The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century: Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe (Studies in the History of Daily Life (800-1600), 11) 9782503597058, 250359705X

Citation preview

The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF DAILY LIFE (800–1600) Volume 11 General Editor Gerhard Jaritz, Central European University Editorial Board David Austin, University of Wales Lampeter Christian Krötzl, University of Tampere Svetlana Luchitskaya, Russian Academy of Sciences Anu Mänd, University of Tallinn Daniel Smail, Harvard University Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe

Edited by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella

F

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

© 2021, Brepols Publishers n. v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2021/0095/297 ISBN 978-2-503-59705-8 E-ISBN 978-2-503-59706-5 10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.126374 ISSN 2565-8212 eISSN 2565-9561 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Introduction: The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella

7 13

Changes in Rural Milieu and Land Use on Estates in Southern Bohemia during the Sixteenth Century Ladislav Čapek

23

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century: A Multidisciplinary Study of Two Mountain Areas (Eastern France) Valentin Chevassu, Emilie Gauthier, Pierre Nouvel, Vincent Bichet, Hervé Richard, and Isabelle Jouffroy-Bapicot

53

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands Jana Mazáčková and Petr Žaža

81

Livestock Improvement and Landscape Enclosure in Late and Post-Medieval Buckinghamshire, England Tamsyn Fraser Improvements in Animal Husbandry between the End of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era in England and the Basque Country: A Zooarchaeological Comparison Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella

101

129

Innovation: Turning Something Old into Something New. Vicia faba var. major 157 Anna Maria Grasso, Silvia D’Aquino, Eligio Vacca, Marco Nicoli, Milena Primavera, and Girolamo Fiorentino

6

ta bl e o f co n t e n t s

Changes in Rural Textile Craft during the Sixteenth– Seventeenth Centuries in the Eastern Baltic Region (Estonian Example) 177 Riina Rammo Iron and Steel Implements: Increased Diversification during the Early Modern Era in Sweden Catarina Karlsson

199

List of Illustrations

Ladislav Čapek

Figure 2.1. A distribution map of the south Bohemian region with deserted villages in fifteenth–seventeenth centuries. 26 Figure 2.2. A graph with the number of deserted villages subdivided into a period of fifty years.  27 Figure 2.3. A graph quantifying the number of villages according to the cause of their desertion. 28 Figure 2.4. A map of the Hluboká estate with existing and deserted farmsteads within the villages according to the Pernstein land register from 1490.29 Figure 2.5. A PCA chart based on the land register of the Hluboká estate from 1490. Display of positive and negative factor loadings for individual data.30 Figure 2.6. A layout of DMV Žďár with relief formation based on the geodetic-topographic survey. 32 Figure 2.7. Digital relief model of the DMV Žďár and the hinterland based on hillshading from multiple directions from LiDAR data. 32 Figure 2.8. The principal estates/dominions in the sixteenth century in southern Bohemia. 34 Figure 2.9. A graph shows the ratio between gross income and peasant tenancy rents on the main estates in southern Bohemia at the end of the sixteenth century. 36 Figure 2.10. A chart of the economic flow of demesne lordship in the sixteenth century.37 Figure 2.11. The Rosenberg dominion in 1590–1611. 38 Figure 2.12. The graph shows gross income from the main sectors of estate management on the Rosenberg estate of Třeboň. 38 Figure 2.13. The Hluboká dominion in 1598. 39 Figure 2.14. The graph shows the gross income from the main sectors of the estate management on the Hluboká estate. 39 Figure 2.15. A typical cadastre of a demesne farm from Branovice (Budweis district) on a geometric plan from 1786. 41 Figure 2.16. A relief formation of a deserted sheep farm at DMV Žďár. 42 Figure 2.17. The oldest maps of fishpond systems on the Chlumec estate from 1564.43 Figure 2.18. The map shows the largest game hunting/deer parks in southern Bohemia founded in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries.  44

8

l i s t o f il lu s t r at i o n s

Figure 2.19. The territory of the deer park near the Kratochvíle residence with deserted villages and newly established manorial farms. Figure 2.20. Late Renaissance Kratochvíle residence (villa) with gardens and large deer park nearby. Vista by J. de Verle, 1686.

44 45

Valentin Chevassu, Emilie Gauthier, Pierre Nouvel, Vincent Bichet, Hervé Richard and Isabelle Jouffroy-Bapicot Figure 3.1. Central Jura, geographical context of the research area and main early modern towns and seigneuries). Figure 3.2. Southern Morvan, geographical context of the research area and main early modern towns and seigneuries. Figure 3.3. Evolution of human activities in central Jura during the early modern period. Figure 3.4. Evolution of human activities in southern Morvan during the early modern period. Figure 3.5. Evolution of arboreal pollen ratio between the late medieval and early modern periods in southern Morvan. Figure 3.6. Evolution of arboreal pollen ratio and written references to wood shortages during the late medieval and early modern periods in central Jura . Figure 3.7. Early modern settlement evolution in central Jura Figure 3.8. Early modern settlement evolution in southern Morvan 

55 56 62 66 68

68 72 73

Jana Mazáčková and Petr Žaža

Figure 4.1. The area of studied region corresponds to the Brtnice domain from the year 1538 based on the urbaria of the domain. Figure 4.2. Above: field plots of DMV Ostejkovice captured on Franciscan cadastral maps of the Uhřínovice village cadastre. The field plots have been preserved to this day. Below: overlay of the cadastre with LiDAR data (slope) and of plots of land (fragment of the plough-fields of the DMV Ostejkovice). Figure 4.3. Buffers of minimum land needed for farming. Where there are no buffers, DMV can be predicted. Figure 4.4. Panská Lhota cadastre based on Indication Sketches from 1835 without the Malé cadastre. Water courses highlighted here can serve as possible natural borders of the cadastre. This map also shows the state of afforestation of the Panská Lhota cadastre in 1835, as compared to today.

Tamsyn Fraser

82

85 87

89

Figure 5.1. Map showing the location of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire (Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes).106 Figure 5.2. Histograms plotting width measurements of cattle lower third molars, split into late medieval and post-medieval phases. 109

li st o f i llu st rat i o ns

Figure 5.3. Scatter plot comparing the ratios of astragalus measurements for cattle between the late medieval and post-medieval periods. 109 Figure 5.4. Log ratio histograms combining cattle tooth width measurements.  110 Figure 5.5. Log ratio histograms combining cattle tooth length measurements. 110 Figure 5.6. Log ratio histograms combining cattle postcranial bone length measurements.111 Figure 5.7. Log ratio histograms combining cattle postcranial bone breadth measurements.111 Figure 5.8. Cattle dental age profile, showing the percentage kill-off at each age stage. 112 Figure 5.9. Histograms plotting width measurements of sheep lower third molars by century. 114 Figure 5.10. Scatter plot comparing the ratios of astragalus measurements for sheep between the late medieval and post-medieval periods.  115 Figure 5.11. Log ratio histograms combining sheep postcranial bone length measurements.115 Figure 5.12. Log ratio histograms combining sheep postcranial bone breadth measurements.116 Figure 5.13. Sheep dental age profile, showing the percentage kill-off at each age stage. 117 Figure 5.14. Reconstruction of the 1641 estate map. 119 Figure 5.15. Reconstruction of the 1678 estate map. 120

Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella

Figure 6.1. Location of the sites in the Basque Country (left) and England (right).132 Figure 6.2. Box plot showing the log ratios of cattle postcranial lengths, for each period/region. 136 Figure 6.3. Box plot showing the log ratios of cattle postcranial widths, for each period/region. 136 Figure 6.4. Box plot showing the log ratios of cattle postcranial depths, for each period/region. 137 Figure 6.5. Scatter plots comparing the cattle astragalus measurements (greatest length of the lateral half, GLl, and greatest breadth of the distal end, Bd) during the late Middle Ages, the transition period , and modern era. 138 Figure 6.6. Box plot showing the log ratios of sheep postcranial lengths, for each period/region. 140 Figure 6.7. Box plot showing the log ratios of sheep postcranial widths, for each period/region. 140 Figure 6.8. Box plot showing the log ratios of sheep postcranial depths, for each period/region. 141

9

10

l i s t o f il lu s t r at i o n s

Figure 6.9. Scatter plots comparing the sheep astragalus measurements (greatest length of the lateral half, GLl, and greatest breadth of the distal end, Bd) during the late Middle Ages and in the transition period.  Figure 6.10. Box plot showing the log ratios of pig tooth lengths, for each period/region. Figure 6.11. Box plot showing the log ratios of pig tooth widths, for each period/region. Figure 6.12. Box plot showing the log ratios of pig postcranial measurements (lengths + widths), for each period/region.  Figure 6.13. Box plot showing the log ratios of chicken postcranial measurements (lengths + widths), for each period/region. Figure 6.14. Scatter plots comparing the chicken tibiotarsus measurements (greatest breadth of the distal end, Bd, and depth of the distal end, Dd) during the late Middle Ages, the transition period, and modern era.

142 145 145 146 146

148

Anna Maria Grasso, Silvia D’Aquino, Eligio Vacca, Marco Nicoli, Milena Primavera and Girolamo Fiorentino

Figure 7.1. Map of Apulia and location of the archaeological sites cited in the text.162 Figure 7.2. Archaeological faba bean from Castro (sixteenth century), photographed in ventral and lateral view; in evidence the biometrical features measured: LE = length, WI = width, TH = thickness.164 Figure 7.3. Box plot of the biometrical analysis results (1 = Roca, thirteenth– twelfth centuries bc; 2 = Oria, fourth–third centuries bc; 3 = Lecce, twelfth century; 4 = Castro, twelfth century; 5 = Giurdignano, fifteenth century; 6 = Roca, sixteenth century; 7 = Castro, sixteenth century). 166 Figure 7.4. Dispersion graph of the length–width relationship (1 = Roca, thirteenth–twelfth centuries bc; 2 = Oria, fourth–third centuries bc; 3 = Lecce, twelfth century; 4 = Castro, twelfth century; 5 = Giurdignano, fifteenth century; 6 = Roca, sixteenth century; 7 = Castro, sixteenth century). 167 Figure 7.5. Vicia beans, average shapes obtained for each archaeological site; the overlaid outlines are scaled and centred to highlight differences. 167 Figure 7.6. Principal Component Analysis score plot, the first and second PCs accounted for 93 per cent of total variance; each specimen is reported in the morphospace of elliptical Fourier descriptors . 168

Riina Rammo

Figure 8.1. Warp-weighted loom.

180

li st o f i llu st rat i o ns

Figure 8.2. Linen textiles. 1) tabby with repp character (Sargvere deposit find, end of the sixteenth century, TÜ 1957: 10); 2) balanced tabby (Ervu cemetery, end of the seventeenth century, TÜ 2: 172b). 181 Figure 8.3. Changing proportions of tabby subtypes in different periods.  181 Figure 8.4. Location of mentioned find-spots: 1) Siksälä cemetery; 2) Parisselja bog find; 3) — Rabivere bog body. 182 Figure 8.5. Parisselja bog find, Estonian National Museum (ERM 19506: 1–9). 184 Figure 8.6. Detail of Parisselja leg wrapping in broken twill weave and with starting border in extended tabby, Estonian National Museum (ERM 19506: 4). 185 Figure 8.7. The uppermost coat of Rabivere bog body. The front of the item is extremely patched and mended indicating perhaps that the garment was used for some kind of heavy work (e.g. carrying wood), Estonian National Museum (ERM A 445: 3, 6). 187 Figure 8.8. The skirt of Rabivere bog body sown together of several pieces, Estonian National Museum (ERM A 445: 1). 187

Catarina Karlsson

Figure 9.1. Increased use of iron during the Middle Ages, here exemplified by the archaeological finds of iron in a village in Pollista, Uppland.  201

11

Ido ia Grau Solo g e s toa and U mberto Albarella

Introduction: The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century

The early phase of the so-called modern era was a time of fundamental change in society, religion, ideas, and everyday life, but there were also elements of substantial continuity with earlier times. The sixteenth century represents the first stage of this epoch, namely what archaeologists tend to define as the ‘early post-medieval’ period.1 During this period of transition, Europe shifted from ‘medieval’ to ‘modern’. It has long been recognized as a period of important social and economic change, witnessing cultural transformations that still affect our way of life today. Historians have intensively investigated some of the important innovations that characterize this period, such as the exploration of other continents,2 the expansion of international trade,3 and developments in politics,4 science,5 religion,6 philosophy,7 law,8 and





1 Depending on the research tradition, different terms have been used to name the archaeological discipline focused on this chronological period, such as ‘Historical Archaeology’, ‘Postmedieval Archaeology’, ‘Modern Archaeology’, ‘Contemporary Archaeology’, etc. For more information regarding this issue, see for example Quirós Castillo and Grau Sologestoa, ‘Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco’. 2 E.g. Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420–1620; Cipolla, European Culture and Overseas Expansion; Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance; Arnold, The Age of Discovery, 1400–1600; Love, Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery, 1415–1800. 3 E.g. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, ii: The Wheels of Commerce; Parker, Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800. 4 E.g. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century; Skinner, Renaissance Virtues: Visions of Politics, ii. 5 E.g. Henry, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science; Burns, The Scientific Revolution in Global Perspective; Wootton, The Invention of Science. 6 E.g. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century; Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century; Appold, The Reformation. 7 E.g. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century; Kraye, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism; Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe. 8 E.g. Orakhelashvili, ‘The Idea of European International Law’; Jeffery, Hugo Grotius in International Thought. Idoia Grau Sologestoa    Integrative Prähistorische und Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie (IPNA), Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, [email protected] Umberto Albarella    Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, [email protected] The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 13–22 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127103

14

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

art.9 Many of the roots of contemporary society can be found in the sixteenth century, leaving no doubts about the importance of its study and exploration. For instance, several scholars have identified the sixteenth century as the moment in which capitalism and globalization emerged.10 The two main symptoms of this fundamental transition from feudalism to capitalism were urban growth and the commercialization of agriculture11 and, as a result, many have highlighted that the technological and agrarian innovations that took place in the rural world during that ‘long’ century played a central role in the birth of modern economies.12 Because of our own research backgrounds, as well as the need to investigate an especially under-studied aspect of human history, this book focuses on the rural world and important developments in agriculture and land use. In the sixteenth century, the rural world was an active agent of social and economic change, as well as the beneficiary of important technical and technological developments. It is undeniable that socio-economic transformations in the rural world played a very important role in historical processes during the early modern era.13 During this time period, the majority of people in Europe lived in rural areas, and most of them worked in agriculture, animal husbandry, or rural industries. Therefore, it is no surprise that historians, whether economic, social, or cultural historians, have paid a great deal of attention to the investigation of changes in agricultural wages, property deeds, prices of agricultural products, and farmers’ daily lives, for instance. Historical research in different European regions has highlighted that, in post-medieval times, some key transformations occurred in rural areas. These changes included the introduction of new crops and animal species,14 the invention of new farming technologies and techniques15 such as wooden harnesses, light iron ploughs, drainage systems, four-course systems of crop rotation, enclosures16 and conflicts regarding the use of common lands,17 and a notable demographic increase associated with the growth of urban demand.18

9 E.g. Bohn and Saslow, A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art. 10 DuPlessis, ‘Introduction’. 11 Braudel, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, i: Les structures du quotidien; Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, i: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century; Mackenney, Sixteenth Century Europe. 12 Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, i: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century; Cipolla, Historia económica de Europa, siglos XVI y XVII; Wiesner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789. 13 E.g. Braudel, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, i: Les structures du quotidien; De Maddalena, ‘La Europa rural (1550–1750)’. 14 Crosby, The Columbian Exchange; Nunn, Nathan, and Qian, ‘The Columbian Exchange’. 15 Astill and Langdon, Medieval Technology and Farming. 16 Kerridge, The Agricultural Revolution. 17 Curtis, ‘Did the Commons Make Medieval and Early Modern Rural Societies More Equitable?’. 18 Beckett, The Agricultural Revolution.

in tro duct i o n : t h e r u r al wo r l d i n t he si xt e e nt h ce nt u ry

Archaeologically, however, the study of the sixteenth century has had to confront research attitudes and scholarly traditions which were not the most conducive to its development, hence the need for this book, which presents several contributions dealing with the archaeology of the European rural world, during the ‘long’ sixteenth century. Post-medieval archaeology has for many decades been regarded as the Cinderella of period-based archaeological investigations — perhaps considered to be too recent to deserve the same status as prehistoric, classical, and medieval archaeologies. Fortunately, this is now widely recognized as an unreasonable and unjustified attitude, but the legacy of this bias is still partly with us and it certainly means that European Post-Medieval Archaeology has a backlog of several decades compared to other periods. Since the creation, in 1967, of the first scientific journals dedicated to the publication of archaeological research that dealt with recent centuries, such as Post-Medieval Archaeology and Historical Archaeology, there are now a growing number of specialized journals,19 along with an increase in the interest on the archaeology of this period.20 In some countries where Post-Medieval Archaeology has been very neglected, this field is attracting increasing attention and is undergoing a critical process of disciplinary consolidation and definition,21 thanks to a very dynamic professional, administrative, and intellectual context that has developed over the last few decades. Nonetheless, despite this increasing interest, the development of PostMedieval Archaeology faces numerous problems. Together with this backlog in research agendas, an additional, and more practical, problem is that post-medieval archaeological sites often suffer from stratigraphic disturbance and ‘residuality’,22 an inevitable consequence of representing the top layers of archaeological deposits. In rural areas, the problem is compounded by the frequent removal of the most recent occupation layers by ploughing and other agricultural works. If we also consider that many archaeological sites of the last few decades have been unearthed as a consequence of urban developments, it then becomes less surprising that our archaeological record of the countryside in the post-medieval period, and the sixteenth century in particular, is rather scanty. In many European countries, the rural world — its landscapes, environments, settlements, and cultural heritage — is lacking the protection 19 For instance, Vernacular Architecture (since 1971), Industrial Archaeology Review (since 1976), Ramage (since 1982), Australasian Historical Archaeology (since 1983), International Journal of Historical Archaeology and Archeologia postmedievale (since 1997), and Journal of Contemporary Archaeology (since 2014). 20 For example, international archaeology conferences such as the annual meetings of the European Association of Archaeologists and the Society for American Archaeology, often host several sessions that deal with post-medieval chronologies. 21 See, for example, Grau Sologestoa and Quirós Castillo, Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco y su entorno, or the series of papers that review the state-of-the-art of postmedieval archaeological research, coordinated by Eric Tourigny and Sarah Newstead, in Post-Medieval Archaeology. 22 Sensu Albarella, ‘Defining Bone Movement in Archaeological Stratigraphy’.

15

16

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

that urban centres have and it is, therefore, an inevitable consequence that rescue excavations deal with them only occasionally. An additional problem for the investigation of European post-medieval rural settlements is that, in most cases, these are still inhabited today, unlike a vast number of villages that became deserted during the late Middle Ages, allowing researchers to investigate them through excavations in open areas, extensive surveys, etc. Only recently has there been a spurt of interest in the archaeology of inhabited rural settlements in Europe.23 It is ironic that, in a world that functions at the expense of intensive human labour, low wages, mass-production, the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, and the exploitation of natural resources and non-human animals, archaeologists have rather neglected the investigation of the historical origins of these phenomena, all of which are deeply rooted in the ‘long’ sixteenth century, as discussed above. This book emerges from a session that we organized as part of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeology (EAA), which was held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, between 30 August and 3 September 2017. The session was entitled ‘The “Long” Sixteenth Century: Archaeological Evidence for Innovations in the Rural World (Technology, Agriculture and Husbandry)’. Based on the idea that the transformations that occurred in the European countryside arguably affected the character of human societies even more profoundly than the political and religious upheavals, this session aimed to bring researchers from a variety of disciplines (zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, geoarchaeology, landscape archaeology, material culture studies, etc.) to investigate the nature of agricultural and technological innovations that occurred in the rural world during the ‘long’ sixteenth century. The session, as well as this book, aim to tackle the evolution of farming systems in the sixteenth century from an interdisciplinary perspective. We regard this as an important aspect of this collective work, as changes did not affect just one aspect of agricultural life — e.g. livestock, crops, technologies — but were inevitably interconnected. The key question that this work wants to address is the extent to which the Europe of the sixteenth century was more rooted in the Middle Ages or, instead, already fully involved in the Agricultural Revolution that transformed the countryside into the kind of landscape we are familiar with today. Inevitably, the answer to this question will not be straightforward and will have to take into account the environmental and social complexity, as well as the diversity, of different European regions. It is, however, still important to investigate the degree to which the sixteenth century can be regarded, in agricultural terms, as ‘innovative’ and ultimately ‘modern’. This session was very well attended and attracted international as well as multidisciplinary contributions. There was also a lively discussion, and

23 See, for example, Lewis, ‘Archaeological Excavation and Deep Mapping in Historic Rural Communities’; and Fernández Fernández and Fernández Mier, eds, The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe.

in tro duct i o n : t h e r u r al wo r l d i n t he si xt e e nt h ce nt u ry

the general good quality of the presentations persuaded us that the session deserved to be published. Stemming as it does from an archaeology conference, the book focuses on the material remains of our past. Although contributions by historians would have been productive, our focus on archaeology is justified by the need to emphasize the role that this discipline has in the understanding of the modern world — the contribution of history being more obvious and widely investigated. Although all chapters are written by archaeologists, they do make ample reference to documentary sources and cover a wide range of approaches, ranging from landscape analysis to archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, and material culture studies. Geographically, our remit is purposefully limited to the European Continent; other geographic areas would also have been worth exploring but were less comparable in terms of their historical context. Case studies from southern, central, and northern Europe are presented. A staggering realization during the preparation of the book — which made us even more convinced of the need to produce it — was the difficulty in finding archaeologists who were involved in the study of the sixteenth-century rural world. It became clear that this represents a major gap in our research coverage of the past, made even more acute by the importance that this period has for the shaping of the contemporary world. We hope that our effort, translated into this book, will contribute to stimulating further research in this area, especially combining biological, artefactual, settlement, and landscape analyses. The volume is organized around three major themes. The first explores landscape transformation and changes in land use; the second focuses on agriculture and animal husbandry; and the last deals with technological change. In the first section, Čapek’s and Mazáčková and Žaža’s chapters deal with different areas of the Czech Republic (southern Bohemia and the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands respectively) and place different emphases on the study of the sixteenth-century landscape transformations. Čapek’s paper (Chapter 1) most clearly shows the intensification in land use that characterized the sixteenth century and how this generated the foundations of modern and contemporary agriculture (despite a period of decline in the seventeenth century). Changes in land use, centred around the demesne lordship model, also brought about important transformations in society, with peasant communities playing a very active role in the intensification of economic production. Mazáčková and Žaža (Chapter 3) take a more methodological approach — their paper explores a model for the evaluation of the intensity of settlement and land use. Adopting a diversity of techniques, ranging from aerial photography to landscape prospection, they also identify the sixteenth century as a period of land management change but, unlike Čapek, they emphasize the graduality of the innovation, interpreting that ‘long century’ as part of a long-term transformative period, with its roots in the Middle Ages.

