierarchy, but gave strength and cohesion to various strata and classes.

A characteristic feature of medieval Europe is the domination of Christianity, to which morality, philosophy, science, and art were subordinated. However, Christianity in the Middle Ages was not united. In III-V centuries. There has been a division into two branches: Catholic and Orthodox. Gradually, this split took on an irreversible character and ended in 1054. From the very beginning, a strict centralization of power developed in the Catholic Church. The Roman bishop, who received in the 5th century BC, acquired a huge influence in it. name of the pope. The system of education in medieval Europe was actually in the hands of the church. Prayers and texts of Holy Scripture in Latin were studied in monastic and church schools. The episcopal schools taught the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.

The mentality of a person of that era, first of all, was determined by belonging to a community, regardless of whether the person was an aristocrat or a peasant. Corporate norms and values, traditions and rituals of behavior (up to the prescribed type of clothing), supported by the Christian worldview, were considered to prevail over personal desires.

The world of a man of that time, it would seem, connected the incompatible. The preaching of Christian mercy and the mercilessness of wars, public executions, the thirst for a miracle and the fear of it, the desire to protect oneself from the world with the walls of one's own house and the movement of thousands of knights, townspeople and peasants to unknown lands during the Crusades. A peasant could sincerely fear the Last Judgment for sins and repent of them and at the same time furiously indulge in the most violent revelry during the holidays. Clergymen with genuine feeling could celebrate the Christmas mass and openly laugh at parodies of the church cult and creeds well known to them. Man's fear of death and God's judgment, a sense of insecurity, sometimes the tragedy of being, was combined with a certain carnival worldview, which found expression not only in the city carnivals themselves, where a person acquired a feeling of looseness, where hierarchical and class barriers were abolished, but in that comic culture, which came in the Middle Ages from the ancient world, retaining, in fact, a pagan character in the world of Christianity.

A person sometimes perceived the world around him just as realistically as the other world. Heaven and hell were as real to him as his own home. The man sincerely believed that he could influence the world not only by plowing the land to get a harvest, but by praying or resorting to magic. The symbolism of the worldview of medieval man is also connected with this. Symbols were a significant part of medieval culture: from the cross as a symbol of salvation, the knight's coat of arms as a symbol of family and dignity, to the color and cut of clothing, which was rigidly attributed to representatives of various social groups. For a medieval person, many things in the world around him were symbols of the divine will or some mystical forces.



Most of the population of Europe during the Middle Ages lived in villages. However, depending on the state in which the village was located, these settlements were very different from each other.

What did the medieval village look like?

The average medieval villages were quite small - they consisted of about 13-15 households. In regions where there were conditions for farming, the number of households in the villages increased to 50. There were no villages in the mountainous regions: people preferred to settle in small farms of 15-20 people.

In the villages of Northern Europe, people built low houses from wood, which were coated with clay. Such houses retained heat well in the winter. The roofs of such houses were often covered with straw, later with tiles.

Until the end of the Middle Ages, houses were considered movable property– they could be easily moved or even transported to a new location. In large villages, houses were located around churches. Near the church there was a source of drinking water. It was in the church that the villagers learned all the news.

The medieval village was surrounded by land that was intended for gardening. Behind these lands there were meadows where pastoralists grazed their livestock.

village economy

During the Middle Ages, agriculture was quite complex and required careful control. It was necessary to observe the rights to fish and to use the forest, to ensure that livestock did not cross the borders of another village.

It was also difficult to sell the land: for this it was necessary to obtain permission all the inhabitants of the village. Therefore, very often the inhabitants of the medieval village united in collective farms, each member of which performed one important function for the whole society.

Members collective farm at the gatherings that were held near the church, they made decisions on the construction of common mills, resolved issues of obtaining an inheritance, dividing property, and also regulated land transactions. If the village was owned feudal lord, often such meetings were attended by his representative person.

The population of the medieval village

The population of the medieval village consisted of farmers, pastoralists and artisans. Public life, as well as the material well-being of a village society, depended on whether its members were free or were under the rule of a feudal lord.

Many medieval villages were inhabited by both free and dependent people. Their houses and plots were located interspersed, but always indicated by a corresponding sign with an inscription about the status of the owners. In most cases, the population of the medieval village was illiterate and lived in poverty.

As in the cities of the Middle Ages, early marriages were frequent here. The number of children in families varied from 3 to 7 children. On rare occasions, children could receive their primary education in church schools.

Often, parents taught their children their profession: so the son of an artisan by the age of 17 could become an independent artisan. Dependent young people had to serve the feudal lord, the terms were set depending on the desires of the feudal lord and the region.

Medieval Europe was quite clearly divided into two agricultural zones: 1) the southern, Mediterranean, where the old traditions of ancient agriculture were preserved, and 2) the temperate zone, located north of the Alps.

In the south, the main grain crop was wheat. They also sowed barley, grew legumes, grapes, olives. Bread was sown before winter: autumn rains moistened the ground and ensured the development of winter crops. The plow was the same as in the era of antiquity: light, wheelless. He was pulled by a pair of oxen, but if there were no oxen, donkeys, mules and even cows were harnessed to the plow. A light plow did not turn over the earth layers, but only made furrows. Therefore, the field had to be plowed several times up and down. All other field work was carried out by hand: after sowing, the field was dug with hoes and, perhaps, weeded, reaped with small sickles, threshed with the help of oxen or donkeys harnessed to rollers. The harvest was quite low: from each sown grain, it was possible to get three or four grains per harvest. In addition to cereals, citrus fruits brought to Europe by the Arabs began to grow in Spain and Italy.

An important achievement of agriculture in the temperate zone was the transition from the 11th century. to a three-field crop rotation system, when the field was divided into three parts and each year only two of them were cultivated. In this area, they begin to use a heavy iron wheeled plow with a moldboard, which not only cut, but also turned over the upper layers of the earth. Sometimes four pairs of oxen were harnessed to it. During the harvest, both the sickle and the scythe were used. They threshed with chains. However, productivity remained low. In addition to wheat and barley, rye, oats, millet were grown in the north, and turnips, onions, melons, and garlic were grown from vegetables. At the beginning of the XIV century. they begin to grow cabbage, spinach, beets, and plant fruit trees.

Medicinal plants were grown in monasteries. In some areas of Western Europe, it was the monks who revived beekeeping.

One of the important branches of medieval agriculture was cattle breeding. In conditions of poor grain harvests, it was quite difficult to survive without livestock. In the early Middle Ages, the most common domestic animal in peasant farms was a pig. Usually she was let out for the whole summer to graze in the woods. In late autumn, the pig was slaughtered and meat and lard were eaten all winter. In monasteries, pigs were used to search for truffles, rare and delicious mushrooms that grow underground. material from the site

The real breadwinner for the entire peasant family was a cow. Sheep breeding was a definite help for a peasant family. But the sheep required a lot of effort and time: they had to be pastured, sheared, food was prepared for them for the winter, etc. The draft force in the peasant household was, first of all, oxen, horses, donkeys and mules.

Peasants also bred: chickens, ducks, geese. In the IX-XII centuries. chicken eggs were an obligatory component of the rent in kind, which the peasants paid to the seigneurs. Ducks and geese were bred mainly in monastic farms.

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Feudalism as a whole is characterized by the predominance of agricultural production.