17

18

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

The paper by Chevassu and others (Chapter 2) uses a highly interdisciplinary approach to study two different areas in eastern France. Through a combination of palaeoenvironmental analysis, LiDAR, and field survey, they conclude — like Čapek for the Bohemian case study — that the roots of the agricultural landscape for the twentieth century should be found in the sixteenth century. They identify three main areas of change: a pre-industrialization of the rural landscape, an intensification in the trade of agro-pastoral products, and an increase in settlement density. Their analysis is constantly informed by the integration of archaeological evidence and documentary sources. Two papers based on animals and one on plants contribute to the section focused on agriculture and husbandry. The case studies are based in England, Spain, and Italy. Tamsyn Fraser’s chapter (Chapter 4) combines the evidence of animal bones from archaeological sites and enclosure of the land, thus providing a useful bridge with the ‘landscape section’. Using the example of the rural site of Great Linford (Buckinghamshire, England), Fraser’s chapter shows how the evidence for sixteenth-century change may present itself in different ways in producer and consumer sites. While there is ample evidence of livestock ‘improvement’ in urban sites, this trend is much less clear in the countryside, probably because most animals reared under an intensive husbandry regime ended up being exported towards towns. The connection between landscape enclosure and livestock ‘improvement’ — suggested by the historical sources — remains elusive in the archaeological evidence. Grau Sologestoa and Albarella’s chapter (Chapter 5) also deals with livestock ‘improvement’, but through a comparative analysis of the evidence from England and the Basque Country. Their paper demonstrates that in both geographic areas the size of farm animals increased in the sixteenth century, probably as a consequence of deliberate selection as well as improved and more controlled husbandry regimes. There is therefore clear evidence of how innovative the early post-medieval period was in Europe. However, the similarity between the two countries is not sustained in the following centuries. While in England productivity demands led to a continuation of this process of livestock size increase in the later post-medieval period, in the Basque Country, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw a decrease in the size of the animals. The economic crisis that engulfed northern Iberia in those times may have favoured a more extensive husbandry system, aimed more towards sustainability than maximization of yield. The chapter by Grasso and others (Chapter 6) also explores innovations in domesticates, but in this case, the focus of the analysis is a crop — the broad bean (Vicia faba). The difference with the two livestock chapters is not only in the geographic setting — Italy, in this case — but especially in the long-term perspective adopted by the authors. Many centuries of evolution of broad bean types are investigated, using both size and shape analyses. The selective breeding of this legume, aimed to enhance its productivity, reached its apex in the sixteenth century. The authors reflect on the fact that the innovations

in tro duct i o n : t h e r u r al wo r l d i n t he si xt e e nt h ce nt u ry

of the early modern period are not only due to new introductions, but also the improvement of local, well-established crops, such as the broad bean. The chapters on technology are both focused on northern Europe — Estonia and Sweden in particular. Rammo (Chapter 7) discusses changes in the technology of textile production in rural Estonia. She shows that textiles had been crafted according to a long-standing tradition (dating back to prehistory) until the sixteenth century, when broader economic changes stimulated innovation in the textile industry; this started making use of new tools, as well as more advanced techniques. In this paper, too, archaeological and historical data are integrated. The last chapter of the book is represented by Karlsson’s (Chapter 8) account of the increase in iron tool production in rural Sweden. Unlike other research presented in this book (excluding Mazáčková and Žaža’s chapter), this paper sees the sixteenth century more as a time of continuity and consolidation than substantial change. Karlsson traces back the main technological innovation in metal tool making to the economic expansion of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The combination of archaeological and historical evidence indicates that iron and steel tools gradually became more complex and diversified, helped in this by the increased availability — and therefore lower cost — of resources. This chapter also makes substantial use of experimental archaeology data, adding to the vast array of methodological approaches on display in this volume. The research collected in this book provides us with an insight into the contribution that archaeology can offer for our understanding of the changes in economy and society that occurred in the ‘long’ sixteenth century in Europe. The variation in research themes and geographic coverage shows that it is not possible to use a single narrative that applies to all situations, yet links can be found between social and economic dynamics that may superficially appear to be unrelated. In general, there seems to be little doubt about the fact that the sixteenth century was a period of expansion and economic intensification, but the way these processes presented themselves in different sectors of society and geographic areas is inevitably variable. One of the most stimulating aspects of the case studies presented here is that all, in their variable ways, indicate how the seeds of the organization of contemporary society can be found in the ‘long’ sixteenth century. We hope that this book will stimulate further research on this period, especially concerning the study of the rural world. It is often stated that a research strand has been neglected, perhaps as a way to emphasize the importance of one’s work. However, in the case of the archaeology of the early modern period, this is unquestionably true. There are, however, valuable archaeological opportunities to investigate how agriculture, animal husbandry, land management, and technology were linked with each other in the sixteenth century and how this mutual dependence contributed to the evolution of human societies and the emergence of the contemporary world.

19

20

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Acknowledgments We would like to thank all of those who contributed to the success of the EAA conference session where this volume germinated, including those who were unable to participate in this book. We would also like to thank the contributors for their immense patience during the production of this volume. Many thanks also to the colleagues who helped us with the peer review process (each chapter was sent for external review, in addition to being checked by the editors); they certainly helped in improving the quality of the volume. This book stemmed from the work that IGS did at the Universities of Sheffield (United Kingdom) (two years) and Basque Country (one year), with a postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the Government of the Basque Country. The fellowship was part of the broader project ‘Agencia campesina y complejidad sociopolítica en el noroeste de la Península Ibérica en época medieval’ (Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad AEI/ FEDER UE HUM2016-76094-C4-2-R) of the Grupo de Investigación, Patrimonialización y Paisajes Culturales (Gobierno Vasco, IT1193-19) and of the Grupo de Estudios Rurales (Unidad Asociada UPV/EHU-CSIC). We are especially grateful to Brepols Publishers for agreeing to publish the book for us, and to Rosie Bonté, in particular, for being so supportive and helpful in guiding us through the editorial process.

Works Cited Albarella, Umberto, ‘Defining Bone Movement in Archaeological Stratigraphy: A Plea for Clarity’, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 8 (2016), 353–58 Allen, John William, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1928) Appold, Kenneth G., The Reformation: A Brief History (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) Arnold, David, The Age of Discovery, 1400–1600 (London: Routledge, 2002) Astill, Grenville, and John Langdon, Medieval Technology and Farming: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe (Leiden: Brill, 1997) Bainton, Roland H., The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Boston: Beacon, 1952) Beckett, John Vincent, The Agricultural Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) Bohn, Babette, and James M. Saslow, A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) Braudel, Fernand, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (Paris: Armand Colin, 1949) ———, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, i: Les structures du quotidien (Paris: Armand Collin, 1967)

in tro duct i o n : t h e r u r al wo r l d i n t he si xt e e nt h ce nt u ry

———, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, ii: The Wheels of Commerce (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) Burns, William E., The Scientific Revolution in Global Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) Cipolla, Carlo M., European Culture and Overseas Expansion (London: Penguin, 1970) ———, Historia económica de Europa, siglos XVI y XVII (Barcelona: Ariel, 1987) Crosby, Alfred W., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Greenwood, 2003) Curtis, Daniel R., ‘Did the Commons Make Medieval and Early Modern Rural Societies More Equitable? A Survey of Evidence from across Western Europe’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 16 (2015), 646–64 De Maddalena, Aldo, ‘La Europa rural (1550–1750)’, in Historia económica de Europa, siglos XVI y XVII, ed. by Carlo M. Cipolla (Barcelona: Ariel, 1987), pp. 214–76 DuPlessis, Robert S., ‘Introduction: The Long Sixteenth Century’, in Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe: Economies in the Era of Early Globalization, c. 1450–c. 1820, ed. by Robert S. DuPlessis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 51–178 Fernández Fernández, Jesus, and Margarita Fernández Mier, eds, The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2019) Fernández Pérez, Joaquín, and Ignacio González Tascón, La agricultura viajera: cultivos y manufacturas de plantas industriales y alimentarias en España y en la América virreinal (Madrid: Real Jardín Botánico CSIC, 1990) Fothergill, Brooklynne ‘Tyr’, ‘The Husbandry, Perception and Improvement of the Turkey in Britain, 1500–1900’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 48 (2014), 210–31 Grau Sologestoa, Idoia, and Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco y su entorno (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020) Henry, John, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) Jeffery, Renée, Hugo Grotius in International Thought (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) Kerridge, Eric, The Agricultural Revolution (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967) Kraye, Jill, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) Langdon, John, Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in English Farming from 1066 to 1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) Lewis, Carenza, ‘Archaeological Excavation and Deep Mapping in Historic Rural Communities’, Humanities, 4 (2015), 393–417 Love, Ronald S., Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery, 1415–1800 (Westport: Greenwood, 2006) Mackenney, Richard, Sixteenth Century Europe: Expansion and Conflict (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993)

21

22

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Nauert, Charles G., Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe, New Approaches to European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) Nunn, Nathan, and Nancy Qian, ‘The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24.2 (2010), 163–88 Orakhelashvili, Alexander, ‘The Idea of European International Law’, European Journal of International Law, 17 (2006), 315–47 Parker, Charles H., Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) Parry, John Horace, The Age of Reconnaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981) Penrose, Boies, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420–1620 (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1952) Quirós Castillo, Juan Antonio, and Idoia Grau Sologestoa, ‘Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco. Una arqueología en construcción, un patrimonio en expansión’, in Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco y su entorno, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020), pp. 1–22 Ratcliffe, D. A., ‘Post-Medieval and Recent Changes in British Vegetation: The Culmination of Human Influence’, New Phytologist, 98 (1984), 73–100 Reed, Kent M., ‘Turkey’, in Genome Mapping and Genomics in Domestic Animals, ed. by Noelle E. Cockett and Chittaranjan Kole (Heidelberg: Springer, 2008), pp. 143–64 Russell, Nicholas, Like Engend’ring Like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) Skinner, Quentin, Renaissance Virtues: Visions of Politics, ii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Thirsk, Joan, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, iv: 1500–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) Thomas, Richard, ‘Translocated testudinidae: The Earliest Archaeological Evidence for Tortoises in Britain’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 44 (2010), 165–71 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System, i: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974) Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) Williamson, Tom, The Transformation of Rural England: Farming and the Landscape, 1700–1870 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002) Wootton, David, The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution (London: Penguin, 2015) Yalden, Derek, The History of the British Mammals (London: Poyser, 1999)

Ladis l av Čapek

Changes in Rural Milieu and Land Use on Estates in Southern Bohemia during the Sixteenth Century

A b str act  The period of the fifteenth century was associated in Czech historiography with the ‘Crisis of the Late Medieval Period’ and characterized by depopulation, abandonment, and economic decline, which is recorded in several land registers and archaeological evidence of deserted medieval villages. In the post-medieval period, significant changes in the rural milieu took place. A phenomenon of the sixteenth century was a decrease in the income from peasant tenancy rents, while the interest of landlords in the economic use of their estates was gradually strengthened. The lords in southern Bohemia established the structures of demesne lordship (Gutsherrschaft) that played an essential role in the agricultural revolution and economic boom of the sixteenth century. The main sectors of demesne lordship were beer production, fish farming, and manorial farms. In the sixteenth century, there was a peculiar symbiosis between the economic activities of the landlords and peasants, who participated in commercialized production for markets. The revenues of the manorial economy were invested in the reconstruction of manor houses, residences, and also in the self-representation of the aristocratic courts. Individual structures of demesne lordship shaped the formation of the early modern (Renaissance) landscape.

T

Keywo r d s  Demesne lordship, rural milieu, village desertion, landscape archaeology, sixteenth century, southern Bohemia

T

Ladislav Čapek    Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of Pilsen, [email protected] The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 23–52 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127104

24

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Introduction This article focuses on changes in the rural milieu at the end of the late Middle Ages and in the early modern period in southern Bohemia and on the process of abandonment of post-medieval villages. This phenomenon is linked to social-economic changes in the structure of late medieval villages, agrarian production, and the peasant economy. In the sixteenth century, it was also associated with the new emerging system of estate management and land use — called demesne lordship (Gutsherrschaft) —, which was based on commercial production for the market.1 Demesne lordship led to the shaping of the typical post-medieval and early modern manorial landscape in southern Bohemia with new landscape-forming elements (fishpond systems, game parks) and structures (demesne farms, sheepfolds, manor houses) that influenced the characteristic form of the early modern (Renaissance) landscape. We still encounter these existing remains today and are able to decipher and perceive them in certain ways. Previous and current archaeological approaches in the Czech lands have focused on exploring the transformation of the rural settlement and agriculture in the thirteenth century.2 Research into post-medieval and early modern landscapes and changes in the rural milieu and land use practice in the Age of Transition is still neglected and is more the domain of historical geography.3 Only recently has interest increased in the study of the post-medieval landscape in this transition period.

A Brief Preface to Czech Economic Historiography and the Study of the Abandonment of Late Medieval Villages In Czech post-war historiography and archaeology, the fifteenth century was traditionally considered to be a period of dramatic changes in the rural settlement linked to Europe-wide theories and concepts of the (Agrarian) Crisis of the Late Middle Ages that have been discussed by economic historians Wilhelm Abel and Michael Postan.4 These issues of 1 Cerman, Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300–1800. 2 Klápště, Czech Lands in Medieval Transformation; Klápště, The Archaeology of Prague and the Medieval Czech Lands, 1100–1600, pp. 15–39. 3 Cf. Klír, ‘Rural Settlements in Bohemia in the “Age of Transition” (14th–16th Century)’, pp. 52–61; Klír, ‘Procesy pustnutí, válečné škody a tzv. sociální úhory’, pp. 713–43; Semotanová, ‘Raně novověká krajina Česka – co o ní víme? (esej)’, pp. 397–405; Semotanová, ‘Raně novověká krajina českých zemí’, pp. 19–53; Chodějovská, Semotanová, and Šimůnek, Historical Landscapes in Bohemia. 4 Abel, Agrarkrisen and Agrarkonjunktur in Mitteleuropa von 13. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert; Postan, ‘Revisions in Economic History’, pp. 160–67; Postan, ‘Some Agrarian Evidence of Declining Population in the Late Middle Ages’, pp. 221–46; Postan, ‘Depopulation in the Late Middle Ages’, pp. 136–38; Seibt and Eberhard, ‘Europa 1400’; overview in Rösener, ‘Die Krise des

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

the economic depression and decline began to be adopted in the 1950s by several Czech economic historians influenced by Marxist theories and the Annales school.5 The impact of the Black Death of the fourteenth century6 and the events of the Hussite and post-Hussite wars7 and revolts as the manifestation of the feudal crisis of the fifteenth century were debated,8 as well as climatic deterioration and fluctuations that caused numerous harvest failures and famines. These phenomena led to the depopulation of rural communities, a decline in the profitability of agricultural production, and overall economic stagnation which was observed in an overall fall in grain prices and yields.9 These crises led to the depopulation of villages, the economic decline of peasants, and, as a consequence, the formation of numerous deserted farmsteads in the fifteenth century in Bohemia and Moravia.10 Peasants left behind their copyhold tenants and decaying fields,

Spätmittelalters in neuer Perspective’, pp. 189–208. In recent years, the theme of the crisis from a comparative perspective has returned to history and archaeology, cf. Schreg, ‘Die Krisen des späten Mittelalters’, pp. 197–213. 5 Graus, Das Spätmittelalter als Krisenzeit; Graus, ‘Vom “schwarzen Tod” zur Reformation’, pp. 10–30; Malowist, ‘Z hospodářské problematiky krise feudalismu ve IV. a XV. století’, pp. 85–99; Čechura, ‘Teorie agrární krize pozdního středověku – teoretický základ koncepce hospodářského a sociálního vývoje předhusitských Čech’, pp. 129–41. 6 The impact of the Black Death in the fourteenth century was not as significant in the Czech lands as in other European countries. The most massive plague pandemic in the Czech lands was mentioned in 1380, see Maur, ‘Morová epidemie roku 1380’, pp. 37–71. 7 Post-Hussite wars encompass the wars of King George of Poděbrady with Matthias Corvinus, but also the various private wars of individual nobles and cross-border conflicts, see Maur, ‘Pustnutí vsí na Plzeňsku za pozdně středověké agrární deprese’, p. 92. 8 The Crisis of Feudalism was an alternative concept to the Late Medieval Agrarian Crisis in Czech Marxist-orientated historiography, see Kriedte, ‘Spätmittelalterlicher Agrarkrise oder Krise des Feudalismus?’, pp. 42–68; Bois, Crise du féodalisme. Later, the term ‘crisis’ was replaced by a more appropriate expression of structural change — in Czech historiography see Čechura, ‘Teorie agrární krize pozdního středověku – teoretický základ koncepce hospodářského a sociálního vývoje předhusitských Čech’, p. 53. 9 Šmahel, ‘Krise und Revolution’, pp. 65–81; Graus, Pest – Geissler – Judenmorde; Maur, ‘Příspěvek k demografické problematice předhusitských Čech (1346–1419)’, pp. 7–71; recently Maur, ‘Pustnutí vsí na Plzeňsku za pozdně středověké agrární deprese’, pp. 49–106. Similarly to Michael Postan’s and Wilhelm Abel’s studies, the crisis events were seen in the decline in grain prices, see Čechura, ‘Demografický faktor teorie pozdně středověké agrární krize a některé aspekty populačního vývoje v Čechách od konce 15. století’, p. 92. 10 Boháč, ‘K problematice a terminologii pustnutí a zanikání sídel v písemných pramenech vrcholného a pozdního středověku’, pp. 269–83; Nekuda, ‘Příčiny a důsledky zanikání středověkých osad’, pp. 107–21; Měřínský, ‘Die “Villa deserta” als Problem der mährischen Mediävistik’, pp. 9–26; Klápště, The Archaeology of Prague and the Medieval Czech Lands, 1100–1600, pp. 15–25. Little has been done in Czech historiography to study the processes of village desertion in the late Middle Ages compared to other European countries, see Holata, ‘Změny osídlení v pozdním středověku a raném novověku’. In this regard, Tomáš Klír’s and Eduard Maur’s studies of the processes of desertion in the Cheb and Pilsen region are ground-breaking, see Klír, ‘Procesy pustnutí, válečné škody a tzv. sociální úhory’, pp. 713–43; Maur, ‘Pustnutí vsí na Plzeňsku za pozdně středověké agrární deprese’, pp. 49–66.

25

26

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.1. A distribution map of the south Bohemian region with deserted villages in fifteenth–seventeenth centuries. Drawn by L. Čapek.

moving into towns or to other estates in order to acquire better land. As a consequence of these events, many farmsteads were abandoned and in a number of cases whole villages were deserted. At the end of the fifteenth century, the lords of Bohemia were confronted with a new problem of the decline of feudal tenancy rents.11 Population decline and the formation of deserted villages is recorded in southern Bohemia, which was affected by the Hussite and post-Hussite wars in the fifteenth century. There are numerous testimonies of deserted villages in the forested landscape, many of which have been archaeologically documented and were abandoned during the fifteenth century (Fig. 2.1).12

11 Maur, ‘Genese a specifické rysy českého pozdněfeudalního velkostatku’, pp. 229–58; Čechura, ‘Teorie agrární krize pozdního středověku – teoretický základ koncepce hospodářského a sociálního vývoje předhusitských Čech’, pp. 129–41. Foreign comparison in Dyer, ‘Villages in Crisis’, pp. 29–45. 12 Krajíc, ‘Příspěvek k dokumentaci některých zaniklých středověkých osad na Táborsku’, pp. 165–72; Krajíc, ‘Vesnice husitského období na Táborsku ve světle archeologických výzkumů’, pp. 85–95; Čapek, ‘Dvě zaniklé středověké vesnice ve Velechvínském polesí, okr. České Budějovice’, pp. 227–48; Čapek and Baierl, ‘Zjišťovací archeologický výzkum zaniklých středověkých vesnic Prochod a Žďár ve Velechvínském polesí, okr. České Budějovice’, pp. 193– 207; Fröhlich, ‘Zaniklé středověké vesnice v okrese Písek. Shrnutí poznatků’, pp. 409–17.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.2. A graph with the number of deserted villages subdivided into a period of fifty years. Created by L. Čapek.

Village Desertion in Southern Bohemia at the Hluboká Estate By quantifying the number of deserted medieval villages (a sample of almost three hundred) in southern Bohemia that are well known from written sources and archaeological evidence, it is obvious that the abandonment of most villages happened between 1450 and 1600 (Fig. 2.2). The main questions to be raised are: 1. Why were a large number of villages deserted during the post-medieval period in southern Bohemia? 2. What happened to the rural milieu and what changes occurred? 3. How did agriculture, land use, and perception of the landscape change? 4. What materialized remains of the past are preserved in the landscape? From the analysis of the causes of desertion in the sixteenth century both in historical and archaeological records (Fig. 2.3), it follows that many villages did not disappear as a result of war events or other cataclysmic causes mentioned in the context of the preceding fifteenth century.13 Many of them were deserted through other less visible processes, such as their gradual abandonment, reduction, and shrinking.14 Often it happened that demesne

13 Cf. Maur, ‘Pustnutí vsí na Plzeňsku za pozdně středověké agrární deprese’, pp. 49–66. 14 We can also consider the disintegration of peasant communities and the weakening of internal social ties that were influenced by the inclination of a considerable number of peasants to Hussitism and the deterioration of relations with the lordship, see Šmahel, ‘Krise und Revolution’, pp. 65–81. The disintegration of peasant communities was mentioned in several British studies, e.g. Dyer, ‘Villages in Crisis’.

27

28

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.3. A graph quantifying the number of villages according to the cause of their desertion. Created by L. Čapek.

farms were established in many deserted or decaying villages in the sixteenth century and the former open fields were newly re-measured and attached to the farm. Several villages also disappeared because the lords of the estate confiscated a part of the common land in the vicinity of the villages in order to establish fishpond systems.15 Several villages were abolished due to game park enclosures, and their former arable land was afforested. For the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we have more written sources, such as land books, manorial extents (Urbare), and land and duties registers of the estates, in which we can see certain changes. Valuable sources are primarily

15 This was noticed in a study by Fridolín Macháček on examples of the abandonment of villages in the Pilsen region (Macháček, Vývoj hospodářský a sociální v okrese plzeňském, pp. 8–9, 13), and mentioned by Alois Míka (Míka, ‘České rybníkářství a problém počátků původní akumulace kapitálu v českých zemích’, pp. 263–68) for southern Bohemia.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.4. A map of the Hluboká estate with existing and deserted farmsteads within the villages according to the Pernstein land register from 1490. Drawn by L. Čapek.

the estate registers of peasant tenancies from the end of the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern era. One of them is the estate register of Hluboká, which belonged to the lord of Pernstein.16 The estate register from 1490 was written after the period of the Hussite and post-Hussite wars and listed all villages with peasant tenancies on the estate. Accordingly, the individual villages and farmsteads are recorded, the size of the arable land (open fields), the amount of the peasants’ fixed paid rents in silver coins, in labour service (corvée), in kind or in their share of the harvest (in the form of chickens, cheese, eggs, and oats).17 The land register also traces the hardship

16 The Hluboká estate was the third largest estate in southern Bohemia, see Ledvinka, ‘Pernštejnská epizoda v dějinách jižních Čech’, p. 92. 17 Dvorský, ‘Urbář panství Hlubockého, založený roku 1490’, pp. 284–374. For the interpretation of the register see Ledvinka, ‘Pernštejnská epizoda v dějinách jižních Čech’, pp. 91–103; Čechura, ‘Systém hospodaření Pernštejnů v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 77–90.

29

30

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.5. A PCA chart based on the land register of the Hluboká estate from 1490. Display of positive and negative factor loadings for individual data. Created by L. Čapek.

of war, depopulation, and land deterioration, and the local authorities’ efforts to remedy these problems. On the created estate map, we can see that in some villages there were many abandoned individual farmsteads (in Czech poustky), often mentioned in the land register as ‘settlements abandoned by the current wars’, and fields, especially in the south-eastern part of the estate’s territory. Some villages had already been deserted. On the estate, about 16 per cent of the peasant farmsteads were deserted on average and in some villages abandoned farmsteads accounted for up to one-third of the recorded tenants (Figs 2.4 and 2.5). By contrast, according to the land register the peasant tenants were often subdivided into smaller units, and abandoned farms were taken over by other tenants and again occupied or rented out. Quantified records from the late Middle Ages can be referred to as ‘secondary statistical sources’18 and therefore a statistical analysis of the estate register’s data was carried out using methods of Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA finds out what ‘structures’ (statistically presented by individual factor loadings) could have affected the vulnerability of the villages in terms of farmstead desertion and whether they were exposed to factors such as 18 See Irsigler, Quantitative Methoden in der Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Vorneuzeit.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

economic pressure from the landlords (e.g. higher rents, labour service, or other customary obligations paid by the peasants). A total of ninety villages mentioned in the estate register of Hluboká were used for PCA analysis. Quantitative data were obtained from analysis of the estate register as number of settled and deserted farmsteads, number of rent payers, area of fields, total annual rent, total annual service in money, number of crafts, and presence of other kinds of rents (rent in chickens, beer, cheese, or oats) and village buildings (watermill, reeve house, tavern). From the Theresian Cadastre19 the value of the arable potential of fields (yields from sown grain) divided into eight classes was obtained. The data was arranged in a descriptive table with villages in columns and observed nominal and dichotomous descriptors in rows. The descriptive table was converted to a correlation matrix in the statistical software SPSS Statistics, from which the factor loadings were calculated. From the standpoint of interpretation of factor loadings, the most crucial first factor has emerged. From the PCA chart (Fig. 2.5) it is clear that the villages with deserted farmsteads were not burdened by extremely high annual rents, which is quite understandable as the lord of the estate could not take out a sufficient amount of paid tenancy rents (in cash). The annual labour service exchange in the monetary form in villages was also low. Other forms of rent were exempted (e.g. rent in beer, which depended on the production of grain, especially wheat). It is interesting to note that the fertility of the soil expressed through fertility classes did not affect village desertion. The lowland area in the heart of the estate around the manor of Hluboká was quite favourable considering the possibilities of agrarian production and yields, in contrast to the south-western territory of the estate, where the villages were located in higher altitudes and climatically less suitable (‘marginal’) areas for agriculture. By contrast, in the villages where deserted farmsteads are mentioned, the sale of hay from the hayfields/meadows was significant, which is evidence that the former arable fields were gradually transformed into meadows or pastures. Villages with deserted farmsteads paid rents in kind in the form of dairy products (cheese), which is a confirmation of greater livestock farming and the transition from field agriculture to grazing. According to the estate register, it was common practice that wealthier tenants were able to take over the extra land of deserted farmsteads, but some villages dramatically dwindled, and some of them disappeared entirely. Several of the deserted villages in the land register were the subject of archaeological prospection in the form of non-destructive field survey (Fig. 2.6). The relief formations of the DMV Žďár (north-east of Budweis) were remarkably preserved in the forested landscape. In 1490, the village was in crisis according to the land register, as five settled and five deserted farmsteads were listed

19 The Theresian Cadastre is the name for eighteenth-century state reform concerning the updating of the rural cadastre (i.e. the inventory of peasants and noble land in tax) and based on systematic cadastral surveying.