For gatherers and hunters, farmers and pastoralists, land was the main means of production, and soil fertility remained the main factor of well-being for them. This fertility often declined in the early Middle Ages, as people of that era usually did not restore it and did not invest significant funds in agriculture. Farming methods depended on natural conditions, historical traditions and the pace of development of different regions. In the regions of the former Western Roman Empire and among the southwestern Slavs, by the 6th century. arable farming. Until the 7th century, as well as in the steppe regions and on the mountain slopes throughout Europe, hoe-fire agriculture prevailed among the northern Germans, Balts and Eastern Slavs: after destroying vegetation, they sowed without plowing on warm ash that fertilized the soil. Residents of forests and forest-steppes practiced its slash-and-burn variety, in which they prepared a suitable site in advance (sometimes up to hundreds of kilometers), outlined the sequence of felling trees with notches, then ringed them to speed up their drying, which sometimes lasted up to 15 years, after which they felled the forest , burned it and sowed it also on warm ashes. Having harvested the harvest on the previous burn by autumn, next spring they started burning it on the new undercut. In the first year, they preferred to sow hemp or flax on the scorched layer, in the second year - cereals, in the third year - vegetables. This is how crop rotation germs arose. Usually, after 5 years, an impoverished undercut was used for haymaking or as a pasture, and they returned to it for burning when a new forest grew. Around the 8th century the areas lying to the north of the Romanized ones, hoeing is replaced by arable cultivation, and by the end of the 1st millennium it wins almost everywhere. Since there was enough free land at that time, abandoned plots often grew wild and turned into a deposit. The transition from the fallow system to a more intensive shifting system took place after the deposits and virgin lands began to be lacking. In the forest-steppe, which was the region of the most developed agriculture in medieval Europe, this transition was outlined at the turn of the 2nd millennium. Initially, fallow - the interval between desolation and processing of the site - lasted up to 10 years. However, as the population grew, it decreased, and when it reduced to a year, it was necessary to switch to the use of fallow, i.e., to the double field, in order to increase the fertility of the depleted soil.

The double field, long familiar to Southern Europe, was firmly rooted in the North and East in the 2nd millennium. During a one-year fallow, the fallow field was plowed to get rid of weeds, but not sown, and it rested. Regularly combining agriculture with cattle breeding, almost all the peoples of medieval Europe practiced grazing cattle by fallow, turning it into a pasture. Grassland appeared in the mountainous areas. The next step is the transition to the three-field. Now one field was sown with winter crops, the second with spring crops, and the third was left fallow. The three-fields more quickly caused soil dispersal and land depletion. This stimulated the use of fertilizers (organic, especially manure, and inorganic, marl) and the development of new forest areas, and by the 2nd millennium became one of the reasons for the massive uprooting of forests, which was especially widely practiced in the strip from Northern France through Germany and Poland to North-Eastern Russia. but in one way or another was carried on everywhere. The three-field area contributed to the progress of individual small-scale farming and increased the productivity of agriculture: with three times less labor costs per hectare, twice as many people could be fed from it. From the 14th century the three-field system also triumphed in the expanses of the Russian Plain, although in different regions it alternated for a long time with the two-field system.

Back in the 8th century 7 types of field work were known: burning, plowing, fertilizing the soil, sowing, harrowing, weeding, harvesting. Their seasonal distribution and variants were determined by the natural zone.

In Byzantium in the tenth century. the exceptional wealth of agronomic practices and cultivated crops was recorded by the agricultural Encyclopedia "Geopopics". Later, similar works appeared in Western Europe (the works of the Englishman Walter Henley in the 13th century, the Italian Pietro from Creshenza in the 14th century).

Medieval tools were quite primitive and improved very slowly. An important role in the progress of agricultural technology was played by the replacement of wooden, tin and bronze working parts of tools with iron ones. A set of typical agricultural tools of the Middle Ages included a hoe for loosening and digging the soil, various arable tools (ralo, plow, plow), harrow or rake, scythe, sickle, pitchfork, flail or threshing board, a shovel (especially a spade) for various earthworks, a knife and an ax for cutting: bushes and felling wood, a roller for leveling the sown area, millstones for manual grinding of grain, harness for working livestock.