31

32

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.6. A layout of DMV Žďár with relief formation based on the geodetictopographic survey. Drawn by L. Čapek.

Figure 2.7. Digital relief model of the DMV Žďár and the hinterland based on hillshading from multiple directions from LiDAR data. Created by L. Čapek using SW RVT 1.3.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

there. During the intensive field survey of the village hinterland, which also used LiDAR data (Fig. 2.7), the relief formations of a large sheep farm were discovered. The lord of the estate established the farm in the first half of the sixteenth century for breeding flocks of around one thousand sheep. This is evidence of new land use practice, after the village’s desertion in the transition from field production to pastoral farming at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the vicinity of the village, a system of defunct artificial water works has also been discovered. These are deserted ponds and water reservoirs which indicate the reuse of the village hinterland for fish breeding. The fishponds were established in the first half of the sixteenth century.20

Changes in the Peasant and Landlord Economy and Estate Management in Southern Bohemia At the turn of the fifteenth/sixteenth century, significant changes took place in the transition from medieval to post-medieval agriculture and the peasant and landlord economy. Lords were newly confronted with deserted farmsteads, decaying villages, and a decline in income, i.e. in paid tenancy rent and the labour force of peasants who had passed away or left.21 According to economic historians, there were also changes in the late Middle Ages in the structure of the medieval way of farming — extensive forms of open three-field systems of farming and grazing based on a rotation of arable land and pastures gradually disappeared and were changed to a higher intensification of cereal production.22 The subsistence strategy of medieval agriculture with low productivity and profits was replaced by more commercialized agriculture and specialized production for the market in the sixteenth century.23 In the high Middle Ages, the revenues of the estate economy came primarily from peasant tenancy rents (in cash or another form of paid rent in kind, sharing of the harvest or labour service). The post-medieval era was characterized by a massive transfer to monetary rents and a decline in labour service. In the sixteenth century, there was a growing demand for freely hired peasant wage-labour for new emerging structures of early modern estate economy.24 20 See Kovář, ‘Zaniklé rybníky na Českobudějovicku – Stručný přehled tématu a topografie dochovaných pozůstatků historických vodních nádrží’, pp. 353–55. 21 Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists; Čechura, Adelige Grundherrn als Unternehmer. 22 Petráň, Zemědělská výroba v Čechách ve druhé polovině 16. a počátkem 17. století. 23 Cerman, ‘Social Structure and Land Markets in Late Medieval Central and East-Central Europe’, pp. 55–100; Dyer, ‘Villages in Crisis’, p. 31; Bowen and Brown, Custom and Commercialization in English Rural Society. 24 Ledvinka, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, pp. 103–32; Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 145–60; Cerman, ‘Social Structure and Land Markets in Late Medieval Central and East-Central Europe’, pp. 55–100; Cerman, ‘Demesne

33

34

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.8. The principal estates/dominions in the sixteenth century in southern Bohemia. Drawn by L. Čapek.

Gradually, from the second half of the sixteenth century and especially during the seventeenth century we can observe a strengthening of landlord powers and seigneurial rights over the rural population and village exploitation in the sense of labour rents and market monopolies.25 In the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern age, the largest landowner in southern Bohemia was the nobility (Fig. 2.8). A phenomenon of the late Middle Ages was a decrease in income from peasant rents, while interest among noble landlords in the economic use of their private estates gradually increased.26 This change had many economic, social, and cultural motives. The sixteenth century was a period when the lords of and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 239–58. 25 Apparently in the establishment of mobility restrictions for the rural community, villagers’ property rights, the existence of obligation for labour rents, and a commercial demesne economy were under direct seigneurial management. These changes in the rural milieu in the Late Middle Age have been observed in Central Europe from comparative perspectives; see Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 242. 26 It was previously mentioned by Bloch, Les caractères originaux de l’historie rurale française; cf. Blum, ‘The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe’, pp. 807–35.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

manors began to build the structures of their private manorial management that were economically centred on demesne farming with some degree of unpaid labour service or corveé orientated on commercial production for the market. Czech economic historians dubbed these structures ‘demesne lordship’ (Czech velkostatek).27 The concept was influenced by German postwar historiography, where demesne lordship (Gutsherrschaft) was based on a commercial demesne economy (Gutwirtschaft).28 This form of demesne lordship involved entrepreneurial-commercial production and played an important role in the ‘agricultural revolution’ and the economic boom of the sixteenth century.29 The main features of the estate management were: 1. the structures of the private demesne economy, 2. the ratio of the self-management in estate income and yields, 3. the ratio of freely hired wage-labour to forced labour service.30 The structure of the pre-Thirty Years’ War demesne lordship was formed around 1600 in the holdings of the largest landowners in Bohemia and was very broad in terms of its diversification in the economic sectors and had many regional variations.31 The economic activity of noble landlords in the sixteenth century is documented across European regions,32 including southern Bohemia.33 At the

27 Maur, ‘Genese a specifické rysy českého pozdněfeudalního velkostatku’, pp. 229–58; Maur, Gutsherrschaft und ‘zweite Leibeigenschaft’ in Böhmen; Ledvinka, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, pp. 103–32; Čechura, Adelige Grundherrn als Unternehmer. In earlier European historiographies sometimes inaccurately referred to as ‘second serfdom’; in Central Europe, however, the relationship between the demesne lord and the villagers was primarily tenurial and not based on personal bondage; see Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, p. 243. 28 See Harnisch, ‘Die Gutsherrschaft. Forschungsgeschichte, Entwicklungszusammenhänge und Strukturmerkmale’, pp. 189–240; Kaak, Die Gutsherrschaft; Peters and Lubinski (eds), Gutsherrschaft als soziales Modell. 29 Demesne lordship bears the signs of a pre-capitalist economy, according to Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 194–95; cf. Hilton, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. 30 See Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 145–60. 31 Ledvinka, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, pp. 103–32; Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 145–60; Maur, ‘Genese a specifické rysy českého pozdněfeudalního velkostatku’, pp. 229–58; Čechura, Adelige Grundherrn als Unternehmer; Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 239–58. 32 There is not enough space to present all of the studies dealing with the issue of Gutsherrschaft. Many of them were presented in the study by Harnisch, ‘Die Gutsherrschaft’, pp. 189–240; Kaak, Die Gutsherrschaft; and Cerman, Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300–1800. Markus Cerman stresses the differences in Gutsherrschaft within the Central European regions; Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 239–58; from the Austrian perspective see Landsteiner, ‘Demesne Lordship and the Early Modern State in Central Europe’, pp. 266–92. 33 Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 145–60; Čechura, Adelige Grundherrn als Unternehmer.

35

36

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.9. A graph shows the ratio between gross income and peasant tenancy rents on the main estates in southern Bohemia at the end of the sixteenth century. Drawn by L. Čapek.

beginning of the sixteenth century, the most important aristocratic families and landowners (such as the Rosenberg, Hradec, Pernstein, or Svamberk families) concentrated their previously fragmented and scattered tenures, manors, and landholdings and created territorially compact noble estates with structures for private estate management.34 The main sectors of the estate economy were proto-industrial production (beer production), non-agricultural production (fish farming, forestry), and productive farms (specialized in cereal or livestock production — sheep, cattle, and horse breeding). The creation of the demesne lordship required massive investments in fixed capital in land, production facilities, and living inventory.35 The extent of the estate management was varied, and the share of income and yields from the estate economy in large estates in southern Bohemia achieved almost 80–90 per cent of the gross income at the end of the sixteenth century (Fig. 2.9).36 The illustrative diagram shows the economic flow that highlights the circulation or distribution of agricultural goods and services between owners, producers, and consumers on the model example of an estate (Fig. 2.10). The

34 Bůžek, Král, and Vybíral, ‘Der Adel in den böhmischen Ländern 1526–1740’, pp. 73–74. 35 Ledvinka, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, p. 105; Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, p. 146. Information on this subject was taken from preserved accounts of the estate building. 36 Ledvinka, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, pp. 103–32; Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 106–07.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.10. A chart of the economic flow of demesne lordship in the sixteenth century. Drawn by L. Čapek.

estate villages, local towns, and estate management structures (demesne farms) were economically tightly tied to the internal market. Vital commodities were mainly the crops produced by peasants for their subsistence. In the sixteenth century, however, peasants already had enough free surplus to sell crops on the local market and to obtain a cash income, which they could use to exchange labour service for money rents.37 In turn, the landlords and their agents bought grain (mostly wheat and barley) in local town markets for their seigneurial breweries and then supplied beer to the inhabitants of the estate towns and villages. At the end of the sixteenth century, there was a peculiar symbiosis between the economic activity of the landlord and his peasants and other social groups who participated in the production and sale of corn and livestock products for the market.38 At the end of the sixteenth century, demesne lordship reached its economic peak. In the map of the Rosenberg dominion (the lords of Rosenberg were among the largest landowners in Bohemia in the sixteenth century), the structures of estate management at the end of the sixteenth century are labelled (demesne farms, sheep farms, breweries, mills, fishponds, deer parks, etc. — Fig. 2.11). Most of them were founded in the vicinity of the decaying post-medieval villages. The graph shows the estate economy on the 37 E.g. Kostlán, ‘“Cenová revoluce” a její odraz v hospodářském vývoji Čech’, pp. 176–87. 38 Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 195–96; cf. Cerman and Zeitlhofer, Soziale Strukturen in Böhmen.

37

38

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.11. The Rosenberg dominion in 1590–1611. Drawn by L. Čapek.

Figure 2.12. The graph shows gross income from the main sectors of estate management on the Rosenberg estate of Třeboň. Created by L. Čapek.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.13. The Hluboká dominion in 1598. Drawn by L. Čapek.

Figure 2.14. The graph shows the gross income from the main sectors of the estate management on the Hluboká estate. Created by L. Čapek.

39

40

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Rosenberg dominion of Třeboň, where farming production and beer brewing were the largest in terms of gross income at the beginning of the seventeenth century (Fig. 2.12).39 A slightly smaller dominion was the Hluboká estate, which belonged to the lords of Hradec at the end of the sixteenth century (Fig. 2.13). The sources of income of their estate management were also demesne farms, fishponds, and breweries. The graph below shows the gross income from the main sectors of estate management, where fish farming and beer production had a leading position in revenues of the estate (Fig. 2.14).40

Shaping the Renaissance Landscape In the sixteenth century, landlords attempted to make the maximum use of their estates by establishing farms, sheepfolds, fishpond systems, breweries, or other proto-commercial structures. The individual structures of systematically developed estate management shaped the formation of the early modern (Renaissance) landscape in the sixteenth century. We can still encounter the materialized remains of this landscape today and study them via historical mapping or by using methods of archaeological prospection. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of systematic study of these sites in the landscape. This kind of study is in the interest of historical geography and not landscape archaeology.41 In the landscape, typical expressions of demesne lordship are buildings of the private estate economic units — demesne farms operated via tenant labour (demesne farmers). Demesne farms were mostly established on the decaying fields of peasant farmsteads. They were usually large, four-sided, closed farms with economic and administrative stone-walled buildings.42 A common land around the demesne farms was composed of fields, pastures, meadows, gardens, and the area of forest.43 Their foundation changed the cadastre of the existing neighbouring village with their different arrangement of field systems (Fig. 2.15). Their production was oriented around the livestock and cereal market production for beer brewing. Several farms also served as residences or administrative seats — manor houses.44 During the sixteenth

39 Based on published data of Václav Ledvinka (Ledvinka and Václav, Úvěr a zadlužení feudálního velkostatku v předbělohorských Čechách, appendix VI) and Jaroslav Čechura (Čechura, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, pp. 145–60). 40 Based on published data of Václav Ledvinka and Jaroslav Čechura, see n. 39. 41 Semotanová, ‘Raně novověká krajina českých zemí’, pp. 19–53; Chodějovská, Semotanová, and Šimůnek, Historical Landscapes in Bohemia. 42 Compilation in Žižka, Hospodářské dvory bývalých panství v Čechách. 43 The boundary of land attached to the demesne farms is depicted on the nineteenth-century cadastral maps. 44 Kovář, Tvrze, hrady a zámky na Českobudějovicku.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.15. A typical cadastre of a demesne farm from Branovice (Budweis district) on a geometric plan from 1786. Reproduced with the permission of the State Regional Archives in Třeboň.

century, landlords are believed to have managed their farms mainly without forced labour service. The growth of forced peasant labour service that was closely linked to manorial farming and concentrated in demesne farms occurred after the Thirty Years’ War.45 In the rural countryside, we encounter sheep farms with long stone-walled buildings, usually on the edge of the settlement in an open pastoral landscape. Sheep farms served for keeping hundreds or even thousands of sheep, especially for wool production for the newly emerging textile industry.46 In terms of income, sheep farming was the essential part of livestock production in the second half of sixteenth century.47 Many sheep farms established in the sixteenth century were later reused and rebuilt in the modern period and have often completely disappeared from today’s landscape.48 In several examples, sheep farms were established in an area of deserted or decaying villages — e.g.

45 Maur, Gutsherrschaft und ‘zweite Leibeigenschaft’ in Böhmen; Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 248–49. 46 Čapek and Preusz, ‘Chov ovcí, ovčíny a sociální struktura ovčího řemesla ve středověku a novověku v Čechách a na Moravě’, p. 15. 47 Čechura, Adelige Grundherrn als Unternehmer, pp. 40–42. 48 Žižka, Hospodářské dvory bývalých panství v Čechách, pp. 221–40.

41

42

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.16. A relief formation of a deserted sheep farm at DMV Žďár. Drawn by L. Čapek.

the sheep farm at DMV Žďár, which was found during field prospection and analysis of airborne laser scanning data (Fig. 2.16). The shaping of the sixteenth-century landscape significantly changed the foundation of fishpond systems, which characterize the genius loci of the typical southern Bohemian pond landscape today in a Czech folk tradition called Blata. The fishponds were established in a territory that was not very suited for agriculture and was waterlogged, such as the districts of Českobudějovicko, Vodňansko, Jindřichohradecko, and especially the Třeboň estate, where a large fishpond system with artificial watercourses was founded in 1505 (Fig. 2.17).49 The foundation of the fishponds flooded a large area of land. For example, up to three thousand acres of arable land was flooded in the vicinity of the town of Třeboň. Fish farming (carp breeding) was focused on commercial production for the market and in some estates made up almost 50 per cent of the total gross revenue.50 Many of the former fishpond systems later disappeared, drained and covered by forest. Their

49 Míka, ‘České rybníkářství a problém počátků původní akumulace kapitálu v českých zemích’, pp. 263–68; Bůžek, ‘Das Goldene Zeitalter der südböhmischen Teichwirtschaft’, pp. 81–92; Kovář, ‘Rybníky na dominiu pánů z Hradce ve druhé polovině 16. století’, pp. 63–75. 50 Čechura, ‘Třeboň za posledních Rožmberků’, pp. 162–65.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.17. The oldest maps of fishpond systems on the Chlumec estate from 1564. Reproduced with the permission of the State Regional Archives in Třeboň.

remains were preserved in dams dug for the pond. In recent years there has been systematic prospecting (field survey) of fishponds and water reservoirs in the Českobudějovice, Písek, and Netolice regions.51 Another important landscape-forming element that originated in the sixteenth century is the phenomenon of game parks for hunting as places for the nobility to spend their leisure time. The game parks were gradually established around the seats of noble landlords (manors), and the oldest ones were in the form of smaller rabbit warrens or pheasantry. Later on, large deer parks for breeding and game hunting were developed. Due to the establishment of these game parks, large areas that belonged to the former and often intensively agriculturally exploited landscape were occupied and enclosed (Fig. 2.18). For example, the establishment of the game park at the

51 See Preusz, Paclíková, and Pták, ‘Zaniklá vodní díla v bývalé rožmberské oboře u Netolic (Předběžná zpráva k začínajícímu historicko-archeologickému výzkumu)’, pp. 221–28; Kovář, ‘Zaniklé rybníky na Českobudějovicku – Stručný přehled tématu a topografie dochovaných pozůstatků historických vodních nádrží’, pp. 333–86.

43

44

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Figure 2.18. The map shows the largest game hunting/deer parks in southern Bohemia founded in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries. Drawn by L. Čapek.

Figure 2.19. The territory of the deer park near the Kratochvíle residence with deserted villages and newly established manorial farms. Drawn by L. Čapek.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

Figure 2.20. Late Renaissance Kratochvíle residence (villa) with gardens and large deer park nearby. Vista by J. de Verle, 1686. Reproduced with the permission of the State Chateau Kratochvíle.

Kratochvíle residence in 1579 required five villages to be deserted entirely and three partially (Fig. 2.19).52 Another game park established initially as a rabbit warren and later as a deer park at Hluboká Castle caused the gradual displacement and ultimate desertion of a medieval village.53 The noble landlords had invested substantial income from yields in their aristocratic courts, their self-presentation, and the spectacular consumption that emerged from their property and wealth. From the income and yields of estate management, the noble landlords built their country mansions in the rural landscape — manor houses, residences, and châteaux influenced by Italian Renaissance culture and style and surrounded by gardens, parks, orchards, alleys, water reservoirs (basins), and other ‘aesthetic’ features in the landscape.54 The most impressive is the Rosenberg Kratochvíle residence in the form of a two-storey ‘villa’ built in the 1580s on the site of a former demesne farm by famous Italian architect Baldassare Maggi of Arogna.55 The name of the residence in Czech reflects a pastime (Kurzweil in German) or the spending of leisure time (Fig. 2.20).

52 Fröhlich, ‘Vesnice zaniklé roku 1579 v oboře u Kratochvíle’, pp. 151–60. 53 Tuma, ‘Stará obora v Hluboké nad Vltavou’, pp. 39–60. 54 Bůžek and Hrdlička, Dvory velmožů s erbem růže; Bůžek and Král, Aristokratické rezidence a dvory v raném novověku. 55 Jakubec, ‘Defining the Rožmberk Residence of Kratochvíle’, pp. 98–119.

45

46

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Conclusion From a deterministic approach, it turns out that the villages which were previously affected by the events of the fifteenth century (Hussite/post-Hussite wars, depopulation, the convergence of peasants), and economically disadvantaged were more vulnerable to desertion.56 However, we cannot identify a single cause of village desertion in either archaeological or historical records.57 The villages were abandoned in various circumstances, as the result of long-term processes that involved many factors and agents.58 Modern approaches to the rural milieu show the peasants not just as the victims of the various misfortunes inflicted upon them by economic changes or estate management, but as active participants in the life and death of their communities.59 Peasants at the beginning of the sixteenth century had several options — to join demesne lordship and estate management as demesne farmers, set out for better (or new) land with the permission of the lords, or migrate into towns.60 In southern Bohemia (and elsewhere in Bohemia) the landlords at the beginning of the sixteenth century observed the decline in rents from decaying villages and may have decided to encourage the departure of tenants to use the land more profitably for their structures of commercialized demesne economy.61 Village desertion, demographic decline, and a lack of a sufficient labour force in southern Bohemia at the end of the fifteenth century and in the sixteenth century were closely related to changes in the economic strategy of landlords, which in turns is associated with the establishment of demesne lordship. Demesne lordship played a part in the economic boom of the sixteenth century and transformed the relationship between peasants, lords, and their agents, who were all motivated by commercial production for the market.62 After 1600 we observe a marked stagnation of the economic system of demesne lordship and a decline was recorded in the gross income and the consequent

56 Maur, ‘Pustnutí vsí na Plzeňsku za pozdně středověké agrární deprese’, pp. 49–66. 57 Cf. Chapelot and Fossier, The Village and House in the Middle Ages; Pesez, ‘The Emergence of the Village in France and in the West’, pp. 31–35; Dyer and Jones, Deserted Villages Revisited. 58 Schreg, ‘Ecological Approaches in Medieval Rural Archaeology’, p. 106. 59 Dyer, ‘Villages in Crisis’, p. 37; see Bourin and Durand, Vivre au village au moyen age. 60 Cf. Maur, ‘Problémy studia migrací v českých zemích v raném novověku’, pp. 7–18. The issue of social mobility observed in written sources has not been given sufficient attention. Migration of estate farmers to towns is mentioned in town registers of inhabitants; see Čechura, ‘Demografický faktor teorie pozdně středověké agrární krize a některé aspekty populačního vývoje v Čechách od konce 15. století’, pp. 21–22; recently Klír, ‘Procesy pustnutí, válečné škody a tzv. sociální úhory’, pp. 723–24. 61 In the sixteenth century, landlords in England sought to increase their incomes by evicting copyhold tenants, converting their lands to leasehold, and subsequently, rack-renting their lands; see Brenner, ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe’, pp. 34–70. 62 Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists; Cerman, ‘Social Structure and Land Markets in Late Medieval Central and East-Central Europe’, pp. 55–100.

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

increase in the indebtedness of the estate, which was mainly due to the costs of the self-representation of the nobility.63 Some estates were so indebted that they were sold in fragments to other owners or returned to royal ownership. The disappearance of this form of demesne lordship took place after 1620 due to the impact of the Thirty Years’ War, when many economic structures were destroyed. In the second half of the seventeenth century, a new social-economic system of demesne lordship based on peasant second serfdom and labour rents with restricted peasant rights and liberties began to be promoted.64 This issue associated with the second serfdom, however, is another chapter in rural history.

Works Cited Abel, Wilhelm, Agrarkrisen and Agrarkonjunktur in Mitteleuropa von 13. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Parey, 1966) Bloch, Marc, Les caractères originaux de l’historie rurale française, i (Paris: Armand Colin, 1931) Blum, Jerome, ‘The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe’, American Historical Review, 62 (1957), 807–36 Boháč, Zdeněk, ‘K problematice a terminologii pustnutí a zanikání sídel v písemných pramenech vrcholného a pozdního středověku’, Historická geografie, 25 (1986), 269–83 Bois, Guy, Crise du féodalisme: économie rurale et démographie en Normandie orientale du début du 14e siècle au milieau du 16e siècle, Cahiers de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 202 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1976) Bourin, Monique, and Robert Durand, Vivre au village au moyen age: les solidarités paysannes du Xe au XIIIe siècles (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2000) Bowen, P. James, and T. Alex Brown, eds, Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society: Revisiting Tawney and Postan (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2016) Brenner, Robert, ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Preindustrial Europe’, Past & Present, 70 (1976), 34–70 Bůžek, Václav, ‘Das Goldene Zeitalter der südböhmischen Teichwirtschaft’, in Die Lainsitz: Natur- und Kulturgeschichte einer Region (St Pölten: Verein für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich, 1997), pp. 81–92

63 E.g. Ledvinka, Úvěr a zadlužení feudálního velkostatku v předbělohorských Čechách; Bůžek, Král, and Vybíral, ‘Der Adel in den böhmischen Ländern 1526–1740’, pp. 55–98; Hroch and Petráň, Das 17. Jahrhundert; Maur, Gutsherrschaft und ‘zweite Leibeigenschaft’ in Böhmen; Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 248–49. 64 E.g. Schmidt, Leibeigenschaft im Ostseeraum; Cerman, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe’, pp. 248–49.