Archaeological finds show that from the VI to the XV century. arable implements have undergone the greatest changes. At first, a ralo was used - a symmetrical tool with a low center of gravity, drawn by donkeys and oxen (from the 10th century also by horses, which significantly increased labor productivity). The tip of the rall cut the ground shallowly. To make it easier to cut the roots of weeds and expand the clod of reared earth, the spear was strengthened at an angle. This broke the original symmetry and turned the ralo into a plow - an asymmetric tool.

The place of the tip was gradually taken by a plowshare. Now the raised layer, turning over, lay like a grass cover down on one side. In Western Europe, the light Roman plow aratrum (reinforced ralo) has long existed in the south, and the heavy Celtic plow carruca to the north.

In Eastern Europe, the asymmetric plow spread by the 13th century. The plow was suspended or put on wheels, had a knife in front of the plowshare for cutting the ground and a blade (a bar fastened with a rib on the side for dumping the layer). A heavy plow was pulled from 2 to 12 animals, which made it possible to carry out deep plowing even on heavy soils. Three main types of medieval plow gradually developed with different local variants: Slavic with a skid, wheeled - light Central European and heavy Western European. Before the major clearings of the 2nd millennium, more often than a plow, there were ralos or plows. Unlike the plow, the plow had a high center of gravity and was better suited for working podzolic or weedy soils, especially in forests. Its classic, East Slavic version with a two-tooth opener up to the 15th century. was without a ridge, instead of which light shafts extending from the transverse bar stretched towards the animal. The harrows were a draft rake, sometimes in the form of knotty sticks tied to a drawbar, in an improved version - a lattice of wooden planks with teeth wedged in them. Grain was ground before the advent of water or windmills by hand on a device of two millstones: a fixed lower one and an upper one rotating along it.

The crop fund accumulated slowly; the experience of previous centuries was used and preserved for a long time. Cereals played a leading role in the field economy. The oldest of them in Europe was millet. It was willingly sown by farmers who did not keep a lot of livestock, since it almost does not need fertilizers, as well as by the inhabitants of dry places, because it manages with little moisture and gives a good harvest on virgin lands. On the contrary, barley, which is not afraid of the cold summer and is acceptable for residents of the northern regions, requires fertilizer. Therefore, it was sown where agriculture was combined with developed animal husbandry, or on loam fertilized with marl. Along with millet, barley was also used in the manufacture of beer malt. Cakes and crackers made from barley flour were always taken on the road by merchants, pilgrims and warriors. The most common cereal crop in the early Middle Ages was unpretentious spelt, but since the 11th century. it gradually gives way to wheat. Since ancient times, soft wheat has been sown in the Mediterranean and from there spread as a winter and spring crop throughout Europe. Hard wheat came from the "barbarian" regions, occupying only the spring field and growing well on the fallow and virgin lands.

Since ancient times, Europeans have sown rye in small quantities on yari. In the Middle Ages, it became an independent important, including winter, culture, from the 5th century. in the steppes, from the 8th century. in the forest-steppe, from the tenth century. in forests.

Together with rye, oats, which spread from the east, conquered Western Europe. As a grain for porridge, it was sown in a spring field; if they were prepared for fodder, then they were allowed in a crop rotation after rye like grass. Oats became more widespread with the beginning of the mass use of horses in military affairs and agriculture. Buckwheat was a relatively rare crop. The Eastern Slavs adopted it from the Volga Bulgars even before the 9th century, and in the 12th century. she already met from 0ki to the Neman. In Western Europe, it began to be cultivated later. Sorghum was a rare cereal here.

Cereal yields remained low for a long time. Gradually in Central England XIII century. on well-established farms, rye ripened at a ratio of 7 to 1, barley - 8 to 1, peas - 6 to 1, wheat - 5 to 1, oats - 4 to 1, in medium-sized farms the yield was lower.

Fruit and vegetable crops were used in a larger assortment than cereals. Thanks to the Arabs, from the VIII century. rice and sugar cane appear in Spain, from the 9th century in Sicily; thanks to the Byzantines, from the tenth century. in Russia, which knew a number of other cultures, cucumbers and cherries began to grow. The olive, which in ancient times was a shrub, thanks to the Greeks and Italians, turned into a well-bearing tree and became widespread in South-Western Europe in a new form.