47

48

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Bůžek, Václav, and Josef Hrdlička, eds, Dvory velmožů s erbem růže: Všední a sváteční dny posledních Rožmberků a pánů z Hradce (Prague: Mladá fronta, 1997) Bůžek, Václav, Pavel Král, and Zdeněk Vybíral, ‘Der Adel in den böhmischen Ländern 1526–1740. Stand und Tendenzen der Forschung’, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Anzeiger philosophisch-historischen Klasse, 137 (2002), 55–98 Bůžek, Václav, and Pavel Král, eds, Aristokratické rezidence a dvory v raném novověku (České Budějovice: Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, 1999) Cerman, Markus, ‘Social Structure and Land Markets in Late Medieval Central and East-Central Europe’, Continuity and Change, 23 (2008), 55–100 ———, ‘Demesne and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe: Comparative Perspectives’, Agricultural History Review, 59 (2011), 239–58 ———, Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300–1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) Cerman, Markus, and Hermann Zeitlhofer, eds, Soziale Strukturen in Böhmen: Ein regionaler Vergleich von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Gutherrschaften, 16.-19. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 2002) Chapelot, Jean, and Robert Fossier, The Village and House in the Middle Ages (London: Batsford, 1985) Chodějovská, Eva, Eva Semotanová, and Robert Šimůnek, Historical Landscapes in Bohemia: Regions of Třeboň, Broumov and Praha (Prague: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2015) Čapek, Ladislav, ‘Dvě zaniklé středověké vesnice ve Velechvínském polesí, okr. České Budějovice’, Archeologické výzkumy v jižních Čechách, 24 (2011), 227–48 Čapek, Ladislav, and Petr Baierl, ‘Zjišťovací archeologický výzkum zaniklých středověkých vesnic Prochod a Žďár ve Velechvínském polesí, okr. České Budějovice’, Archeologické výzkumy v jižních Čechách, 25 (2012), 193–207 Čapek, Ladislav, and Michal Preusz, ‘Chov ovcí, ovčíny a sociální struktura ovčího řemesla ve středověku a novověku v Čechách a na Moravě’, Kuděj, 13.2 (2012), 6–35 Čechura, Jaroslav, ‘Demografický faktor teorie pozdně středověké agrární krize a některé aspekty populačního vývoje v Čechách od konce 15. století’, Historická gemografie, 12 (1987), 89–105 ———, ‘Teorie agrární krize pozdního středověku – teoretický základ koncepce hospodářského a sociálního vývoje předhusitských Čech’, Archaeologica historica, 12 (1987), 129–41 ———, ‘Třeboň za posledních Rožmberků. Hlavní zdroje příjmů a výnos panství’, Jihočeský sborník historický, 63 (1994), 162–74 ———, ‘Systém hospodaření Pernštejnů v předbělohorských Čechách’, in Pernštejnové v českých dějinách: Sborník z konference konané v Pardubicích 8.-9.9. 1993, ed. by Petr Vorel (Pardubice: Východočeské museum v Pardubicích, 1995), pp. 77–90 ———, ‘Šlechtický podnikatelský velkostatek v předbělohorských Čechách’, in Vědecká konference k 100. výročí narození Bedřicha Mendla, prvního profesora

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

hospodářských dějin Univerzity Karlovy 1892–1992, ed. by Jaroslav Pánek, Acta universitatis Carolinae: philosophica et historica, 4 (Prague: Univerzita Karlova, 1997), pp. 145–60 ———, Adelige Grundherrn als Unternehmer: Zur Struktur südböhmischer Dominien vor 1620 (Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2000) Dvorský, František, ed., ‘Urbář panství Hlubockého, založený roku 1490’, in Archiv český, čili, Staré písemné památky české i moravské, sebrané z archivů domácích i cizích, xvii, ed. by Josef Kalousek (Prague: Domestikální fond království Českého, 1899), pp. 284–374 Dyer, Christopher, ‘Villages in Crisis: Social Dislocation and Desertion 1370–1520’, in Deserted Villages Revisited: Explorations in Local and Regional History, iii, ed. by Christopher Dyer and Richard Jones (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010), pp. 29–45 Dyer, Christopher, and Richard Jones, eds, Deserted Villages Revisited: Explorations in Local and Regional History (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010) Fröhlich, Jiří, ‘Vesnice zaniklé roku 1579 v oboře u Kratochvíle’, Archeologické výzkumy v jižních Čechách, 7 (1990), 151–60 ———, ‘Zaniklé středověké vesnice v okrese Písek. Shrnutí poznatků’, Archeologie ve středních Čechách, 21 (2017), 409–17 Graus, František, Das Spätmittelalter als Krisenzeit (Prague: Historický ústav ČSAV, 1969) ———, ‘Vom “schwarzen Tod” zur Reformation. Die krisenhafte Character des europäischen Spätmittelalters’, in Revolte und Revolution in Europa: Referate und Protokolle des Internationalen Symposiums zur Erinnerung an den Bauernkrieg 1525, Memmingen, 24.-27. März 1975, ed. by Peter Blicke (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1976), pp. 10–30 ———, Pest – Geissler – Judenmorde: Das 14. Jahrhundert als Krisenzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988) Harnisch, Hartmut, ‘Die Gutsherrschaft. Forschungsgeschichte, Entwicklungszusammenhänge und Strukturmerkmale’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus, 9 (1985), 189–240 Hilton, Rodney, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (Delhi: Aakar, 2006) Holata, Lukáš, ‘Změny osídlení v pozdním středověku a raném novověku’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Western Bohemia in Pilsen, 2014) Hroch, Miroslav, and Josef Petráň, Das 17. Jahrhundert: Krise der Feudalgesellschaft? (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1981) Irsigler, Franz, Quantitative Methoden in der Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Vorneuzeit (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1978) Jakubec, Ondřej, ‘Defining the Rožmberk Residence of Kratochvíle. The Problems of its Architectural Character’, Opuscula historiae artium, 61 (2012), 98–119 Kaak, Heinrich, Die Gutsherrschaft: Theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Agrarwesen im ostelbischen Raum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991) Klápště, Jan, Czech Lands in Medieval Transformation (Leiden: Brill, 2011) ———, The Archaeology of Prague and the Medieval Czech Lands, 1100–1600 (Sheffield: Equinox, 2016)

49

50

l a d i s l av č ap e k

Klír, Tomáš, ‘Rural Settlements in Bohemia in the “Age of Transition” (14th–16th Century): Research Concept and Preliminary Report’, Journal of Medieval Settlement Research Group, 25 (2010), 52–61 ———, ‘Procesy pustnutí, válečné škody a tzv. sociální úhory. Chebsko v pozdním středověku’, Archaeologia historica, 42 (2017), 713–43 Kostlán, Antonín, ‘“Cenová revoluce” a její odraz v hospodářském vývoji Čech’, Folia historica Bohemica, 11 (1987), 161–212 Kovář, Daniel, Tvrze, hrady a zámky na Českobudějovicku (České Budějovice: Historicko-vlastivědný spolek, 2011) ———, ‘Zaniklé rybníky na Českobudějovicku – Stručný přehled tématu a topografie dochovaných pozůstatků historických vodních nádrží’, Archeologické výzkumy v jižních Čechách, 29 (2016), 333–86 Kovář, Milan, ‘Rybníky na dominiu pánů z Hradce ve druhé polovině 16. století’, in Poslední páni z Hradce, ed. by Václav Bůžek (České Budějovice: Historický ústav Filozofické fakulty Jihočeské univerzity, 1998), pp. 63–75 Krajíc, Rudolf, ‘Příspěvek k dokumentaci některých zaniklých středověkých osad na Táborsku’, Archaeologia historica, 5 (1980), 165–72 ———, ‘Vesnice husitského období na Táborsku ve světle archeologických výzkumů’, Archaeologia historica, 12 (1987), 85–95 Kriedte, Peter, ‘Spätmittelalterlicher Agrarkrise oder Krise des Feudalismus?’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 7 (1981), 42–68 ———, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1983) Landsteiner, Erich, ‘Demesne Lordship and the Early Modern State in Central Europe: The Struggle for Labour Rent in Lower Austria in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century’, Agricultural History Review, 59 (2011), 266–92 Ledvinka, Václav, Úvěr a zadlužení feudálního velkostatku v předbělohorských Čechách (Prague: Ústav československých a světových dějin ČSAV, 1985) ———, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, Folia historica Bohemica, 11 (1987), 103–32 ———, ‘Pernštejnská epizoda v dějiných jižních Čech (Páni z Pernštejna na Hluboké a Protivíně 1490–1540)’, in Pernštejnové v českých dějinách: Sborník z konference konané v Pardubicích 8.-9.9. 1993, ed. by Petr Vorel (Pardubice: Východočeské museum v Pardubicích, 1995), pp. 91–103 Macháček, Fridolín, Vývoj hospodářský a sociální v okrese plzeňském: Dvě studie k dějinám Plzně a Plzeňska (Plzeň: Nákladem Městského historického musea v Plzni, 1931) Malowist, Marian, ‘Z hospodářské problematiky krise feudalismu ve IV. a XV. století’, Československý časopis historický, 4 (1956), 85–99 Maur, Eduard, ‘Genese a specifické rysy českého pozdněfeudalního velkostatku’, Acta universitatis Carolinae: philosophica et historica, 1 (1976), 229–58 ———, ‘Morová epidemie roku 1380’, Historická demografie, 10 (1986), 37–71 ———, ‘Příspěvek k demografické problematice předhusitských Čech (1346–1419)’, Acta universitatis Carolinae: philosophica et historica; studia historica, 34 (1989), 7–71

C h an g e s i n R u r al Mi li e u and L and U se

———, Gutsherrschaft und ‘zweite Leibeigenschaft’ in Böhmen: Studien zur Wirtschafts-, Sozial- und Bevölkerunsgeschichte (14.-18. Jahrhundert) (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 2001) ———, ‘Problémy studia migrací v českých zemích v raném novověku’, in Dějiny migrací v českých zemích v novověku, ed. by Eduard Maur and Josef Grulich (Prague: Sociologický ústav AV ČR, 2006), pp. 7–18 ———, ‘Pustnutí vsí na Plzeňsku za pozdně středověké agrární deprese’, in Tenkrát na západě (Čech): Kapitoly z dějin kultury a každodennosti Plzně a Plzeňského kraje, ed. by Jiří Stočes and Eva Mušková (Plzeň: Západočeská univerzita v Plzni, 2013), pp. 49–66 Měřínský, Zdeněk, ‘Die “Villa deserta” als Problem der mährischen Mediävistik (Archäologie und Geschichte)’, Archaeologia historica, 33 (2008), 9–26 Míka, Alois, ‘České rybníkářství a problém počátků původní akumulace kapitálu v českých zemích’, Československý časopis historický, 2 (1954), 262–72 Nekuda, Vladimír, ‘Příčiny a důsledky zanikání středověkých osad’, Historická demografie, 12 (1987), 107–21 Pesez, Jearn-Marie, ‘The Emergence of the Village in France and in the West’, Landscape History, 14 (1992), 31–35 Peters, Jan, with Axel Lubinski (eds), Gutsherrschaft als soziales Modell: Betrachtungen zur Funktionsweise frühneuzeitlicher Agrargesellschaften (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1995) Petráň, Josef, Zemědělská výroba v Čechách v druhé polovině 16. a počátkem 17. Století, Acta universitatis Carolinae, philosophica et historica, 5 (Prague: Univerzita Karlova, 1963) Postan, Michael, ‘Revisions in Economic History: The Fifteenth Century’, The Economic History Review, 9 (1939), 160–67 ———, ‘Some Agrarian Evidence of Declining Population in the Late Middle Ages’, Economic History Review, 2 (1950), 221–46 Preusz, Michal, Klára Paclíková, and Martin Pták, ‘Zaniklá vodní díla v bývalé rožmberské oboře u Netolic (Předběžná zpráva k začínajícímu historickoarcheologickému výzkumu)’, in Archeologické prospekce a nedestruktivní archeologie v Jihočeském kraji, kraji Vysočina, Jihomoravském kraji a v Dolním Rakousku: Sborník z konference, Jindřichův Hradec 6. 3. – 7. 3. 2013, Archeologické výzkumy v jižních Čechách, Supplementum, 9 (České Budějovice: Jihočeské muzeum, 2013), pp. 221–28 Rösener, Walter, ‘Die Krise des Spätmittelalters in neuer Perspective’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschicht, 99 (2012), 189–208 Seibt, Ferdinand, and Winfried Eberhard, eds, Europa 1400: Die Krise des Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984) Semotanová, Eva, ‘Raně novověká krajina Česka – co o ní víme? (esej)’, in Per saecula ad tempora nostra: Sborník prací k šedesátým narozeninám prof. Jaroslava Pánka, ed. by Eva Semotanová (Prague: Historický ústav Akademie věd České republiky, 2007), pp. 397–405

51

52

l a d i s l av č ap e k

———, ‘Raně novověká krajina českých zemí’, in Společnost českých zemí v raném novověku: Struktury, identity, konflikty, ed. by Václav Bůžek (Prague: Nakladatelství lidové noviny, 2010), pp. 19–53 Schmidt, Christoph, Leibeigenschaft im Ostseeraum (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997) Schreg, Rainer, ‘Die Krisen des späten Mittelalters: Perspektiven, Potentiale und Probleme archäologischer Krisenforschung’, in Strategien zum Überleben, ed. by Falko Daim, Detlef Gronenborn, and Rainer Schreg, RGZM-Tagungen, 11 (Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2011), pp. 197–213 ———, ‘Ecological Approaches in Medieval Rural Archaeology’, European Journal of Archaeology, 17 (2014), 83–119 Šmahel, František, ‘Krise und Revolution. Die Sozialfrage in vorhussitischen Böhmen’, in Europa 1400: Die Krise des Spätmittelalter, ed. by Ferdinand Seibt and Winifried Eberhard (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984), pp. 65–81 Tuma, David, ‘Stará obora v Hluboké nad Vltavou: z historie obornictví v jižních Čechách’, Památky jižních Čech, 5 (2014), 39–60 Žižka, Jan, Hospodářské dvory bývalých panství v Čechách (Prague: Národní památkový ústav, územní odborné pracoviště středních Čech v Praze, 2016)

Valentin Chevassu, Emilie Gauthier, Pierre Nouvel, Vincent Bichet, Hervé Richard, and Isabelle Jouffroy-Bapicot

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century: A Multidisciplinary Study of Two Mountain Areas (Eastern France) A b str act  Morvan and Jura are two medium mountain areas located in eastern France. Both regions are documented by a large collection of medieval and modern archives, numerous palaeoenvironmental analyses, recent archaeological LiDAR and field surveys. A systematic crossing between these different datasets has been done thanks to a database linked to a Geographical Information System. It enables us to describe quite accurately landscape and settlement evolution for the medieval and the modern periods: the late Middle Ages and the early modern period are particularly well documented. It is then possible to describe precisely the numerous changes that are happening during this period.

T

We will firstly note the creation of numerous pre-industrial sites (especially for iron and glass production) in both mountain areas during the sixteenth century. Secondly, these areas also seem to be more involved in commercial Valentin Chevassu    UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement; Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, [email protected] Emilie Gauthier   UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement; Université de BourgogneFranche-Comté, [email protected] Pierre Nouvel  UMR 6298 ArteHis; Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, [email protected] Vincent Bichet  UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement; Université de BourgogneFranche-Comté, [email protected] Hervé Richard  UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement; Université de BourgogneFranche-Comté, [email protected] Isabelle Jouffroy-Bapicot  UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement; Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, [email protected] The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 53–80 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127105

54

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s relationships with the surrounding cities and plains: massive exportation of firewood begins in Morvan, while summer grazing develops in the Jura mountains. The increase of both industrial and agro-pastoral activities therefore has great consequences for the landscape. The overexploitation of forests is documented by palynological evidence while the first conflicts caused by the lack of wood appear in the archives. Thirdly, texts and archaeological surveys enable us to follow the creation of multiple scattered hamlets inside the medieval settlement network. The sixteenth century therefore appears to be a turning point in the evolution of land use in the mountainous areas of eastern France, since then intensely exploited, and the origin of a new landscape that only disappeared with the twentieth-century reforestation.

K e y wo r ds   Mountain, palaeoenvironment, archaeology, land use, France

T

Introduction This paper aims to assess the early modern evolution of settlement and land use based on multidisciplinary data in the Jura and Morvan mountains. These two mountain areas are located in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, in eastern France. Both are documented by a multidisciplinary dataset combining the results of palaeoenvironmental, archaeological, and historical studies, thus allowing an integrated analysis of large-scale settlement and landscape changes. The comparison between two neighbouring mountain ranges enables us to evaluate the share of regional specificities and the influence of altitudes on human–environmental relationships in two allegedly inhospitable medium-altitude regions. Both research areas are described as wild and forested during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, while they become densely occupied and over-exploited in the late modern period. Within this long-term evolution, the sixteenth century happens to be a key phase, as it brings numerous changes in settlement patterns and land use, with a strong increase in human pressure on mountain environments. We will attempt here to describe the various sides of these changes, according to the different datasets. The first section of this paper deals with the environmental and scientific context of the two study areas. In the next sections, we will examine the early modern historical context and the various changes concerning human activities, landscape evolution, and settlement patterns, as seen through written sources, archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

Figure 3.1. Central Jura, geographical context of the research area and main early modern towns and seigneuries. Map by V. Chevassu 2019.

Introduction to the Study Areas The Jura is a bow-shaped limestone mountain standing between the Saône valley and the Swiss plateau, nowadays divided between several districts on both sides of the France–Switzerland border. The work presented here is focused on a restricted study area located in the centre of this mountain range, around the city of Pontarlier (France, Doubs department). This study area extends across 1300 km2 (Fig. 3.1). The north-western part is made of karstic plateaux between 400 and 900 m.a.s.l., with a nearly flat topography and scarce surface water. The south-eastern part is a portion of the Jura folded high chain, composed by a succession of synclines and anticlines between 800 and 1400 m in elevation. South of Pontarlier, a big geological fault has formed

55

56

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Figure 3.2. Southern Morvan, geographical context of the research area and main early modern towns and seigneuries. Map by V. Chevassu 2019.

the ‘Cluse’, a transverse narrow valley cutting the folds of the high chain and constituting the main pathway across the Jura mountains since prehistory. Located on the other side of the Saône valley, the Morvan mountains can be seen as a northern extension of the Massif Central, lying in the centre of Burgundy. Despite low altitudes, Morvan shows specific topographic and climatic features typical from mountain areas. The study area only takes into account the southern part of this mountain, in which three heterogeneous regions can be distinguished (Fig. 3.2). The high Morvan is characterized by a complex landscape of mountains cut by steep slopes and very narrow valleys, between 400 and 900 m.a.s.l., with a bedrock made of granite and volcano-sedimentary formations. This region is surrounded on its south-eastern margin by the hilly Morvan, a lower area made of wider valleys and smaller hills, and by the plains and foothills of Val d’Arroux, around 200–400 m.a.s.l. Both the Jura and the Morvan mountains are characterized by a sub-moun-

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

tainous cold and wet climate, with low annual temperature, around 8° C for the Jura high chain, 9° C for the high Morvan, and high annual precipitation, more than 1000 mm in the high Morvan and around 1500–2000 mm in the Jura high chain.1 Especially in the Jura, winters are often characterized by a long-lasting snow cover and by very low temperatures. The soils, most often poor and thin, are poorly suited for agricultural activities. Both regions are nowadays covered by large forests. Since antiquity, Morvan and Jura have been described as hostile and deserted, offering a high contrast with the fertile surrounding plains. These regions were therefore considered to have been settled very late on, only after the high Middle Ages. However, as in numerous other mountain ranges, recent development of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research has shown that both mountains were occupied long ago, since prehistory. Being nowadays well documented by written sources, archaeological surveys, and palaeoenvironmental analyses, these two areas are well suited for the study of large-scale landscape dynamic processes. Furthermore, the presence of multidisciplinary data in both mountains enables us to compare the evolution of land use in both regions and to assess the supposed peculiarities of human settlement in such ‘repulsive’ or ‘marginal’ areas.

Research History and Available Data Firstly, the activity of numerous local historians during the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries has provided us with a good amount of archaeological data for both mountainous regions, mainly regarding late medieval fortified sites and the ecclesiastical landscape. Preventive archaeology does not provide many more pieces of information about the studied areas, due to the rarity of land development projects in these regions. Therefore, our knowledge of ancient settlement evolution in southern Morvan and central Jura rests mainly on the results of field survey programmes. Both areas have been documented by several amateur field surveys in the 1990s, whose results have been integrated into the later archaeological research programmes. Southern Morvan has been studied since 2006 by a systematic field survey programme concerning the territories of twenty rural towns, under the direction of Pierre Nouvel and assessing the evolution of human settlement between prehistory and the modern period.2 Around 1300 land plots and 120 new archaeological sites have been documented by systematic walk-over surveys, mainly dated from the Roman, medieval, and modern periods. Central Jura has been studied since 2015 by a field survey programme based on the analysis of newly provided LiDAR surveys (programme ArcheoPal



1 Bichet and others, Histoire du climat en Franche-Comté; Chabin, ‘Le climat du mont Beuvray’. 2 Nouvel and others, ‘L’occupation des territoires entre Morvan et Arroux’.

57

58

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

haut-Jura, led by Vincent Bichet, Valentin Chevassu, and Hervé Richard). A sample of sites dated between antiquity and the modern period have been studied using test pits and walk-over or geophysical surveys.3 Hundreds of other archaeological structures have been spotted on LiDAR surveys, including many modern ruined habitations. Secondly, many peat bogs and lakes spread throughout both study areas and provide opportunities for palaeoenvironmental analyses. In southern Morvan, pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs analyses have been performed on four peat cores and one sediment core within the framework of a PhD thesis.4 This study was also associated with geochemical analyses to investigate ancient atmospheric pollution recording smelting activities.5 For central Jura, sixteen palaeoenvironmental analyses are available, stemming from several studies conducted from 1980 onwards. While the earlier works are mainly focused on a broad description of pollen evolution, the later studies integrate other proxies such as non-pollen palynomorphs and sedimentological analyses.6 These results enable us to describe vegetation history within different environmental backgrounds. A few high-resolution palynological analyses, with closer dating and a highly accurate depiction of human impact, also appear as especially useful for the crossing of palaeoenvironmental results with historical or archaeological data.7 Thirdly, a large collection of medieval and modern archives was available thanks to the many transcriptions and publications achieved by nineteenthand twentieth-century historians. This documentation provides a mass of information about settlement, land use, or feudal networks in the studied areas, under-used and likely to be crossed with palaeoenvironmental data. In the considered areas, the earlier documents are dated to the fifth century, but the documentation, almost completely composed of ecclesiastical archives, remains very scarce before the fourteenth century. From the fourteenth century onwards, the establishment of an administration managing the estates of the dukes of Burgundy provides us with a huge number of detailed written sources. Among these documents, castellanies’ account books, feudal deeds, and first population figures are particularly useful for describing the distribution of settlement and human activities during the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries. The first maps, drawings, and engravings of landscapes of the studied areas are





3 Bichet and others, ‘Programme de recherche ArcheoPal haut Jura central’. 4 Jouffroy-Bapicot, ‘Evolution de la végétation du massif du Morvan’; Jouffroy-Bapicot and others, ‘7000 Years of Vegetation History and Land Use Changes in the Morvan Mountains’. 5 Jouffroy-Bapicot and others, ‘Environmental Impact of Early Palaeometallurgy’. 6 Among others: Gauthier, Forêts et agriculteurs du Jura; Gauthier and Richard, ‘La forêt jurassienne au cours des deux derniers millénaires’; Leroux ‘Caractérisation et évolution des flux détritiques et authigènes en contexte lacustre’; Magny and others, ‘Climate, Vegetation, and Land Use as Drivers of Holocene Sedimentation’; Murgia, ‘Mémoire des lacs et mémoire des sociétés du Moyen Âge à nos jours’. 7 Murgia, ‘Mémoire des lacs et mémoire des sociétés du Moyen Âge à nos jours’.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

dated to the second half of the sixteenth century. Besides, a few writings by local savants and chroniclers bring some more details about the importance of towns and seigneuries or the renowned agricultural productions and craft activities. Thus, in Morvan and Jura, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appear as the first period for which the written and iconographic sources give enough information to reconstruct the landscape precisely. A systematic crossing between these different datasets has been done thanks to a database linked to a Geographical Information System, in order to gather all the available data about land use and settlement evolution. The different kinds of data have been converted into elements that may be linked to a precise geographic point and to common time ranges. Displayed in a GIS, the gathered data enable a spatialized and quantitative approach to the number of written mentions or archaeological structures linked to an activity or a type of settlement for each period. Several reliability indices have also been created, in order to sort out the different qualities of information. It becomes possible to evaluate the quality and relevance of the gathered data for each period and area. We have at our disposal a well-supplied dataset for a better understanding of the changes affecting settlement and land use in both mountains. For the late medieval and the early modern periods, the documentation is especially extensive and affords a precise insight into the development of human activities and their regional impact on landscapes.