In continental Europe, apples, plums, raspberries, known to the Romans, were grown everywhere. In areas with an average summer temperature above +17 °, grapes have spread. From overripe, slightly pressed grape berries, light wine was made, diluted with spring water.

In northern Europe, wine was sometimes replaced by beer. Strong Tuscan, Rhine, Burgundy wines began to be made when they learned to use all stages of fermentation - kvass, sugar and wine. Monasteries played an important role in the progress of winemaking. Grapes were widely cultivated in France, Italy and Spain; to the VI century. vineyards reached the Rhine, in the tenth century - to the Oder, in the XIII century. this culture was known even in the south of England. In all areas adjacent to Byzantium, Greek traditions of winemaking were preserved. There were famous Khazar vineyards on the Southern Don. Their products in amphorae often ended up in Russia.

In the forest areas, the most common vegetable was the turnip, which was part of the daily diet of the common people. Radishes, cabbages of various varieties and large beans were common, in the north - swede and small beans, everywhere - onions and garlic. Horseradish is native to Eastern Europe.

Medieval people also cultivated a lot of forest and field plants, which later fell into disuse. Later, their diet was enriched with carrots and beets. They used hardened jam from barberry berries and rosehip broth, thickened infusion of burdock roots and melon dried and cut into sweet sticks. Hawthorn fruits were ground into flour. Dozens of plant species were used for salad and vinaigrette. In summer and autumn, nuts, berries and mushrooms were definitely collected. Exceptional importance was attached to spices as medicines against gastrointestinal diseases and as a means to improve the palatability of coarse, unpretentious food. Black pepper, Asian cloves, etc. were brought from Eastern countries. Of the local spices, cinnamon, laurel, ginger, mustard, anise, thyme and dill were used as seasonings.

Cattle breeding.

Cattle breeding as the main occupation prevailed among the steppe nomads. The European nomadic region knew horses, camels, cattle and sheep. Settled peoples also kept pigs, goats, and poultry. Constant companion and helper of the villager, especially

cattle breeder and hunter, there was a dog. In the Middle Ages, their various breeds were bred. For farmers, tillage was impossible without raccoon breeding. If among the nomads horses also predominated quantitatively (in the North - deer), then among the sedentary ones. inhabitants - cattle, in second place were pigs, in third - sheep, even less (with the exception of mountainous regions) there were goats. Cattle breeding, combined with agriculture, was associated with the development of forests and scrub wastelands, where cattle, especially pigs, were grazed. For sedentary residents, a developed cattle-breeding economy required the presence of stables, stalls, fenced pens, pastures, pastures, watering places, and forage harvesting.

In the early Middle Ages, livestock were small in size. By the 2nd millennium, there was a desire to create new breeds, expand the territories of their distribution and acclimatization.

To improve the useful qualities of pigs, they were crossed with wild boars. In England, the Leicester breed of sheep was bred with high-quality and fast-growing wool. In continental Europe, the southern, mouflon breed spread, which gave rise to long-tailed sheep, from which the Arab-Spanish merinos originated, and the northern, peat-bog breed, which gave rise to the Scandinavian heather and German short-tailed sheep. The fat-tailed sheep came from Asia along with the nomads. Long-tailed (Merino, Leicester, later Lincoln) supplied raw materials for the manufacture of woolen fabrics; short-tailed wool was used for the production of sheepskins, sheepskins and sheepskin coats. Cheese was made everywhere from sheep's milk, cheese was made from goat's. Goats spread in the Volga region and in Southern Europe (Pyrenees, Apennines, Balkans), goat down was widely used. Groomed bulls (oxen) were fattened, used as a draft and vehicle. The sires were also slaughtered. Dairy products were one of the main components of the diet, and mares and camel koumiss were also used as medicine. Cottage cheese was popular among the inhabitants of the valleys - an indispensable part of ritual pagan, then Christian meals.