Evolution of Settlement and Seigneurial Structures In both mountains, palynological and archaeological evidence witness the great spread of human occupation since pre- and protohistory, even in the highest areas. However, one must wait for antiquity to be able to describe settlement patterns more precisely. Then, differences appear between the Morvan and the Jura uplands, more scarcely occupied, and plateaux or piedmonts, where the settlement is wealthier and denser. The late antique and early medieval settlement is more difficult to assess, due to a lack of archaeological evidence. The high Middle Ages may be emphasized as a first important step for mountain settlement: several monasteries and castles are founded in some mountain areas that appeared before only as margins. The human impact increases, according to both written mentions and pollen records. By contrast, the late medieval era is characterized by rural abandonments and reforestation in Morvan as in Jura, because of general crises such as plagues and various changes in manorial management. The second crucial step in the evolution of settlement and land use occurs after the second half of the fifteenth century, when human impact increases anew. During the early modern period, the two studied regions are involved in different political backgrounds. Southern Morvan is divided between the county of Nevers and the duchy of Burgundy, both annexed to the kingdom of France at the end of the fifteenth century (Fig. 3.2). High Morvan is mainly

59

60

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

organized by three big castellanies belonging to the royal estates. By contrast, the south-eastern piedmonts are divided into numerous small seigneuries owned by the local low aristocracy. While showing economic prosperity in the first half of the sixteenth century, Morvan and southern Burgundy are heavily struck by the Wars of Religion between 1560 and 1590.8 Central Jura belongs to the county of Burgundy, which was under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire between 1493 and 1558 and held afterwards by Habsburg Spain, until the last half of the seventeenth century. During the late medieval and modern periods, the mountainous valleys of central Jura are mainly organized by large monastic estates belonging to local priories and abbeys (Fig. 3.1). The plateaux are divided between castellanies belonging to powerful aristocratic families. For central Jura, the sixteenth century generally appears as a period of peace and economic prosperity, contrasting with the destructive wars of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. That said, the crest line of the Jura mountains gradually becomes a religious border between the Catholic county and the Protestant Swiss confederates, generating some local tensions. Although the early modern feudal geography is quite similar to the late medieval one, the management of manorial estates is affected by many changes since the fifteenth century. The written documentation shows that manorial income collection is more and more leased to bourgeois and minor nobles, living locally or in the surrounding towns. The more successful distinguish themselves in the service of the princes or stand in the provincial chambers. These families play a major role in the evolution of land use in the studied area, participating in the management of the main seigneuries as receivers, castellans, tabellions, etc., owning small manors themselves, and investing in new types of activities.

Human Activities and Land Use Evolution In both study areas, the early modern period is characterized by the development of specialized activities, while we have very few pieces of information about these for the previous era. Indeed, for the high and late medieval periods, grain farming appears everywhere as the main activity, even in the higher valleys where climate and soils are particularly unsuited for intensive crop cultivation. Oat, rye, and barley are favoured in the high Morvan and the Jura high chain, while wheat is only harvested in the plateaux and piedmonts. Details about seigneurial incomes as well as pollen records confirm this wide spreading of agriculture even in the mountains. Pastoralism is also regularly mentioned: cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and poultry are present everywhere since the eleventh century, for which we have the first documents describing animals in manorial estates. However, there are no mentions of specificities in husbandry, 8 Les guerres de Religion en Autunois et Charolais, ed. by Lagrost and Chevrot.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

and few mentions of animal trade or exportation. The only exceptions are the importance of pig feeding in the forests of Morvan, generating trade and external investments, and eventually the cultivation of chestnut, increasing in the same region during the high Middle Ages. Another specificity is, in Jura, the making and trade of pitch, which appears to be a lucrative activity at the end of the thirteenth century.9 A first slow development of iron metallurgy is also noticed in the same region since the thirteenth century.10 By contrast, after the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the archives describe new kinds of activities. This evolution cannot be explained only by the increasing accuracy of the written records: late medieval archives are precise enough to describe a potential earlier development of such activities. A rapid growth of several new activities is then occurring during the sixteenth century, especially in the highest parts of the two study areas. First, both mountains are associated with the development of specialized pastoralism. In central Jura, the development of transhumance and summer grazing can be described through the mentions of summer pastures and seasonal dairy farms named ‘granges’ (Fig. 3.3). Inside the studied area, a few summer farms are cited since the twelfth century. Mentions become more and more numerous from 1520–1530 on Noirmont and Risoux mountains. Although none of them were recorded for the fifteenth century, eight summer farms are counted at the end of the sixteenth century in the part of the Risoux belonging to Mouthe seigneury, where these buildings are well documented by the archives related to mortmain rights. Eight new creations are mentioned until the second half of the seventeenth century. Several inquiries realized in Jougne and Mouthe seigneuries also document the distribution of summer farms at the end of this century.11 Near the study area, the southern valleys of the Jura high chain are all leased by the abbey of Saint-Claude to bourgeois families to establish settlements and new pastures, mainly between 1520 and 1550.12 From the seventeenth century, castellanies’ account books and toll registers also describe the exchanges of cattle with the Swiss and the movements of livestock from neighbouring valleys and plateaux to mountain summer pastures located in the Jura high chain. Throughout the modern period, this evolution seems to foster the spreading of beef cattle instead of smaller livestock, as the making of dairy products and cheeses intended for trade. Another type of pastoralism is developing at the same time in southern Morvan. In 1595, the chronicler Guy Coquille explains that Morvan is renowned for irrigated pastures and cattle breeding. According to him, the grass of Morvan pastures is abundant but of lesser quality than in the surrounding plains, hence the fattening of the animals takes more time and their meat is less flavoured. Thus, animals are

9 Cartulaire de Hugues de Chalon, ed. by Prost and Bougenot, pp. 230–31, 269–72. 10 Belhoste and others, La métallurgie comtoise. 11 Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 4E608, 35H468. 12 Berthet, Les Rousses, pp. 44–54.

61

62

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Figure 3.3. Evolution of human activities in central Jura during the early modern period. Map by V. Chevassu 2019.

bred in Morvan during their youth only, before being sold to merchants and driven to the plains to finish their fattening.13 The late sixteenth century is also characterized by the spread of sharecropping and livestock leases in Morvan and in the surrounding plains, which may also have fostered the expansion of animal husbandry.14 Meanwhile, the development of pastoralism is quite difficult to follow through the palaeoenvironmental data. Few indicators can be interpreted in this way in high Morvan peat cores. In Jura, only two lake sequences show an increase of coprophilous fungi in the second half of the sixteenth century.15

13 Cousin, Brevis ac dilucida Burgundiae superioris descriptio, ed. and trans. by Chereau, p. 432. 14 Les guerres de Religion en Autunois et Charolais, ed. by Lagrost and Chevrot, pp. 65–68. 15 Magny and others, ‘Climate, Vegetation, and Land Use as Drivers of Holocene Sedimentation’; Murgia, ‘Mémoire des lacs et mémoire des sociétés du Moyen Âge à nos jours’.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

Three other sequences do not show any marked trends during early modern period, while non-pollen microfossils have not been documented in most other peat cores. The development of pastoral activities is also linked to the growth of local trade networks, appearing through the analysis of toll registers but also witnessed by the creation of numerous fairs and markets in the villages and small towns of the study areas.16 In central Jura, seven towns held fairs and markets before the fifteenth century. All these towns are located on the plateaux and near the main roads. Between 1490 and 1550, six new annual fairs were authorized, often associated with weekly markets. Most of them are located in the small towns of the high chain and far from the main pathways. Several documents specify the conditions of these creations and the desire to ease cattle trade for the surrounding farmers. For example, the letters patent by which the emperor Charles V authorizes Claude de Maillot to hold fairs and markets in his seigneury explain that: sa dicte seigneurie de Maillot est scituée en pays de montaigne bien peuplée de villaiges a luy subjectz tous fondez en nourrissaige de bestial et loingtains de lieux ou lon tient foires et marchefz de sorte que pour distribuer leurd bestial et aultres denrees leur convient aller assez loin (his seigneury of Maillot is located in mountain land, well populated by many villages infeodated to him, specialized in livestock feeding and remote from the places where fairs and markets are held, so that the inhabitants have to go far away to sell their livestock and other commodities).17 In southern Morvan, a dense network of fairs and markets already exists according to late medieval archives. Nevertheless, seven new fairs are created, while several small towns already holding an annual fair are authorized to organize one or two more during the year. Besides cattle breeding, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the exportation of firewood became the main speciality of Morvan. Beginning around 1540–1550, this activity strongly increased from the second half of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and stopped at the end of the nineteenth century. The main cause for its development is the rapid growth of Paris’s population and its greatly increasing consumption of firewood. Indeed, Morvan still had large forests at the end of the medieval period; two rivers flowing from the centre of Morvan towards Paris constituted quite an easy way for log driving. According to the Paris City Hall archives, the first wood convoys arrived in Paris in 1547. Log driving quickly became one of the main resources of Morvan and its importance is highlighted by manorial archives and chroniclers’ testimonies. Landlords and bourgeois take this 16 Chomel and Ebersolt, Cinq siècles de circulation internationale, pp. 120–36. 17 Vesoul, Archives départementales de Haute-Saône, 25J C3; cited in Bouvard, Les peuplements castraux de la montagne du Doubs, p. 333.

63

64

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

opportunity to maximize the benefits of their forested lands. Between 1550 and 1590, Jean and Guillaume Sallonnyer, part of the lower aristocracy of Château-Chinon, build several ponds and sluices to make several streams floatable.18 The seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries provide many more examples of these works. Hence, for later centuries, the documents explain in a more detailed way the functioning of forest exploitation and the use of streams. Numerous ponds are created everywhere to release streams of water and sweep logs away; special ports are also built to gather the wood (Fig. 3.4). Twenty-five archaeological structures such as ponds, dams, and ports have been spotted in the studied area, broadly dated between the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. However, the lack of detailed documentation before the eighteenth century, as well as the absence of archaeological studies, hinder precise dating.19 The impact of a new woodland management clearly appears through pollen records. Beech, which provides good firewood and is preferred for logging, is particularly affected. For the whole early modern period, the beech pollen ratio decreases from 45 to 10 per cent in the Port-des-Lamberts peat core, from 30 to 10 per cent in the Source de l’Yonne sequence.20 The general decrease of the arboreal pollen ratio can be linked to extensive logging. It may also reflect forest exploitation based on coppicing, described in the archives and leaving only young trees with a low pollen production.21 Some vegetation changes are also noticed around the wetland areas, modified by the building of ponds and streams.22 Log driving is rarely described in central Jura during the early modern period; wood seems to be consumed locally more than exported. Indeed, several craft activities are quickly expanding during the sixteenth century. The presence of iron ore enables the development of metallurgy, with the creation of several blast furnaces and foundries. While only a few iron ore mines and blacksmiths are mentioned around Jougne et Joux since the fourteenth century, five blast furnaces were created between 1487 and 1585, mainly by bourgeois families associated with the landlords by leases (Fig. 3.3). The opening and exploitation of iron ore mines is frequently mentioned between 1494 and 1640, and a gunsmith factory was even established in the second half of the sixteenth century. Iron production increased until the first half of the seventeenth century but was then struck by the destruction of the Ten Years’ War (1635–1645). This development seems to have left few archaeological remains in the landscape. Some of these structures might have

18 Bravard, ‘Le flottage du bois et le changement du paysage fluvial’, p. 54. 19 Benoit and others, ‘Les aménagements hydrauliques liés au flottage du bois’. 20 Jouffroy-Bapicot, ‘Evolution de la végétation du Massif du Morvan (Bourgogne-France)’, pp. 97, 117, 335–36. 21 Marlot, ‘Mémoire sur la Terre de la Tournelle (Nièvre) rédigé en 1771’. 22 Jouffroy-Bapicot, ‘Evolution de la végétation du Massif du Morvan (Bourgogne-France)’, pp. 335–36; Jouffroy-Bapicot and others, ‘7000 Years of Vegetation History and Land Use Changes in the Morvan Mountains’, p. 1899.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

been erased because of the persistence of mining and smelting activities until the nineteenth century. A few sites presenting remains of undated mining activities still need to be studied; two sites still show some tiny remains of modern blast furnaces.23 Most of these establishments cluster around the ‘Cluse’, where both the iron ore and the main pathway leading to the surrounding plains are located. Besides, many other creations are linked to the use of hydraulic energy. A few grain mills were already present on the Jura plateaux during the medieval period. However, during the sixteenth century, grain mills, water-powered trip hammers, paper, fulling, or saw mills, are built everywhere in Jura high chain. This phenomenon is especially remarkable in Morteau valley, where twelve new mills are built between 1486 and 1586 in an area of approximately 15 km long.24 Most of these sites, abandoned during the eighteenth–nineteenth centuries, are still indicated in the landscape by ruins and mill races. Several glass-making factories are also created during the second half of the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century in Mouthe valley and in the nearby Joux valley, in Switzerland, but this activity is quickly impeded by the lack of firewood.25 These pre-industrial sites have left mainly place names and sometimes a few archaeological remains such as slag and topographical anomalies. Morvan is less involved in this development of craft activities, but we can still notice the creation of three glass-making factories, under the authority of the local landed aristocracy and with the help of foreign skilled workers (Fig. 3.4). A few place names such as ‘La Grande Verrière’, mentioned as ‘Vitraria villa’ in 86226 may suggest a first development of glass-making activity during the early Middle Ages, but no archaeological proof has been found yet. However, the development of this activity in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is documented by numerous seigneurial archives.27 The sites have been located in the middle of non-exploited forests, so that the factory may benefit from nearby sources of firewood. Once abandoned, the sites have quickly been covered again by vegetation and still present archaeological remains such as ruined buildings, glass artefacts, and glass slag. By contrast, we have no archaeological or written evidence of modern smelting activities linked to the numerous polymetallic ores of Morvan, whereas they are heavily exploited during protohistory and again during the nineteenth century.28

23 Belhoste and others, La métallurgie comtoise; Serneels and others, ‘Aperçu du district sidérurgique du Mont d’Or’. 24 Dromard, ‘Le val et la seigneurie de Morteau, XIIe-XVe siècles’, p. 128; Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 34H180–182. 25 Michel, ‘Familles verrières et verreries dans l’est de la Franche-Comté au XVIIIe siècle’; Piguet, Les verreries de la Vallée. 26 Bulliot, Essai historique sur l’abbaye de Saint-Martin d’Autun, p. 8. 27 Chevrot, ‘Faulin’. 28 Jouffroy-Bapicot and others, ‘Environmental Impact of Early Palaeometallurgy’.

65

66

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Figure 3.4. Evolution of human activities in southern Morvan during the early modern period. Map by V. Chevassu 2019.

An Extensive Deforestation The simultaneous development of activities such as exporting wood, glass making, and metallurgy required huge quantities of firewood. Meanwhile, the forests are also exploited for grazing, and often cleared for the opening of new crops, meadows, and hayfields. Large reclamations are mentioned frequently and everywhere during the whole period. These land openings accumulate with the consumption of firewood and timber by the local communities. Indeed, since the medieval period, several agreements between lords and inhabitants often give them the right to pick all the timber and firewood they need for their own private use. The forests are also affected by many other activities of which we have very few indications since they are not controlled or managed by seigneuries, but mainly linked with domestic uses. For example, the specialization of mountain areas in woodcraft activities is suggested by the population census and the chroniclers, but its impact remains quite uneasy to evaluate. In Morvan, the census of 1599 describes in the village of Blain (actually Roussillon-en-Morvan, Saône-et-Loire) ‘quelques

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

aultres gens quy ne gaignent leur vie sinon à faire des sabotz’ (several people not earning their living but making clogs).29 Describing the Jura mountains in 1552, Gilbert Cousin also mentions woodcraft as an important activity in several points of the high chain.30 The trade of pitch and wood tar seems to decay during the early modern period but a few written mentions prove its persistence towards the eighteenth century.31 The production of bark, charcoal, ash, or lime in the forests are only mentioned from time to time and their importance remains very difficult to assess. However, some of these activities left numerous remains in the landscape. In central Jura, huge numbers of charcoal platforms and lime kiln remains has been revealed by LiDAR survey analysis. Within the 200 km2 studied by LiDAR and archaeological surveys since 2015, around 250 lime kilns remain and 150 charcoal platforms have been spotted. However, these structures remain very difficult to date and spread across a very long chronology. A small sample of neighbouring lime kilns has been recently dated by radiocarbon analyses:32 inside the same restrained area, the chronology of the structures ranges from the thirteenth to the eighteenth/ nineteenth centuries. While waiting for further radiocarbon dating, we can assume that most of the lime kilns observed, according to their architecture, were built between late Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. All these accumulated activities therefore had a great impact on the landscape and may have left rather restrained and depredated woodlands. The sixteenth century is thus characterized by massive deforestation in Morvan as well as in Jura. For both studied areas, landscape opening is clearly visible within pollen records. The general comparison of the arboreal pollen/non-arboreal pollen ratios, expressing the openness of the landscape, before and after the sixteenth century is quite eloquent (Figs 3.5 and 3.6). In the Jura high chain, until the end of the late medieval era, the forest is highly represented in the pollen diagrams, with 70 to 90 per cent of arboreal pollen. On the Jura plateaux, the arboreal pollen ratio ranges from 25 to 65 per cent.33 The large extent of forests is confirmed by the written sources: before the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, they describe wide forests and nearly unlimited rights of use for the neighbouring inhabitants. In the Mouthe valley, in 1296, ‘les abergeurs peuvent essarter ès Joux dud. lieu tant il leur plait’ (the tenants can clear the forests of this place as much as

29 Les guerres de Religion en Autunois et Charolais, ed. by Lagrost and Chevrot, p. 150; Dijon, Archives départementales de Côte d’Or, C4744. 30 Cousin, Brevis ac dilucida Burgundiae superioris descriptio, ed. and trans. by Chereau, p. 49. 31 Bichet and others, ‘Programme de recherche ArcheoPal haut Jura central’, pp. 89–90. 32 Bichet and others, ‘Programme de recherche ArcheoPal haut Jura central’, pp. 125–38. 33 Gauthier, Forêts et agriculteurs du Jura; Gauthier and Richard, ‘La forêt jurassienne au cours des deux derniers millénaires’; Leroux ‘Caractérisation et évolution des flux détritiques et authigènes en contexte lacustre’; Magny and others, ‘Climate, Vegetation, and Land Use as Drivers of Holocene Sedimentation’; Murgia, ‘Mémoire des lacs et mémoire des sociétés du Moyen Âge à nos jours’.

67

68

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Figure 3.5. Evolution of arboreal pollen ratio between the late medieval and early modern periods in southern Morvan. Map by V. Chevassu 2019, palynological data by I. Jouffroy-Bapicot, 2010.

Figure 3.6. Evolution of arboreal pollen ratio and written references to wood shortages during the late medieval and early modern periods in central Jura. Map by V. Chevassu 2019; palynological data by E. Gauthier and L. Murgia.

they like).34 The situation looks rather similar in Morvan: during the late Middle Ages, the arboreal pollen ratio ranges from 60 to 70 per cent in high Morvan as in the piedmonts.35 Nevertheless, the situation in Morvan

34 Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 35H4, published in Perreciot, De l’état civil des personnes et de la condition des terres dans les Gaules, ii, 361–63. 35 Jouffroy-Bapicot and others, ‘7000 Years of Vegetation History and Land Use Changes in the Morvan Mountains’, p. 1897.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

piedmonts has to be set aside since the arboreal pollen ratios from this region mostly express the extensive spread of chestnut cultivation, rather than the forest’s extension. At the end of the early modern period, the ratio of arboreal pollen ranged from 40 to 70 per cent in Jura high chain, from 15 to 45 per cent on Jura plateaux, and from 35 to 40 per cent in Morvan. For the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries, the average decrease of arboreal pollen is then 20 per cent in central Jura and 15 per cent in the Morvan: this constitutes the highest land opening noticed in these pollen diagrams. The phenomenon is clearly visible in every area, but is really more marked in the highest areas such as Jura high chain. It also affects more or less all the various tree species. As seen before, in Morvan, beech is the most affected species. The situation is more variable in Jura, where the decrease generally concerns the three main tree species: fir, spruce, and beech. This extensive deforestation is logically followed by an increase of written mentions related to shortages of wood resources, including both timber and firewood, and conflicts about forest use (Fig. 3.6). From 1490 to 1715, the Noirmont mountain was the scene of relentless lawsuits because of the competition between grazing and forest exploitation as well as between private owners and village communities. Common rights overlapped within the same territory engendering regular conflicts because of excessive clearing and tree cutting, unauthorized constructions, or problems of demarcation between grazed territories.36 The competition for firewood between industrial needs and local consumption is another source of conflict. In 1633, the inhabitants of Mouthe valley addressed a petition to the parliament of the county asking for the destruction of the blast furnace, built in 1570 and accused of damaging the surrounding forests. The landlords, owning the furnace, argue that the inhabitants themselves are responsible for damaging the forests producing charcoals and harvesting barks, but the blast furnace is finally destroyed.37 To prevent wood shortages, some woodland reserves called ‘banalités’ or ‘bois banal’ (banal wood) are progressively created by landlords and village communities. The first establishment of banal wood by a community is cited in 1480 and the phenomenon increased during the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries. In 1598, the inhabitants of Chapelle-Mijoux decide to reserve a part of their common pastures to build a banal wood, citing dramatic conditions: comme il soit que par les grands dégâts et ruine des bois en plusieurs villages, bourgades, rière le bailliage de Pontarlier, plusieurs habitants d’iceux sont tombés en grande nécessité et disette de bois, et ont été contraints de quitter et abandonner les lieux de leur origine

36 Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 35H153–160; Loye, Souvenirs historiques, pp. 160, 170, 175, 177, 180, 183, 199–200. 37 Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 35H131; Musy, Mouthe, ii, 18.

69

70

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

(since because of the great damages and ruins of the woods in several villages and towns from the bailiwick of Pontarlier, several inhabitants of these [villages] fell into great necessity and scarcity of wood, and were forced to quit and abandon the places in which they were living.)38 Similar conflicts are recorded in southern Morvan, where the inhabitants have little control over the forests because of the dominance of large aristocratic estates owned by outside landlords. In 1561, an agreement between the lords of Roussillon and their subjects defined the rights of use in the manorial forests: the inhabitants can pick dead wood and several specific kinds of woods, but only for their own use, such as heating, repairing tools or carts, and making fences. The lord reserved the right to fell trees, undertake logging, sell timber, and manage his woodlands according to his will.39 One century later, a document of 1675 denounces the ongoing abuses in the forests of the neighbouring Château-Chinon castellany: numerous pieces of wood are stolen to make fences or to be sold for log driving, many cases of excessive clearing and poaching are also reported.40 Finally, lack of wood and new types of forest management bring about the use of substitutes for firewood as for timber. In the Jura mountains, dry peat begins to be used instead of firewood during the late seventeenth century.41 Movable fences made out of branches are replaced by dry stone walls, as recommended by several texts of the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries; this situation probably also fostered the development of stone-built houses instead of wooden ones.42

Settlement Pattern Evolutions In both mountains, most of the settlements are mentioned at least from the high Middle Ages. This medieval settlement is scattered in small hamlets in Morvan, while gathered in big villages in Jura. Nevertheless, in both areas the sixteenth century brings the development of a new settlement pattern, scattered into tiny hamlets or isolated farms. This type of settlement, showing typical features, is especially located in the higher parts of the study areas, such as the high Morvan and the Jura high chain. In the Jura high chain, the seasonal settlement associated with summer pastures — taking place on ridges or in the high valleys above 1000 m in elevation — seem to gradually become permanent (Fig. 3.7). While these areas, according to written sources, appear only seasonally settled and exploited by herders and woodland craftsmen until

38 Mathez, Annales du château de Joux, p. 156; Pontarlier, Archives municipales, coll. Michaud, E 25 6°5. 39 Baudiau, Le Morvand, iii, 520–22. 40 Private archives, published in Saint-Gerand, ‘Un monitoire à Château-Chinon en 1675’. 41 André and André, ‘La Grande Tourbière de Pontarlier (Doubs)’, pp. 76–78. 42 Forestier, Construire avec les ressources naturelles du massif du Jura, pp. 41–43, 59.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

the end of the fifteenth century, pollen records indicate that, on the contrary, they were certainly occupied and cultivated before the fourteenth century. However, this occupation can be too scarce or modest to be described by written sources. Besides, these first settlements mostly made of earth and wooden materials would need extensive archaeological surveys, with very uncertain results, to be located in a context of woodlands and pastures. By contrast, after the sixteenth century, mountain areas appear more permanently settled, with a more frequent use of stone-built architecture. Furthermore, the most developed hamlets progressively give rise to new villages and parish communities. A good example can be found in the region of Chapelle-desBois, a combe located at an elevation of around 1080 m, still nowadays remote and surrounded by forests. There are no settlement points mentioned in this area before the fourteenth century. During the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, the texts describe several pasture areas and temporary dwellings, owned and exploited by farmers from the neighbouring lower valleys. The first permanent settlement points are described in the first half of the sixteenth century. From 1500 to 1613, the valley was gradually divided and leased to families of settlers. A mill equipped for fulling and sawing is built in 1554 and indicates the economic development of the settlement. The first stone-built houses also appear between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries and have left several remains in the older houses of the actual village. However, this settlement is scattered and is still not linked to a village community with commonages and common rights of use: the inhabitants are depending upon the village they come from for tax collection and religious life. It will take a long time for the new settlement to gain a certain autonomy from the surrounding parishes and village communities. Chapelle-des-Bois is finally authorized to build its own chapel in 1640, and is recognized as an independent parish only in 1744.43 This case takes place among many others: during the sixteenth century, around thirty-eight new settlements appeared in the studied area according to the written sources, most of them located in the high chain. During the late medieval period, most of the valleys situated in or around the Jura high chain were organized by wide parishes measuring around 30 to 60 km2 and encompassing several villages. The economic development of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led the village communities to ask for religious independence and build their own church: medieval parishes break out and are divided into smaller districts. In Jura, the growth of new mountain dwellings is thus followed by the construction of numerous chapels and churches: in the study area, ten new chapels and churches are built during both the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, while forty-two creations are recorded for the seventeenth century.

43 Bono, Histoire et mémoire de Chapelle-des-Bois, pp. 28–45, 367; Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 4E255, 35H194.

71

72

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Figure 3.7. Early modern settlement evolution in central Jura. Map by V. Chevassu 2019.

Numerous hamlets were also created during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the high Morvan, but the evolution leads to another settlement pattern (Fig. 3.8). In this area, the population count for 1475 describes a settlement distributed in the lower areas, always staying below an altitude of 600 m.44 The numbers for the early seventeenth century show many new settlement points appearing within the medieval settlement networks.45 Despite their higher density, these settlement points are still gathered in the lower areas. The last step of this evolution occurs during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: the settlement network keeps densifying in the plains and also extends to the deserted uplands. Another example is provided by the Haut-Folin mountain, an area of 38 km2 between 600 and 900 m.a.s.l. In 1475, ten hamlets were located on the low margins of the mountain, at an altitude of between 600 and 700 m; thirteen hamlets were counted in the same area in 1645. In 1760, forty-two hamlets were represented on the Cassini map, eleven of them placed above 700 m.a.s.l. This increase may not only be linked with the evolution of the written sources: in 1475, several small settlement points were sometimes grouped under a single name. Besides, population density is difficult to evaluate, since the census is based on the number of households, which gather an unknown number of people. Despite these documentary biases, the development of scattered settlement points still appears quite obvious during the modern period, as well as their extension to higher

44 Dijon, Archives départementales de Côte d’Or, B11510, published in Charmasse, ‘Le Baillage d’Autun en 1475’. 45 Dijon, Archives départementales de Côte d’Or, C4749, published in Dumay, ‘Etat des paroisses et communautés du Bailliage d’Autun en 1645’.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

Figure 3.8. Early modern settlement evolution in southern Morvan Map by V. Chevassu 2019.

territories. However, this extension does not lead here to a modification of the parish network, since the settlement creations remain relatively close to the older villages and churches. In high Morvan, only one parish was divided into two smaller territories during the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries due to the growth of numerous remote hamlets, but reunited afterwards. Many of these modern hamlets are also quite briefly occupied and abandoned before the end of the eighteenth century but this brief expansion of settlement has left many archaeological remains. The comparison between modern archives and eighteenth- or nineteenth-century maps allows us to follow precisely the phases of abandonment of these hamlets, progressively disappearing from the landscape depicted by the successive documents. In the regions documented by LiDAR surveys, the archaeological remains of these hamlets can easily be spotted. In Morvan, fourteen modern deserted settlements, mainly abandoned during the nineteenth century, have been spotted with the use of ancient maps and field surveys. Without LIDAR surveys, the only information on the organization of the buildings is brought by walk-over surveys, examination of land terriers or of the ‘Napoleonian’ cadastre, drawn around 1820. In Morvan, the size of the settlements is very variable: some hamlets can gather up to ten or twelve houses. In central Jura, around two hundred structures linked to modern deserted hamlets have been spotted within the studied area thanks to the analysis of LiDAR data. These structures are especially concentrated in the highest mountainous areas along the France–Switzerland border. The hamlets are smaller than in Morvan and most of the time gather two or three farmsteads. Several different structures are usually gathered around the settlement: a well or a cistern, several pathways enclosed by dry-stone walls to protect the neighbouring pastures from wandering cattle, small enclosed parcels used as gardens, hayfields or pastures for young animals.

73

74

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

One of these sites has been partially excavated in 2017 at la Vieille-Beuffarde (1100 m.a.s.l., Les Fourgs, Doubs) within the framework of the field survey programme conducted in central Jura.46 The remains have been documented by walk-over and geophysical surveys, followed by three test pits. The excavation has revealed walls with rough stone-setting, several walking surfaces and pavements associated with gutters. Archaeological evidence suggests the presence of two or three ruined habitations, dated from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The architecture likely combined masonry and wooden structures, as suggested by the thinness of the walls but also by the modern depiction of hamlets in the neighbouring valleys. Like the other surveyed sites, the settlement occurs within a set of abandoned pathways and dry-stone boundaries, next to small quarries and water springs. Numerous and varied artefacts dated from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been found in the dwelling, such as glazed coarse ware imported from the region of Lyon and from the Swiss basin. Various items like gunflints, glassware shards, pieces of harness, and metal clothes ornaments suggest the wealth of the inhabitants. Numerous fragments of tools also witness varied activities such as wood carving, textile making, and smithing. This site may then be characterized as a permanently inhabited dwelling of medium rank, practising varied activities, very different from the seasonal dairy hut, specifically used for pastoralism, as one could expect in this remote area. This early modern development of scattered settlement is not specific to Jura and Morvan but is widespread, especially in the bocage plains of western France, as in a lot of mountain ranges. In eastern France, this type of settlement is almost always associated with high and medium altitude areas. The growth of these settlement points often seems linked to the opening of new pastures and to the development of new individualistic agricultural practices.47 However, few of these sites have been studied archaeologically. Among them, the site of ‘Pré Rigot’ (Compains, Puy-de-Dôme) was excavated in 2013.48 Occupied permanently during the seventeenth century, the site reveals the same kind of structures and items as the hamlet of La Vieille-Beuffarde.

Discussion In Morvan and Jura, the ‘long’ sixteenth century definitely appears to be a turning point in the human shaping of mountain landscapes. Beside potential but limited documentary bias, the early modern period is characterized by new ways to organize settlement and land use in the mountains, as well as by

46 Bichet and others, ‘Programme de recherche ArcheoPal haut Jura central’, pp. 94–107. 47 Pichot, Le village éclaté. 48 Surmely and others, ‘Le hameau moderne abandonné de Pré-Rigot (Compains, Puy-de-Dôme)’.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

radical transformations in the landscapes. During the late medieval era, both mountains are known as wooded and rather poor regions. Archaeologically, the settlement remains are mainly concentrated in the lower areas, while pollen records show the large extent of forests. After the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the same regions are densely populated, largely cleared, and even over-exploited. They became flourishing areas, equally or even more so than the surrounding plains. These changes are almost conspicuous in the highest areas, which are characterized by a more contrasted evolution over the long term, in Jura as well as in Morvan. By contrast, settlement and land use evolve in a less marked way in the lower areas, piedmonts, and plateaux. This early modern evolution involves three sides. First, specialized activities are developing, with new forms of pastoralism, industrial expansion in Jura, and the dominance of log driving in the Morvan economy. Secondly, this development of many activities consuming more and more firewood implies a heavy anthropogenic pressure on forests. Both mountains suffer from an intense deforestation which generates increasing conflicts of interests and sometimes wood scarcity. Thirdly, the settlement network extends through the high-altitude areas, where a new type of scattered settlement with specific features appeared. One of the main causes for these changes seems to be an increasing integration of the mountain areas within the economic networks. In these mountains, the sixteenth century seems to bring an economic reorganization and makes the transition from a medieval economy based on manorial incomes to a more speculative economy looking for trade and exportation. In this context, mountain areas take great advantage of their vast woodlands and pasturelands, providing large quantities of wood for craft activities as well as grass and fodder for cattle trade. Other potential causes may be suggested. The growth of the cities surrounding Jura and Morvan have also influenced this economic development, as with the increase of Paris’s population, which needed Morvan firewood, or the prosperity of Geneva generating new craft activities in the southern part of Jura.49 Besides, the climate pejoration of the Little Ice Age, attested through lake sediment recordings may have hindered a further development of agricultural activities in the upper parts of the study areas.50 In both mountains, modern documents often record the complaints of mountain peasants losing their harvest because of rain, frost, or early snow. Of course, these complaints also aim to obtain tax relief and may be somehow exaggerated; they have to be compared with palaeoclimatic studies. A last factor is the role played by the bourgeois families, investing a lot in the development of local and new specialized activities, from the clearing of high-altitude areas to

49 Jequier, ‘Les relations économiques entre Genève et la vallée de Joux’. 50 Magny and others, ‘Climate, Vegetation, and Land Use as Drivers of Holocene Sedimentation’; Magny and others, ‘Quantitative Estimates of Temperature and Precipitation Changes over the Last Millennium’.

75

76

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

the building of industrial sites. The same families are often found as tabellions in the castellanies’ account and as investors in the requests presented for the establishment of a new mill or blast furnace. While offering several specific features, the described evolution is far from being limited to Jura and Morvan. Similar trends are observed in the neighbouring medium- and high-altitudes areas. Thus, the investments in the cattle trade and exportation of dairy products are also observed after the late Middle Ages in the Alps, Pyrenees, Vosges, or Massif Central,51 and other comparisons can even be found in many European uplands.52 The scattering of new settlement points across mountain areas has also been noticed in many different mountain areas.53 These changes are often linked to large landscape openings, as observed by palynologists or historians in the Massif Central, the Pyrenees, or the Alps.54 The sixteenth-century changes have deeply influenced landscapes and land use in Morvan and Jura. The massive deforestation shaped the landscape until the beginning of the twentieth century, as witnessed by first maps and then photographs. Although polycultural activities persisted in middle mountain areas until the first half of the twentieth century, the specializations developed during the early modern period gradually became the main actual economic orientations, such as dairy production in Jura or the wood trade and the breeding of young animals in Morvan. However, a significant share of the structures witnessing this early modern development disappeared with the industrial decline, rural exodus, and large-scale reforestation of the nineteenth–twentieth centuries. Many archaeological remains still stand, sometimes preserved by afforestation, often threatened by mechanization, and seldom taken into account by archaeological studies.

Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 4E608; 4E255; 34H180–182; 35H131; 35H153–160; 35H194; 35H468 Dijon, Archives départementales de Côte d’Or, B 11510; C 4744, 4749, 4812 Pontarlier, Archives municipales, coll. Michaud, E 25 6°5 Vesoul, Archives départementales de Haute-Saône, 25J C3

51 Among others Garnier, Terre de conquêtes; Moriceau, Terres mouvantes; Carrier and Mouthon, Paysans des Alpes; Rendu and others, Estives d’Ossau. 52 E.g. Costello and Svensson, Historical Archaeologies of Transhumance across Europe. 53 Garnier, Terre de conquêtes; Carrier and Mouthon, Paysans des Alpes. 54 Miras, ‘L’analyse pollinique du plateau de Millevaches (Massif Central, France)’; Pulido Avila, ‘Conséquences de l’anthropisation sur la dynamique postglaciaire de la végétation’; Galop, ‘Les apports de la palynologie à l’histoire rurale’; Court-Picon, ‘Mise en place du paysage dans un milieu de moyenne et haute montagne’.

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

Primary Sources Cartulaire de Hugues de Chalon (1220–1319), ed. by Bernard Prost and EtienneSymphorien Bougenot (Lons-le-Saunier: Declume, 1904) Coquille, Guy, Les Oeuvres de maistre Guy Coquille, sieur de Romenay, ed. by Claude Labottière (Bordeaux: Claude Labottière, 1703) Cousin, Gilbert, Brevis ac dilucida Burgundiae superioris, quae Comitatus nomine censetur, descriptio, ed. and trans. by Achille Chereau, Description de la FrancheComté par Gilbert Cousin, de Nozeroy (année 1550) traduite pour la première fois et accompagnée de notes (Lons-le-Saunier: Gauthier, 1863) Les guerres de religion en Autunois et Charolais: édition des visites de feux de 1597–1599, ed. by Louis Lagrost and Robert Chevrot (Chagny: Centre de castellologie de Bourgogne, 2016)

Secondary Works André, Max, and Gilles André, ‘La Grande Tourbière de Pontarlier (Doubs). Approche historique et botanique. Partie 1’, Les nouvelles archives de la flore jurassienne (2004), 64–101 Baudiau, Jacques-Félix, Le Morvand ou essai géographique, topographique et historique sur cette contrée, 3 vols (Paris: Librairie Guénégaud, 1865) Belhoste, Jean-François, François Lassus, and Christiane Claerr-Roussel, La métallurgie comtoise: XVe-XIXe siècles; étude du Val de Saône (Besançon: Association pour la promotion et le dévelopment de l’inventaire Comtois, 1994) Benoit, Paul, Karine Berthier, Philippe Boët, and Charles Reze, ‘Les aménagements hydrauliques liés au flottage du bois, leur impact sur le milieu fluvial XVIe-XVIIIe siècles’, in Piren Seine, Rapport d’activité 2002 (2003) [accessed 1 September 2021] Berthet, Marc, Les Rousses (Lons-le-Saunier: Société d’Emulation du Jura, 1988) Bichet, Vincent, Emmanuel Garnier, Pierre Gresser, Michel Magny, and Bruno Vermot-Desroches, Histoire du climat en Franche-Comté du Jurassique à nos jours (Pontarlier: Éditions du Belvédère, 2015) Bichet, Vincent, Valentin Chevassu, and Hervé Richard, ‘Programme de recherche ArcheoPal haut Jura central – Rapport d’activités 2017 – Secteur de Pontarlier, la Cluse-et-Mijoux, les Fourgs et les Hôpitaux-Vieux (Doubs, France)’ (unpublished survey report, UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement, 2017) Bono, Francis, Histoire et mémoire de Chapelle-des-Bois (Bletterans: Bono, 1996) Bouvard, André, Les peuplements castraux de la montagne du Doubs (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1999) Bravard, Jean-Paul, ‘Le flottage du bois et le changement du paysage fluvial des montagnes françaises’, Médiévales, 18 (1999), 53–61 Bulliot, Jacques-Gabriel, Essai historique sur l’abbaye de Saint-Martin d’Autun de l’ordre de Saint-Benoît (Autun: Dejussieu, 1849)

77

78

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Carrier, Nicolas, and Fabrice Mouthon, Paysans des Alpes: les communautés montagnardes au Moyen Âge (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010) Chabin, Jean-Pierre, ‘Le climat du Mont Beuvray. Evaluation de quelques valeurs essentielles’, in L’environnement du Mont Beuvray, ed. by Buschenschutz Olivier and Richard Hervé, Bibracte, 1 (Glux-en-Glenne: Centre archéologique européen du Mont Beuvray, 1996), pp. 39–50 Charmasse, Anatole de, ‘Le Baillage d’Autun en 1475 d’après le procès-verbal de la cherche de feux’, Mémoires de la Société éduenne, 27 (1899), 279–306 Chevrot, Robert, ‘Faulin: une verrerie médiévale en Morvan’, in Chastels et Maisons Fortes, v: Actes des Journées de castellologie de Bourgogne 2013–2014, ed. by Hervé Mouillebouche (Chagny: Centre de castellologie de Bourgogne, 2015), pp. 127–48 Chomel, Vital, and Jean Ebersolt, Cinq siècles de circulation internationale vue de Jougne: un péage jurassien du XIIIe au XVIIIe s. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1951) Costello, Eugene, and Eva Svensson, Historical Archaeologies of Transhumance across Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018) Court-Picon, Mona, ‘Mise en place du paysage dans un milieu de moyenne et haute montagne du Tardiglaciaire à l’époque actuelle’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Franche-Comté, 2007) Dromard, Denise, ‘Le val et la seigneurie de Morteau, XIIe-XVe siècles: aspects politiques, sociaux et économiques’ (unpublished master’s thesis, Université de Franche-Comté, 1971) Dumay, Gabriel, ‘Etat des paroisses et communautés du Bailliage d’Autun en 1645 d’après le procès-verbal de la visite des feux’, Mémoires de la Société éduenne, 5 (1876), 269–484 Forestier, Marc, Construire avec les ressources naturelles du massif du Jura (Lausanne: Favre, 2015) Galop, Didier, ‘Les apports de la palynologie à l’histoire rurale: la longue durée des activités agro- pastorales pyrénéennes’, Études rurales, 153–54 (2000), 127–38 Garnier, Emmanuel, Terre de conquêtes: la forêt vosgienne sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 2004) Gauthier, Emilie, Forêts et agriculteurs du Jura: les quatre derniers millénaires (Besançon: Presses universitaires franc-comtoises, 2004) Gauthier, Emilie, and Hervé Richard, ‘La forêt jurassienne au cours des deux derniers millénaires à la lumière de quelques diagrammes polliniques’, in La mémoire des forêts: actes du colloque ‘Forêt, archéologie et environnement’, 14–16 décembre 2004, ed. by Jean-Luc Dupouey Étienne Dambrine, Cécile Dardignac, and Jean-Michel Albertucci (Paris: Office national des forêts, Institut national de la recherche agronomique, 2006), pp. 57–67 Jequier, François, ‘Les relations économiques entre Genève et la vallée de Joux des origines à nos jours’, Bulletin de la Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève, 15 (1973), 99–125 Jouffroy-Bapicot, Isabelle, ‘Evolution de la végétation du Massif du Morvan (Bourgogne-France) depuis la dernière glaciation à partir de l’analyse

Landscape and Settlement Evolution during the Sixteenth Century

pollinique. Variations climatiques et impact des activités anthropiques’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Franche-Comté, 2010) Jouffroy-Bapicot, Isabelle, Boris Vannière, Emilie Gauthier, Hervé Richard, Fabrice Monna, and Christophe Petit, ‘7000 Years of Vegetation History and Land Use Changes in the Morvan Mountains (France): A Regional Synthesis’, The Holocene, 23 (2013), 1888–1902 Jouffroy-Bapicot, Isabelle, Maria Pulido, Sandrine Baron, Didier Galop, Fabrice Monna, Martin Lavoie, Alain Ploquin, Christophe Petit, JacquesLouis de Beaulieu, and Hervé Richard, ‘Environmental Impact of Early Palaeometallurgy: Pollen and Geochemical Analysis’, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany (2007), 251–58 Leroux, Aurélie, ‘Caractérisation et évolution des flux détritiques et authigènes en contexte lacustre carbonate au cours du Tardiglaciaire et de l’Holocène (Lac Saint‐Point, Haute‐Chaîne Du Jura): implications paléoclimatiques et paléoenvironnementales’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de FrancheComté, 2010) Magny, Michel, Aurélie Leroux, Vincent Bichet, Emilie Gauthier, Anne-Véronique Walter-Simonnet, and Hervé Richard, ‘Climate, Vegetation, and Land Use as Drivers of Holocene Sedimentation: A Case Study from Lake Saint-Point ( Jura Mountains, Eastern France)’, Holocene, 23 (2013), 137–47 Magny, Michel, Odile Peyron, Emilie Gauthier, Boris Vannière, Laurent Millet, and Bruno Vermot-Desroches, ‘Quantitative Estimates of Temperature and Precipitation Changes over the Last Millennium from Pollen and Lake-Level Data at Lake Joux, Swiss Jura Mountains’, Quaternary Research, 75 (2011), 45–54 Marlot, Hippolyte, ‘Mémoire sur la Terre de la Tournelle (Nièvre) rédigé en 1771’, Mémoires de la Société Eduenne, 29 (1901), 355–70 Mathez, Jules, Annales du château de Joux et de la seigneurie de ce nom (Pontarlier: Faivre, 1932) Michel, Guy-Jean, ‘Familles verrières et verreries dans l’est de la Franche-Comté au XVIIIe siècle’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Franche-Comté, 1989) Miras, Yannick, ‘L’analyse pollinique du plateau de Millevaches (Massif Central, France) et de sites périphériques limousins et auvergnats: approche des paléoenvironnements, des systèmes agro-pastoraux et évolution des territoires ruraux’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Franche-Comté, 2004) Moriceau, Jean-Marc, Terres mouvantes: les campagnes françaises du féodalisme à la mondialisation; 1150–1850; essai historique (Paris: Fayard, 2002) Murgia, Laurie, ‘Mémoire des lacs et mémoire des sociétés du Moyen Âge à nos jours: approche palynologique et historique de la moyenne montagne jurassienne et alpine (Lac de Remoray, Doubs; glissement du Mont Granier, Savoie)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Franche-Comté, 2016) Musy, Jean, Mouthe: histoire du prieuré et de la terre seigneuriale, ii (Pontarlier: Éditions de la Gentiane bleue, 1930)

79

80

C he va s s u an d ot h e r s

Nouvel, Pierre, Valentin Chevassu, Stéphane Izri, Morgan Loire, Agnès Stock, and Matthieu Thivet, ‘L’occupation des territoires entre Morvan et Arroux de la Préhistoire au Moyen Âge, rapport de prospection-inventaire 2017’ (unpublished survey report, UMR 6249 Chrono-Environnement, 2017) Perreciot, Claude-Joseph, De l’état civil des personnes et de la condition des terres dans les Gaules, dès les temps celtiques, jusqu’à la rédaction des coutumes, 2 vols (Paris: Dumoulin, 1845) Pichot, Daniel, Le village éclaté: habitat et société dans les campagnes de l’Ouest au Moyen Âge (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2002) Piguet, Auguste, Les verreries de la Vallée (Le Lieu: Le Pèlerin, 1998) Pulido Avila, Maria, ‘Conséquences de l’anthropisation sur la dynamique postglaciaire de la végétation dans le sud du Massif Central, France’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université Paul Cézanne, 2006) Rendu, Christine, Carine Calastrenc, and Mélanie Le Couédic, Estives d’Ossau: 7000 ans de pastoralisme dans les Pyrénées (Toulouse: Le Pas d’oiseau, 2016) Saint-Gerand, Bernard de, ‘Un monitoire à Château-Chinon en 1675’, Académie du Morvan, 4 (1976), 25–27 Serneels, Vincent, Claude Jacquemin Verguet, and Christophe Folletête, ‘Aperçu du district sidérurgique du Mont d’Or’, Minaria Helvetica, 24 (2004), 7–20 Surmely, Frédéric, Jay Franklin, Amélie Berthon, and Alban Horry, ‘Le hameau moderne abandonné de Pré-Rigot (Compains, Puy-de-Dôme)’, Revue archéologique du Centre de la France, 57 (2018) [accessed 1 September 2021]

Jana Mazáčková and Petr Ža ža

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use in the BohemianMoravian Highlands

Abstract  The studied region, the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, has been subjected to substantial transformations since the Middle Ages, which grants unique possibilities for studying the human impact on landscape formation. The aim of this paper is the identification of agricultural hinterland in relation to the settlement patterns and mining areas, and to reconstruct the subsistence strategies of the studied region during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The studied area is analysed by the defined anthropogenic features in the landscape, using aerial archaeology and other non-destructive archaeological methods, as well as written sources dated between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries, where the main source is the urbary of the Brtnice domain. These steps allow us to create and test the model of land use and subsistence strategies during the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

T

Keywo r d s  Subsistence, agriculture, landscape, settlement, deserted medieval villages

T

Introduction This study is part of a larger project, entitled ‘Impact of Colonization on Long-Term Relationship between Humans and Nature’, carried out by the Research Centre Panská Lhota (Department of Archaeology and Museology Jana Mazáčková    Masaryk University, [email protected] Petr Žaža   Masaryk University, [email protected] The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 81–100 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127106

82

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

Figure 4.1. The area of studied region corresponds to the Brtnice domain from the year 1538 based on the urbaria of the domain. Figure by authors.

at Masaryk University). The project is aimed at better understanding how the late medieval and early modern landscape was influenced by human activity, in relation to contemporary land use and sustainable development. Such a goal cannot be achieved without a complex analysis of land use and settlement patterns, which calls for interdisciplinary research. As the title of this paper suggests, the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands (Czech Republic) are the main focus here. Following the long-term excavation1 of Rokštejn Castle near Panská Lhota ( Jihlava district; Fig. 4.1), examination of the castle’s hinterland started in 2011 as a logical step in the study of the castle’s economy and is still ongoing by the Panská Lhota Research Centre.2 During this period, the uniqueness of this region became even more apparent, regarding the study of medieval settlement structure, economic and agricultural hinterland, and social structure. The landscape here was undisturbed by major human activity until the Middle Ages3 which leaves

1 Over thirty-five years and still running. 2 Mazáčková and Doležalová, ‘Stančice’; Mazáčková and Měřínský, ‘Archeologický výzkum hradu Rokštejna’. 3 Hrubý and others, Centrální Českomoravská vrchovina na prahu vrcholného středověku; Hejhal, Počátky středověké kolonizace české části.