The horse that came to Europe from the Asian steppes back in the Bronze Age gave rise to new breeds here: Norian (mountains and forests from Russia to Scotland), eastern (south of the continent). During the migrations from Asia, the Mongolian breed spread to Europe. The first was previously used for draft and transport purposes, the second and third - as a riding animal, along with mules and hinnies bred by crossing. The intensive use of horses for riding is associated in Europe with the great migration of peoples. And then saddles, stirrups and horseshoes gradually entered into mass use. Stirrups were borrowed from Asian nomads, first in Eastern, then in Western Europe. Since the X century. a rigid saddle with a high front moon, arched cutouts and strong supporting stirrups comes into use. This design was intended for a heavily armed knight. From the 9th century for draft horses, a collar and harness were used. The emergence of a new harness system had a beneficial effect on the development of traction in transport, construction, and agriculture.

The range of crafts related to horse breeding also expanded.

Let us summarize the above material on the development of agriculture in medieval Europe. The main tools for cultivating the land among the Western European peoples in the VI - X centuries. there was a plow (a light one that cut the earth without turning it over, and a heavy one on wheels, turning over a layer of earth), as well as a plow. The fields were plowed two or three times and harrowed.

In agriculture, a two-field system dominated, sowed rye, wheat, spelt, oats, barley, legumes, crops were weeded. The grain was processed in mills with a flour yield of no more than 41.5%. Water mills were used.

In gardening, a hoe and a shovel were used. Harrows were widely used, for harvesting hay and harvesting - a sickle and a scythe, and for threshing - a wooden flail. Bulls and oxen were used as draft animals.

In horticulture, the main crops were apples, pears, plums, cherries and medicinal plants. From industrial crops, flax and hemp were grown. Viticulture developed.

Animal husbandry developed significantly: cows, pigs, sheep, goats were bred. There is a stall keeping of cattle. Horse breeding gradually turned into a special branch.

Agriculture in the 16th century capitalism spread much more slowly than in industry. This process was most active in England and the Netherlands. The English nobles and bourgeois, having bought up the lands secularized from the monasteries and driven out the peasant holders from them, set up large sheep-breeding or agricultural farms using the hired labor of rural laborers.

Landowners preferred to lease land, which brought them more income. At first it was a share-cropping lease, when the landowner provided the tenant not only with a plot of land, but often with seed, implements and housing, receiving a share of the harvest.

A variation of sharecropping was sharecropping: both parties bore equal costs and shared the income equally. Ispolshchina and sharecropping were not yet in the full sense of the capitalist lease. This is the nature of farming. The farmer rented a large plot of land, cultivated it with the help of hired labor. In this case, the rent paid to the landowner represented only a part of the surplus value produced by the hired workers.

Farming spread to England, the Netherlands and Northern France. In most of France, the feudal form of holdings, the census, was preserved; sharecropping developed to some extent in the south of the country.

The development of industry and the increase in demand for agricultural products contributed to the growth of agricultural production and its marketability. At the same time, there was no noticeable progress in agricultural production. The technical base of agricultural production remained the same.

The main implements of agricultural production were still the plow, harrow, scythe, and sickle. From the second half of the XV century. in some countries, a light plow began to be used, to which one or two horses were harnessed. Due to the reclamation of swampy and arid areas, the area of ​​cultivated land increased. Improved agricultural practices. Soil fertilization with manure, peat, ash, marling, etc., was practiced more and more widely. The productivity increased. Horticulture and horticulture and viticulture are gaining further distribution.

Cattle breeding developed. In the Netherlands, England and Germany, stall fattening of cattle was practiced, and its breed improved. Industry specialization has been identified. So, in Holland, dairy cattle were bred for commercial purposes, in Castile (Spain), fine-wool sheep breeding was widespread, focused on exporting wool abroad.