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

the opportunity to study a landscape that emerged during the medieval period and is therefore void of pre-medieval disturbances. This landscape study is delineated by the extent of the historical domain of Brtnice, located in modern-day Vysočina region. For most of prehistory and even in the early medieval period, the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands were not permanently settled by humans, due to their relatively high altitude (around 600 m.a.s.l.). Major human activity in this region can be seen at the turn of the twelfth century ad which represents a unique opportunity to study the change from sparsely used, pre-medieval landscape, all the way up to a modern-period cultural landscape. This means that the factors leading to the ‘long’ sixteenth century can also be traced in the landscape itself, thus enabling the search for the cause of its longevity. This study is focused on the transformation of the landscape, society, and political situation which led to the ‘long’ sixteenth century. The individual subsistence strategies are used only to illustrate their impact on land use, and are not the main topic of this paper. As it is one part of an ongoing project, some results are preliminary and may be updated in the future. The base of the study is formed by medieval settlement structures, which play an essential role in understanding not only the Middle Ages, but also the following periods up until this very day, as we still live, in many ways, in a world born during the Middle Ages. Land use and hinterland study of different types of settlements is therefore integral to this project and to the archaeological research on medieval and post-medieval society in general. Yet, the research possibilities in different regions vary, and local results are often incomparable across Europe.4

Brtnice Fiefdom at the Cusp of the Modern Period From the end of the twelfth century, political and economic structures developed in this newly colonized region. New noble families come into the light of written records, along with their manors and feudal domains. The studied region historically belonged originally to many owners. Their different economies and administration were then unified under the rule of the Rutenštejn family. With the Waldstein family, the size of the fiefdom increased, as the Waldsteins were systematically buying and exchanging estates to create a compact domain. During this period, it became known as the Brtnice fiefdom, after Rokštejn Castle had been abandoned around 1467 and the centre of power of the fiefdom moved to close-by market town of Brtnice.5 Throughout the sixteenth century, the holdings of the



4 See for example: Aston, Interpreting the Landscape; Gardiner and Rippon, ‘Introduction’; Retamero and others, Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes. 5 Mazáčková, ‘Militária z hradu Rokštejna’, p. 120.

83

84

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

Brtnice fiefdom consisted of more than 30 settled villages, 16 deserted villages, and several deserted manors. The rental-rolls (or urbaria) from before the year 1538, from 1570, and 1585, are the first official documents listing the holdings of the domain. These documents include the names of the settled villages, the names of the farmers living in them, and all the deserted villages that belonged to the domain, along with the farmers renting fields in them. As the main purpose of the rolls was to assess the amount of tax to be collected from individual households, each entry says how much land a farmer works, in what part of the village, and what rent is paid for the fields, usually on St George’s and St Wenceslaus’s Day.6 This taxation only affected the peasantry, and not the nobility, and in general was insufficient in providing ‘hard evidence’ for tax base. With the change in ownership of the fiefdom, after the Bohemian Revolt (1618–1620), the holdings of the Brtnice-Waldstein family were sold to an Italian noble family, Collalto et San Salvatore, in 1623. As the new lords do not continue to lease out the fields of deserted villages, a great part of the land was then afforested instead. This change, in a way, preserved the medieval land use, but at the same time inexorably changed the subsistence strategies employed by the farmers in the rest of the region, as the afforested fields could no longer be used for agriculture.7

Hypotheses and Outline of Methods In many cases, archaeology has to overcome missing data by implementing various models.8 In this instance, the model would have to uncover not only the strategies deployed by medieval people as they were shaping the landscape, but it would also have to take into account any modern development of land use that played a significant role.9 A primary model has been proposed that deals with missing data on the size of hinterland of individual villages, as the starting point.10 The modelling method uses several hypotheses. Firstly, the codification of the economic hinterland of the medieval village must have happened during the fourteenth century, based on the written records. Secondly, the land division is stable in the studied region and changes very slightly over time (arguments for this hypothesis are that some fields of the



6 Brno, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Urbář panství brtnického. 7 The Thirty Years’ War did not play a significant role in the change in subsistence, as the overall percentage of abandoned houses in the Brtnice fiefdom was 16 per cent; cf. Mlejnek, Panská Lhota v raném novověku, p. 13. 8 Neustupný, Archaeological Method; Binford, For Theory Building in Archaeology. 9 These activities are, in many cases, closely related to subsistence. In this article, subsistence refers to all the activities employed by people in order to survive and be able to obtain food (i.e. not necessarily through primary agricultural production). 10 Especially those deserted during the Middle Ages.

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

Figure 4.2. Above: field plots of DMV Ostejkovice captured on Franciscan cadastral maps of the Uhřínovice village cadastre. The field plots have been preserved to this day. Below: overlay of the cadastre with LiDAR data (slope) and of plots of land (fragment of the ploughfields of the DMV Ostejkovice). Figure by authors.

deserted villages are also contained in the Franciscan cadastral survey, and that the Franciscan or Stable Cadastre11 is still in use today, with slight changes,

11 The Franciscan Cadastre represents the first cadastre that also contained a physical measurement of land represented in maps of individual villages and towns. These are often called Indication Sketches, which have been used in this paper.

85

86

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

concerning the studied region; Fig. 4.2). For this reason, the Indication Sketches can be used to retrospectively calculate the basic agricultural hinterland. The last hypothesis is that agricultural production was very similar up to the Industrial Revolution, and in the studied region industrialization was slow and minimal.

Deserted Medieval Villages Localization Model One of the main reasons behind the origins of this model was to predict where the deserted medieval villages can be located, which can also serve for better preservation of these sites, as many of them may be located in forested areas with limited possibilities of preservation during forestry works. To recreate the land use, all deserted villages need to be located first. The method is based on a combination of the data contained in the Indication Sketches and LiDAR surveying. These are then analysed through GIS and validated through landscape and field survey. The methodology is further explained in the following chapters. The steps of this method are interchangeable, and do not have to be executed in this exact sequence, as they are described further. In order to present the method in this article, the analysis of the Franciscan Cadastre is shown first. The reason behind this is to show how the average land size for one farmhouse was calculated and how the original village cadastre can be drawn, based on this calculation. Next, the number of farmhouses (i.e. only those that own arable land, as opposed to the subsides — podsedek and casarius — domkař who did not rent land) is then calculated based on the records made for each field. This DMVL method uses average arable land size for one farmstead, in order to calculate the original hinterland size. Average land size value for one homestead can be then calculated and is approximately 16 ha, based on the Franciscan Cadastre. To conduct the analysis of the Franciscan Cadastre, ESRI ArcGIS software was used and for each plot of land a shapefile feature was created. Also, the village borders were digitized along with the urban area itself, so that the perimeter buffers could then be calculated for further analysis. As the area of the buffer is known, the radius of the buffer can be calculated for individual land size values. Table 4.1 shows a few examples for villages with different arable land sizes and their respective buffer radius values. These are then incorporated into the GIS in order to create the buffers around each studied urban area (Fig. 4.3). As this model uses only the average arable field size, these buffer zones represent the minimum space needed for the village to be sustainable agriculturally and economically. The gaps between the buffers can then be interpreted as possible locations of deserted villages. For positive identification further steps are needed. This represents the starting point, calculating the available farmland and its potential for other, non-agrarian subsistence strategies.

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

Number of farmhouses

Arable land size (ha)

Perimeter radius (m)

1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65

16 80 160 240 320 400 480 560 640 720 800 880 960 1040

226 505 714 874 1009 1128 1236 1335 1427 1514 1596 1674 1748 1819

Table 4.1. Number of farmsteads and their respective hinterland size. The perimeter around each village serves to proximate the area needed for agricultural production.

Figure 4.3. Buffers of minimum land needed for farming. Where there are no buffers, DMV can be predicted. The buffer of Brtnice town shows that it no longer corresponds to the area of the inner built-up area and a simpler buffer had to be calculated, disregarding the town’s size. Figure by authors.

87

88

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

Through LiDAR data and landscape prospection, these prospective locations can be then surveyed, as the landscape oftentimes yields valuable information on the anthropogenic relicts that can be discerned through the LiDAR (e.g. remains of houses, dams, mining activities, fields). Data obtained through LiDAR can be used in combination with aerial photographs from the 1950s. This is particularly important for the study of the field systems, as the photographs were taken before the balks of the fields (and other features of the old field system) were ploughed over, destroying the evidence visible to the naked eye. But to the laser of the LiDAR camera, they are still visible. The next step is to visit the site and conduct the survey of the terrain itself. This is where the DMVL method follows the already mentioned terrain prospection. The number of houses and other types of buildings can be then ascertained and documented.

Case Study: Panská Lhota As a starting point for the model, the still existing village of Panská Lhota was chosen. The main focus here was to define the economic hinterland and plot boundaries of individual fields, as the basic measurable unit of agricultural production, which can then be used to decipher other, non-agricultural, subsistence strategies. The Indication Sketches of the Stable Cadastre for Panská Lhota were drawn in the year 1835. The territory depicted here consists of the cadastres of Panská Lhota and Malé, which was administratively part of Panská Lhota during the nineteenth century (both became town districts of Brtnice in 1989). Even though the cadastre survey does not distinguish between the two villages, the field system is strikingly different. Also, the names of farmers owning individual fields greatly help in reconstructing the original border. The reconstructed cadastre of Panská Lhota is quite visibly formed by natural boundaries. The land use in these marginal parts is slightly different from the main agricultural land and is seldom used for arable agriculture. Around 2.5 km of the village borders consist of streams, the total border length of the reconstructed cadastre is 16.2 km, and its total area is 583.1 ha (Fig. 4.4). The Indication Sketches also list individual owners of land: the count of Collalto, farmers from Panská Lhota and neighbouring villages; it also differentiates between different types of land owned (fields, meadows, pastures, forests, öde — unusable land). The digitizing of the Stable Cadastre enabled further analyses. For example, the so-called Gewannflur can be found mainly in the plateau (with a maximum gradient of 5 per cent) close to the village itself. Interestingly, the area covered by forests has risen from 28.9 ha in 1835 (which was almost 5 per cent of the cadastre) to 81.8 ha today (14 per cent; Fig. 4.4). The forestation occurred mainly on lands previously owned by the count of Collalto and on fields with a gradient higher than 8 per cent.

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

Figure 4.4. Panská Lhota cadastre based on Indication Sketches from 1835 without the Malé cadastre. Water courses highlighted here can serve as possible natural borders of the cadastre. This map also shows the state of afforestation of the Panská Lhota cadastre in 1835, as compared to today. Figure by authors.

Thanks to retrospective work with literary documents, the housing history of Panská Lhota was reconstructed from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries (Mlejnek 2008). The rental-rolls and the Steuerrolle name the farmers, divide them into lán and half-lán owners, but there are also the categories of subsides and casarius. The rolls also give the amount of the payment for the fields; for a half-lán a farmer paid 9 groschen, for a full lán 18 groschen. The same amount is attested in the previous rolls (1533–1538, 1570, 1585). These are paid biannually, on St George’s Day and on St Wenceslas’s Day.12 In 1835, there were 24 tenure farmers; the total number of settled houses was 44 (Table 4.2).

12 Brno, Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Urbář panství brtnického z doby před r. 1538; Brno, Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Urbář panství Brtnice r. 1660; Brno, Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Urbář panství Brtnice r. 1570; Brno, Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Urbář panství Brtnice r. 1585; Brno, Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Lánový rejstřík Brtnice.

89

90 House no.

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a Arable No. Meadows No. Pastures No. Forests No. Land land of (ha) of (ha) of (ha) of owned (ha) plots plots plots plots (ha)

Total Described no. of as plots

1

19.5

36

2.3

10

2.6

45

3.0

1

27.4

92

3

17.9

33

1.7

9

5.8

51

0.6

1

26.0

94

4

17.7

33

1.2

10

2.7

29

0.0

0

21.6

72

10

11.3

26

0.9

9

1.2

22

0.3

1

13.7

58

11

21.1

35

1.3

10

2.7

41

0.0

0

25.1

86

12

19.1

48

1.0

8

3.0

46

2.0

5

25.1

107

13

19.3

40

1.5

8

1.1

31

0.0

0

21.9

79

14

17.9

35

1.6

9

2.3

41

0.4

1

22.2

86

15

16.8

39

1.4

7

2.0

42

0.0

0

20.2

88

23

8.5

23

0.4

3

0.9

18

0.0

0

9.8

44

25

5.5

19

0.6

4

0.3

11

1.7

1

8.1

35

26

6.7

19

0.2

1

1.2

12

2.1

2

10.2

34

27

21.2

36

2.5

10

3.6

39

6.3

2

33.6

87

28

17.0

32

1.7

9

2.0

28

0.0

0

20.7

69

29

17.1

33

1.7

7

1.2

25

2.3

3

22.3

68

30

20.0

30

1.3

12

1.8

24

0.0

0

23.1

66

31

14.5

37

1.6

9

2.5

37

0.5

2

19.1

85

32

11.8

35

1.0

8

3.2

35

0.0

0

16.0

78

33

20.0

26

2.1

8

2.2

32

4.5

6

28.8

72

34

19.9

34

1.8

10

2.3

34

1.3

2

25.3

80

35

17.6

29

1.8

8

4.3

34

0.5

2

24.2

73

38

22.4

28

1.7

9

4.2

40

1.7

2

30.0

79

44

11.9

30

1.4

9

3.4

33

0.0

0

16.7

72

45

11.4

26

0.8

5

1.6

25

0.3

2

14.1

58

Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Quarterlán owner Quarterlán owner Quarterlán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Quarterlán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Half-lán owner Quarterlán owner Half-lán owner

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use House no. Total in Panská Lhota Communal plots in Panská Lhota Brtnice Dolní Smrčné Collalto Total Grand Total

Arable No. Meadows No. Pastures No. Forests No. Land land of (ha) of (ha) of (ha) of owned (ha) plots plots plots plots (ha)

91

Total Described no. of as plots

386.1

762

33.5

192

58.1

775

27.5

33

505.2

1762

 

1.3

12

1.4

3

13.6

40

1.6

2

17.9

57

 

0.4

3

0.0

0

0.2

7

0.0

0

0.6

10

 

9.4

16

0.3

1

0.4

6

0.0

0

10.1

23

 

10.1 21.2

8 39

0.3 2

2 6

2.0 16.2

9 62

0.0 1.6

0 2

12.4 41

19 109

   

407.3

801

35.5

198

74.3

837

29.1

35

546.2

1871

 

Table 4.2. Analysis of the information contained in the Indication Sketches of Panská Lhota. The table shows, for each landowner, the type of land owned, the amount of land owned, total number of plots owned, and status (lán or half-lán owner).

The results also show all the land owned by each farmer. Presumably, because of different land quality classes, farmers occupying house-numbers 45 and 10 own less land than farmers on numbers 44 and 32, even though numbers 45 and 10 are described as half-lán owners and the latter are described by the Indication Sketches as quarter-lán owners. This is interesting since the land belonging to a farmhouse was indivisible, and handling of the land was thus limited. This only changed in 1868, when a law made it possible to further divide the land of the Moravian farmsteads.13 This information further supports the hypothesis of the permanency of the agricultural hinterland. Even though some villages go through dramatic population changes (from 1500s to 1800s), the medieval core of the agricultural hinterland can still be deduced. As seen in other villages tested (e.g. Pavlov, Jihlava district), the area of the hinterland calculated by the DMVL method is stable, even when the number of settled houses, lán owners, and subsides/casarius or deserted houses changes drastically. These changes could be used to explain different livelihood and subsistence methods (i.e. crafts, trade, and mining). To better understand the intricate evolution of landholding, further research into the Theresian Cadastre is needed. Interestingly, the number of farmers recorded by the rental-roll from before 1538 is 19 (10 lán holders and 9 half-lán

13 Krofta, Dějiny selského stavu, p. 428.

92

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

holders),14 whereas the Indication Sketches inform us that in 1835, out of 23 land holders, none owned a whole lán, 18 of them were half-lán owners, and 5 possessed a quarter of a lán. The major change thus must have happened in the size of the owned land and how the size of one lán was determined, otherwise, these terms would not have been used in official registries. How much one lán was exactly, is still poorly understood, and for different periods, and even different regions, this number changes significantly.

The lán One major obstacle in understanding what a lán represents as a unit of measurement, lies in the way it has been studied thus far. Historical analyses covering the agricultural land use of individual farmsteads and/or villages do not work with the landscape itself, as these analyses use written records, they deal with areas of sowing, yields, and general amounts and numbers registered by numerous clerks from the past. This, nevertheless, excludes the actual field that is described in these numbers. The area of a lán was reconstructed by Nový to be between 60–84 Morgens which should approximate to 17–20 ha, this approximate size of one lán is also accepted by Josef Žemlička.15 For the Netherlands, Jan Klápště16 shows that the size there was nearly 22 ha. Still, a rather big difference of 3 ha in the lán size is unimaginable from the farming perspective of the peasants. As we have seen, many studies have concluded that one lán is quite a fluid unit.17 The fact that even the surveyors of the seventeenth century sometimes failed to find the tell-tale signs of a lán and were forced to assess the fields based on measures of grain sown, makes this problem somewhat more understandable. It is also in this period that a change comes. During the seventeenth century, one lán becomes a piece of land that is measured by a certain amount of grain sown on fields of varying quality and is assessed based on the measures of grain.18 These changes in the lán size are easily recorded in writing, yet in the record given by the landscape, these changes do not necessarily have to be reflected, at all. The main anthropogenic features left are field balks, terraced fields which can represent these changes in the landscape. Yet, the exact size of the lán as a unit is not specified. Not even when the fields of the deserted villages were sold to other farmers during the 1530s.

14 Brno, Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Urbář panství brtnického z doby před r. 1538, fols 47r–49v; Mlejnek, Panská Lhota v raném novověku, p. 28. 15 Nový, ‘Historická metrologie’, pp. 135–39; Žemlička, Království v pohybu, p. 131. 16 Klápště, Proměna českých zemí ve středověku, 196. 17 Matějek, ‘Lán v dějinném vývoji’; Tabášek, ‘O vytyčení plužin na hukvaldském panství’; Nový, ‘Organizace a vývoj českého mincovnictví’. 18 Radímský and Trantírek, Tereziánský katastr moravský; Pešl, ‘Katastr nemovitostí po kapkách (podruhé)’; Bumba, České katastry od 11. do 21. Století.

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

It is obvious that the field itself is stationary, its size does not change — demarcation of the field is a crucial element, as the only changes happen on the administrative level, for taxation purposes. Though some farmers might have illegally changed the size of their fields to avoid paying higher taxes, it is very unlikely that the changes in written lán size were reflected in the actual fields.

Human Impact on Landscape: Subsistence and Land Use Development In order to understand the human impact on nature and landscape in the past, a sort of thought experiment was undertaken. On one hand, there are the features of subsistence strategies present in the landscape itself, and on the other, the way of life, farming preference, and other, often archaeologically undetectable, factors appear. This represents two systems, land use and subsistence, and even though they heavily rely upon each other, they often do not correlate throughout history, and can become asynchronous. This is due to the ever-changing social and political situation; as time went on, the subsistence strategy inevitably changed, as there were different trends in society and the agricultural technology went through the odd innovation here and there. Yet, the landscape itself, as it will be shown, became almost rigid, and changed very little over times. This leads to something which can be called primary and secondary medieval subsistence strategies and primary and secondary medieval land use. To understand the ‘long’ sixteenth century, it is necessary to briefly look at the evolution of the landscape in the period between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. As said before, this region began to be permanently settled at the end of the twelfth century.19 This turbulent period is still very poorly understood, as archaeology and history can shed very little light on this matter, even though this short period is immensely important. During the twelfth century, previously untouched and undivided land suddenly became the centre of interest for the king, nobility, and the church. This means that all the fields, meadows, pastures, and quite possibly even the forests had to be planned out in their entirety throughout the following thirteenth century. It is this phase, where the natural, non-agrarian landscape was transformed into cultural, and primarily agrarian landscape. The motivation to colonize and transform the landscape changes throughout the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, yet for the studied region, gold mining seems to be the driving mechanism, along with other natural resources (i.e. iron ore, wood, and also silver). This is a very recent discovery, as it is not documented in any contemporary written sources, the only evidence is in the archaeological record. The late twelfth and early thirteenth century is the most probable period where primary medieval land use morphs into secondary medieval land use as the subsistence strategy 19 Hrubý and others, Centrální Českomoravská vrchovina na prahu vrcholného středověku.

93

94

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

changes. The transformation from primary to secondary land use/subsistence strategy is marked mainly by codification of the economically used landscape (i.e. hinterland). This agricultural hinterland is then recognized socially (the farmers of each village know where their fields are) and legally (the lord renting the land has documents of how much an individual farmer has to pay in tax). This means that the basic division of land was made sometime during the colonization and that it had to be the best way to use the land available, but also lucrative enough that it would be viable for the actual colonizer. These medieval strategies in land use and subsistence play a significant role further on in history, as the land becomes confined to the medieval land use system for a long time (more than five hundred years), yet subsistence was more dynamic and changed as social and political development demanded (Table 4.3). Subsistence changes are thus continuous and evolve along with the society, and quite often do originate from the needs of the ordinary people in towns and villages. The land use on the other hand, changes seldom and only with a political and legal input from the top of the social hierarchy. Such a change in land use of the Brtnice domain can be seen when a new political power (the Collalto et San Salvatore noble family) brings different ways of managing the domain, during the first half of the seventeenth century. Many of the previously agriculturally used fields that remained after the desertion of villages during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries became afforested. The sixteenth century represents the change from medieval to modern subsistence strategy, yet the political input was not so strong as to drastically impact the land use, and so, the medieval landscape continues with only small changes to the land use strategy. Whether the sixteenth century saw the beginnings of the modern era or was still medieval in its fundamental way of dealing with problems, is still an uneasy question to answer. The end of the sixteenth century was important from the point of view of land management. The formerly used fields of the deserted villages were afforested, and many of the ponds became disused; this changed mainly subsistence strategies, as the farmers had to give up those extra fields from deserted villages, yet the medieval way of land use went on to the nineteenth century in many parts of the domain. For now, the preliminary results show that landscape changes are accompanied by a socio-political change, originating from top of the social hierarchy (i.e. the nobility and church). The ‘long’ sixteenth century in the Brtnice domain, to get back to the topic of the original conference in Maastricht, is the period between the 1450s (when the settlement structure becomes stable) and the 1650s (when the new owners began to change the land use along with subsistence strategies). Without the whole picture of landscape management during the Middle Ages, the model of the medieval society and economy can never be complete. By using the DMVL method to calculate village borders, a new perspective on the medieval landscape opens up. When using data from the ‘Stable’ Cadastre, it is useful to remember that the cadastral borders were drawn during the eighteenth century, along with the Josephian surveying between 1785 and

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use 1150 Primary medieval land use

Primary medieval subsistence 1300 Secondary medieval subsistence 1400/1450

Secondary medieval land use

Late medieval subsistence

1623/1648

Early modern subsistence

1781 Modern subsistence 1868 Early contemporary subsistence

Modern land use

1950 Contemporary land use

Contemporary subsistence

Table 4.3. Theoretical model of subsistence and land use strategies. It represents a sequence of different situations that may have influenced the evolution of the landscape. Primary medieval land use and subsistence represent the colonization phase, ending around the year 1400 with the rise of the Waldstein family. The change in land use is different throughout the studied area, hence the change in the transition. Secondary medieval land use and subsistence corresponds to the crossover from colonization to more stable settlement structure. 1623 and 1648 signify the arrival of the Collalto family and the end of the Thirty Years’ War, respectively. These influenced both land use and subsistence, though the medieval land use dissipates very slowly.

95

96

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

1789,20 and thus do not reflect the situation in the Middle Ages directly. In some cases, the medieval system of village borders was preserved, mainly in areas with prominent natural or anthropogenic features.21 By combining the cadastral borders with the buffers of existing and deserted villages, an approximate map of medieval rural settlement can be redrawn. This is the first step into reconstructing how the landscape was utilized, how and why certain villages were deserted, and how that impacted the whole medieval system.

Summary and Discussion Human activity is constantly being ‘saved’ into the ‘memory’ of the landscape and many features can be identified. That includes settlements (villages and noble residences), communication corridors, and production areas (fields, meadows, mining sites, forests, ponds, and other production sites such as, grain-mills, forge-hammers, etc.). As the studied region is transformed for the first time during the high Middle Ages, the colonization process could bring progressive methods of land use and thus the change of natural landscape into economic landscape. These changes can be then retrospectively deciphered, and we can observe the evolution of the landscape through the identification and interpretation of anthropogenic features in the landscape relief. As it is becoming more apparent that there are many deserted medieval settlements in the studied region that are not attested in the written sources, the importance of at least locating these archaeological sites becomes more prominent. As many of the deserted medieval villages are to be found in forested areas, new water management policies on water retention and modern heavy forestry machinery are putting them in serious danger of being obliterated without ever being registered by archaeologists. Even though some reconstructions of settlement structure exist in the Czech Republic, a complex study of any domain is still missing, and the economic potential of the domains is not the main focus of the scientists. Some previous studies tried to complexly handle the landscape,22 but the entry data are not verifiable in the terrain. The Drahany Highlands represent a region with very well-documented field systems and settlements, but the landscape potential was left out, and the reconstruction of the economic hinterland and the subsistence of individual farms was not carried out, mainly due to a schematic documentation of field systems.23 Only systematically

20 Pešl, ‘Katastr nemovitostí po kapkách (poprvé)’. 21 Boháč, ‘Katastry’, pp. 22–23; Klápště, Proměna českých zemí ve středověku, pp. 231–33. 22 Dohnal, Historická krajina v novověku; Navrátil, ‘Uspořádání sídla a plužiny’. 23 Černý, Výsledky výzkumu zaniklých středověkých osad.

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

studied villages had their economic hinterland analysed.24 Yet, the problem with these previous studies is that either the spatial analysis or the economic reconstruction is missing, and thus the potential of the landscape is not fully utilized. No historical domain in the Czech lands was studied to this extent. Even international research on the economic potential and the subsistence of villages is not sufficient. Identification of anthropogenic relicts is very well advanced on the British Isles, even in the study of field systems (open fields, long strips, and enclosure field system), which is methodologically resulting from European works.25 More pan-European research groups would certainly be beneficial for the study of medieval and early modern agriculture, as it is evidently interlinked with other, non-agricultural activities. For now, the model does not take into account the synchronicity of all the villages (deserted or contemporary). Thus, some buffers can seem to be disproportionate, this will be further incorporated into the model, though, as well as further features of the landscape (i.e. slope, accessibility, soil quality class). Because the main aim of the method is to locate deserted medieval villages, the primary concern when creating this method was just to calculate the minimum farming area needed for each village, based on the number of houses. Yet, its original purpose was far exceeded: this method also opens up new possibilities for viewing subsistence strategies, not only in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period, but also in prehistory.26 The subsistence area has, until now, been calculated based on experimental data for corn yield ratios,27 however, the DMVL method uses archaeological and historical data to calculate the area needed. Both data sources are to be combined, in order to improve this method. More research is needed to either refute or prove this model, as the average arable land calculated for one farmstead does not provide the information of how the land was actually divided inside the village cadastre. Further analysis of the previous cadastral surveys is needed as it provides more information on how land management changed and evolved from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The main issue at hand is the almost unfathomable 24 As can be seen with DMV Bystřec (Belcredi, ‘Přínos archeologie k poznání stavební podoby středověkého venkovského domu’) or DMV Pfaffenschlag (Nekuda, Pfaffenschlag), or with more recent generally studied regions, cf. Klír Osídlení zemědělsky marginálních půd v mladším středověku a raném novověku or Vařeka and others, Archeologie zaniklých středověkých vesnic na Rokycansku, i. 25 Such as Hall, ‘The Origins of Open Field Agriculture’; Harvey, ‘Planned Field Systems in Eastern Yorkshire’; Rippon and others, ‘Beyond Villages and Open Fields’; Gardiner, ‘Dales’; Matzat, ‘Long Strip Field Layouts’; Nováček and others, Medieval Urban Landscape in Northern Mesopotamia. 26 For example: Beranová, Zemědělství starých Slovanů, p. 72; Jankuhn, Vor- und Frühgeschichte vom Neolithikumbis zur Völkerwanderungszeit. 27 Bogaard, Neolithic Farming in Central Europe, table 2.1; Klír, Osídlení zemědělsky marginálních půd v mladším středověku a raném novověku, p. 25.

97

98

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

value of one lán, and land size assessment recorded in the written sources in general. An analysis of all the data and documents for one village/cadastral unit can take up to a month, so this model should be viewed as a prototype which will be improved with further progress.

Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Brno, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Indication Sketches of the Stable Cadastre (accessible from [accessed 1 September 2021]) ———, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Lánový rejstřík Brtnice, poř. č.256, sig. 268 ———, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Urbář panství Brtnice pro obce Panská Lhota, Malé r. 1660 F 16 Brtnice, inv. č. 101 ———, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Urbář panství Brtnice r. 1570 Fond G 169, Collaltové, č. I. 2562 ———, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Urbář panství Brtnice r. 1585, Fond G 169, Collaltové, I. 2561 ———, Moravský Zemský Archiv v Brně, Urbář panství brtnického z doby před r. 1538 Fond G 10, inv. č. 575

Secondary Works Aston, Michael, Interpreting the Landscape: Landscape, Archaeology and Local History (London: Routledge, 1997) Belcredi, Ludvík, ‘Přínos archeologie k poznání stavební podoby středověkého venkovského domu. Výsledky výzkumu zaniklé středověké osady Bystřece’, Archaeologia historica, 11 (1986), 423–40 Beranová, Magdalena, Zemědělství starých Slovanů (Prague: Academia, 1980) Binford, Lewis, For Theory Building in Archaeology: Essays on Faunal Remains, Aquatic Resources, Spatial Analysis, and Systemic Modeling (New York: Academic Press, 1977) Bogaard, Amy, Neolithic Farming in Central Europe: An Archaeobotanical Study of Crop Husbandry Practices (London: Routledge, 2004) Boháč, Zdeněk, ‘Katastry – málo využitý pramen k dějinám osídlení’, Historická geografie, 20 (1982), 15–87 Bumba, Jan, České katastry od 11. do 21. století (Prague: Grada, 2007) Černý, Ervín, Výsledky výzkumu zaniklých středověkých osad a jejich plužin (Brno: Muzejní a vlastivědná společnost, 1992) Dohnal, Martin, Historická kulturní krajina v novověku: Vývoj vsi a plužiny v Borovanech u Bechyně (Prague: Ústav archeologické památkové péče, 2003)

Impact of Subsistence on Medieval and Early Modern Land Use

Gardiner, Mark, ‘Dales, Long Lands, and the Medieval Division of Land in Eastern England’, Agricultural History Review, 57 (2009), 1–14 Gardiner, Mark, and Stephen Rippon, ‘Introduction: The Medieval Landscapes of Britain’, in Medieval Landscapes: Landscape History after Hoskins, ed. by Mark Gardiner and Stephen Rippon (Cambridge: Windgather, 2007), pp. 1–8 Hall, David, ‘The Origins of Open Field Agriculture: The Archaeological Fieldwork Evidence’, in The Origins of Open-Field Agriculture, ed. by Trevor Rowley (Oxford: Croom Helm, 1981), pp. 22–38 Harvey, Mary, ‘Planned Field Systems in Eastern Yorkshire: Some Thoughts on their Origin’, The Agricultural History Review, 31 (1983), 91–103 Hejhal, Petr, Počátky středověké kolonizace české části Českomoravské vrchoviny (Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2012) Hrubý, Petr, Petr Hejhal, Karel Malý, Petr Kočár, and Libor Petr, Centrální Českomoravská vrchovina na prahu vrcholného středověku (Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2014) Jankuhn, Herbert, Vor- und Frühgeschichte vom Neolithikum bis zur Völkerwanderungszeit: Deutsche Agrargeshichte, i (Stuttgart: Ulmer, 1969) Klápště, Jan, Proměna českých zemí ve středověku (Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2005) Klír, Tomáš, Osídlení zemědělsky marginálních půd v mladším středověku a raném novověku (Prague: Univerzita Karlova, 2008) Krofta, Kamil, Dějiny selského stavu (Prague: Laichter, 1949) Matějek, František, ‘Lán v dějinném vývoji se zvláštním zřetelem k Moravě’, Sborník archivních prací, 35 (1985), 283–330 Matzat, Wilhelm, ‘Long Strip Field Layouts and their Later Subdivisions. A Comparison of English and German Cases’, Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography, 70.1 (1988), 133–47 Mazáčková, Jana, ‘Militária z hradu Rokštejna v širším středoevropském kontextu’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Masaryk University Brno, 2012) Mazáčková, Jana, and Kateřina Doležalová, ‘Stančice, povrchová prospekce a systematické zaměřování zaniklé vsi’, Acta Musei Moraviae: Scientiae sociales, 97 (2012), 259–84 Mazáčková, Jana, and Zdeněk Měřínský, ‘Archeologický výzkum hradu Rokštejna v letech 2007–2009 (sezóna 26.-28.)’, Archeologické výzkumy na Vysočině, 2011.2 (2011), 18–28 Mlejnek, Ondřej, Panská Lhota v raném novověku (Brtnice: Metoda, 2008) Navrátil, Vladislav, ‘Uspořádání sídla a plužiny – Pramen k dějinám osídlení úzce vymezeného regionu’, Historická geografe, 25 (1986), 53–96 Nekuda, Vladimír, Pfaffenschlag: Zaniklá středověká ves u Slavonic; Příspěvek k dějinám středověké vesnice (Brno: Blok, 1975) Neustupný, Evžen, Archaeological Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) Nováček, Karel, Miroslav Melčák, and Lenka Starková, Medieval Urban Landscape in Northern Mesopotamia (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016)

99

1 00

j a n a m a záč ková an d p e t r ž až a

Nový, Rostislav, ‘Organizace a vývoj českého mincovnictví v 13. století do měnové reformy Václava II.’, Sborník archivních prací, 24 (1974), 366–425 ———, ‘Historická metrologie’, in Vademecum pomocných věd historických, ed. by Ivan Hlaváček, Jaroslav Kašpar, and Rostislav Nový (Prague: H+H, 1997), pp. 129–49 Pešl, Ivan, ‘Katastr nemovitostí po kapkách (poprvé)’, Zeměměřič, 98.1–2 (1998), 18–20 ———, ‘Katastr nemovitostí po kapkách (poprvé)’, Zeměměřič, 98.3–4 (1998), 11–13 Radimský, Jiří, and Miroslav Trantírek, Tereziánský katastr Moravský: Prameny z 2. poloviny 18. století k hospodářským dějinám Moravy (Prague: Ministerstvo vnitra, 1962) Retamero, Fèlix, Inge Schjellerup, and Althea Davies, Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes in Pre-industrial Society: Choices, Stability and Change (Oxford: Oxbow, 2011) Rippon, Stephen, Ralph Fyfe, and A. G. Brown, ‘Beyond Villages and Open Fields: The Origins and Development of a Historic Landscape Characterised by Dispersed Settlement in South-West England’, Medieval Archaeology, 50 (2006), 31–70 Tabášek, Oldřich, ‘O vytyčení plužin na hukvaldském panství’, Historická geografie, 25 (1986), 97–125 Vařeka, Pavel, Alena Aubrechtová, Petra Hnízdilová, Radek Novák, Petr Rožmberský, and Renata Veselá, Archeologie zaniklých středověkých vesnic na Rokycansku, i (Plzeň: Západočeská univerzita v Plzni, 2006) Žemlička, Josef, Království v pohybu: Kolonizace, města a stříbro v závěru přemyslovské éry (Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2014)

Tamsyn Fraser

Livestock Improvement and Landscape Enclosure in Late and Post-Medieval Buckinghamshire, England

A b str act  The process of livestock improvement in England is documented both historically and zooarchaeologically, occurring as early as the thirteenth century and continuing until the modern era. It is often associated with the contentious notion of the ‘Agricultural Revolution’, which is poorly understood in terms of timing, nature, and cause. Recent consensus suggests that key agricultural developments occurred in the later medieval period, with zooarchaeological studies identifying corresponding alterations to animal size, shape, and age patterns. Another feature often associated with the ‘Agricultural Revolution’ is landscape organization. Much enclosure occurred through agreement or piecemeal amalgamation during the late to post-medieval periods, which suggests that changes in land organization may have contributed to the livestock change of this time. Historians propose several ways that land enclosure may have contributed to animal husbandry improvement, but there is little direct association attempted between landscape change and livestock improvement for specific case studies. Zooarchaeological assessment has previously focused on urban areas, where the geographical origin of livestock is uncertain. This study provides a more accurate insight into changing local husbandry strategies and landscape alteration on the rural site of Great Linford, in Buckinghamshire. It compares zooarchaeological analysis and local historical information to understand

T

Tamsyn Fraser    Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, [email protected] The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 101–128 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127107

102

ta m syn f r as e r how landscape change may have affected animal size and husbandry methods in this area. There is also an assessment of how the location of the site, within the central open field region of England, and enclosure of the parish in the sixteenth century may have shaped livestock improvement.

K e y wo r ds  Zooarchaeology, landscape, improvement, open field, enclosure

T

Introduction The term ‘Agricultural Revolution’ is attributed to numerous periods in English history, broadly dating between 1560 and 1880.1 The term is used to describe phases of ‘sustainable increase in agricultural productivity’, though there is little agreement regarding precisely what developments brought this about, or when they occurred.2 What is clear, however, is that this period of agricultural change had an impact on both arable and pastoral production, with alterations in factors like population and technology, as well as land use and organization, being linked to this production increase. Identifying the date of this phenomenon is a contentious issue, though it is clear that a significant increase in agricultural productivity had occurred by 1850. This allowed for an accompanying increase in population, while fewer labourers employed in agriculture also indicates a higher productivity per agricultural worker.3 Perhaps, this information is why the ‘Agricultural Revolution’ was initially linked chronologically to the Industrial Revolution, with Francis Pryor stating that this increase in agricultural productivity must have preceded the Industrial Revolution in order to facilitate such population expansion.4 This is echoed by John V. Beckett, who suggests that increased farming yield in the period between 1760 and 1830 supported the growth of English towns.5 Other authors advise caution in so readily associating this process with the Industrial Revolution, asserting that the ‘Agricultural Revolution’ should not be considered the ‘agrarian side of the medal of the Industrial Revolution’.6 In fact, it is likely that substantial development of English agriculture began much earlier, with core developments largely



1 Overton, ‘Agricultural Revolution?’; Overton, ‘Re-establishing the English Agricultural Revolution’. 2 Thomas, ‘Zooarchaeology, Improvement and the British Agricultural Revolution’. 3 Overton and Campbell, ‘Productivity Change in European Agricultural Development’. 4 Pryor, The Making of the British Landscape. 5 Beckett, The Agricultural Revolution. 6 Chambers and Mingay, The Agricultural Revolution, 1750–1880.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

occurring during the sixteenth century.7 Gregory Clark concurs, arguing that output per agricultural worker was significantly higher during the sixteenth century, supporting the notion of the ‘long C16th’ as the foundation for significant agricultural advancement in England.8 Within this general trend of agricultural advancement, there was undeniably an increase in livestock yield, perhaps even to a greater extent than arable output.9 It is suggested that livestock yield per agricultural worker doubled from 1300 to 1860, alongside an increase in cattle, sheep, and pig numbers and a doubling in meat, milk, and wool output.10 It is likely that this was spurred by an increased demand for animal products; for example, sheep became increasingly common around the sixteenth century as the wool trade developed and more landowners switched to pastoral farming.11 There are a number of suggestions regarding the cause(s) and mechanism of this livestock change, broadly including factors like land enclosure, new husbandry techniques, improved fodder crops, increasing population, and increasing agricultural specialization. It is difficult to investigate these factors in detail using historical data alone, as there is little in the way of official yield figures before 1866 when the Board of Agriculture began publishing annual output statistics.12 The price of livestock and livestock products can be used as an indirect measure, though this may be dependent on a variety of aspects like buyer, quality, and demand.13 Manorial accounts, tithe records, and probate inventories can provide a useful indication of livestock output, though they do not adequately allow for the consideration of breed, age, and size, all of which affect animal productivity (Campbell and Overton 1991).14 More recently, zooarchaeology has proved a useful tool in assessing livestock output. A number of investigations have examined the nature and timing of late medieval livestock change using quantification, ageing, and metric data. In particular, metric analysis of common domesticates has aided in identifying when, where, and how animal size and/or shape change may have occurred. For example, a study of faunal remains from Launceston Castle, Cornwall, conducted by Umberto Albarella and Simon J. M. Davis suggests a significant cattle size increase between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries for all bone and tooth measurements.15 This change was accompanied by some alteration in bone shape and frequency of non-metric traits, again suggestive of livestock change during this period. The same study also found a size increase in sheep

7 Kerridge, The Agricultural Revolution; Beckett, The Agricultural Revolution. 8 Clark, ‘Labour Productivity in English Agriculture, 1300–1860’. 9 Davis and Beckett, ‘Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Improvement’. 10 Clark, ‘Labour Productivity in English Agriculture, 1300–1860’. 11 Jones, ‘Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1660–1750’. 12 Beckett, ‘The Agricultural Revolution’. 13 Overton, ‘Re-establishing the English Agricultural Revolution’. 14 Overton and Campbell, ‘Productivity Change in European Agricultural Development’. 15 Albarella and Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle, Cornwall’.

103

104

ta m syn f r as e r

between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, suggesting a change in both species around the sixteenth century, though seemingly later in sheep. Many other sites have yielded similar results, including Exeter, where Mark Maltby documents a size increase after the fifteenth century in cattle.16 In addition, Jonathan M. Holmes identified a mid-sixteenth-century sheep size increase at Whitefriar’s Church in Coventry, while Davis highlights cattle size increase between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries at Prudhoe Castle and larger sheep from the sixteenth century at Closegate, Newcastle.17 Larger cattle and sheep are also documented by Albarella and others at Norwich Castle between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.18 Finally, Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Albarella compare the size change of cattle and sheep across multiple sites in England, highlighting the changes at Exeter, Norwich Castle, and Dudley Castle, but also presenting new evidence of postcranial size increase in the sixteenth century at The Shires (Leicester, Leicestershire), Flaxengate (Lincoln, Lincolnshire), and Little Pickle (Bletchingley, Surrey).19 Overall, there is compelling zooarchaeological evidence for livestock size increase, and potentially yield increase, on urban and high-status sites throughout England either side of the sixteenth century. Deciphering the cause of this change is difficult, as the livestock found on urban sites are often the result of complex relationships between various communities and were quite often produced in surrounding rural areas.20 This study is centred around zooarchaeological evidence from rural sites, focusing specifically on a case study from Buckinghamshire. It assesses how the size and management strategy of common domesticates altered during the late medieval to post-medieval transition in rural England, as well as how simultaneous landscape changes may have impacted this.

Materials and Methods The case study site is Great Linford, Buckinghamshire — once an independent village, but now incorporated into the town of Milton Keynes (Fig. 5.1). Excavation of the parish was carried out by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) before the construction of the ‘new city’, and took place between 1974 and 1977, with archaeological investigation of the church and manor house following in 1980. These excavations provided suitable faunal material for this study due to the large proportions of cattle and sheep, as 16 Maltby, ‘The Animal Bones from Exeter: 1971–1975’. 17 Holmes, ‘Report on the Animal Bones from the Resonance Chambers of the Whitefriars Church, Coventry’; Davis, ‘Prudhoe Castle’; Davis, Faunal Remains from Closegate I and II, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, 1988 and 1990 Excavations. 18 Albarella and others, Norwich Castle Excavations and Historical Survey, 1987–98. 19 Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” Sixteenth Century’. 20 Grant, ‘Animal Resources’.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

well as detailed phasing information and records regarding land enclosure. The faunal assemblage was also generally very well preserved, though a lack of sieving may have resulted in the loss of small material such as juvenile remains. The material is divided into five chronological phases (Table 5.1), though these are grouped into late medieval (LM) and post-medieval (PM) periods either side of the sixteenth century if sample size from individual phases was too small. Phase 13th–14th c. 14th–15th c. 15th–16th c. 16th–17th c. 17th–18th c.

Period Late Medieval Post-Medieval

Table 5.1. The chronological phases at Great Linford.

This work will present the initial zooarchaeological and landscape results from a rural case study in Buckinghamshire, focusing on trends in size change and herd structure of domestic cattle and sheep over the late and post-medieval periods. These species were selected for the investigation as, not only did they yield the largest amount of measurable bone, but they also appear to be the species indicating most significant size change on previously studied urban sites. Measurements of cattle and sheep molars and postcranial bones were taken using the guidelines published by Angela von den Driesch, though only the measurements from fully fused specimens were included in metric analysis.21 All measurements were taken using digital callipers, to the nearest tenth of a millimetre. Both tooth and postcranial bone measurements were taken, as tooth size tends to be more conservative and less dependent on environmental factors, age, or sex, allowing for the assessment of genetic change within livestock populations.22 Conversely, changes in postcranial bone measurements could be indicative of alterations in environmental factors such as nutrition, or changes in the sex ratio of herds. The distinction between sheep and goat was made using traditional morphological methods during recording, as well as more recent morphometric technique.23 While 21 Von den Driesch, A Guide to the Measurement of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites. 22 Payne and Bull, ‘Components of Variation in Measurements of Pig Bones and Teeth, and the Use of Measurements to Distinguish Wild from Domestic Pig Remains’. 23 Boessneck, ‘Osteological Differences between Sheep (Ovis aries Linné) and Goat (Capra hircus Linné)’; Payne, ‘A Metrical Distinction between Sheep and Goat Metacarpals’; Payne, ‘Morphological Distinctions between the Mandibular Teeth of Young Sheep, Ovis, and Goats, Capra’; Kratochvil, ‘Species Criteria on the Distal Section of the Tibia in Ovis Ammon F. Aries and Capra Aegagrus F. Hircus L.’; Prummel and Frisch, ‘A Guide for the Distinction of Species, Sex, and Body Side in Bones of Sheep and Goat’; Halstead,

105

106

ta m syn f r as e r

Figure 5.1. Map showing the location of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire (after Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes). Figure by author.

no definite goat specimens were identified morphometrically, six instances of potential goat were identified by metric analyses using Lenny Salvagno and Umberto Albarella’s method.24 These goat specimens were excluded from this study, though the difficulty in distinguishing species across all elements means that the remaining data may contain some goat remains. However, it Collins, and Isaakidou, ‘Sorting the Sheep from the Goats’; Zeder and Lapham, ‘Assessing the Reliability of Criteria Used to Identify Postcranial Bones in Sheep, Ovis, and Goats, Capra’; Zeder and Pilaar, ‘Assessing the Reliability of Criteria Used to Identify Mandibles and Mandibular Teeth in Sheep, Ovis, and Goats, Capra’; Salvagno and Albarella, ‘A Morphometric System to Distinguish Sheep and Goat Postcranial Bones’. 24 Salvagno and Albarella, ‘A Morphometric System to Distinguish Sheep and Goat Postcranial Bones’.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

is likely that these numbers are very small and are therefore unlikely to affect the overall results. Initial metric assessments were carried out using histograms for tooth measurements and scatter plots for postcranial dimensions, in order to investigate changes in livestock size and shape. For both cattle and sheep, maximum third mandibular molar (M3) width was plotted as a histogram in order to indicate change in tooth size through time. Molar width was used for this assessment as it is not much affected by sexual dimorphism and exhibits less age-related change than length, therefore giving a more accurate indication of changing livestock size.25 Change in postcranial bone shape was investigated using ratios of astragalus measurements (Bd/GLI vs DI/GLI). These measurements were chosen due to their relatively large sample size, though in all metric analyses undertaken during this study measurements were ideally selected for their relatively low sexual dimorphism and age-dependence. In order to evaluate the size change in cattle and sheep throughout time, the log ratio technique was used. This increased the sample size for analysis by combining different measurements on the same axis, i.e. lengths, widths, and depths.26 Length, width, and depth measurements are analysed separately as there is better correlation between measurements taken on the same axis, and combining the planes may mask changes in one particular dimension.27 Similarly, teeth and postcranial bones are considered separately in this technique in order to distinguish between genetic or environmentally induced changes.28 The log ratio method is a size scaling index technique which compares the relative dimensions of archaeological specimens to the mean of a standard population, or to a single standard individual, by calculating the logarithm of the ratio between the archaeological measurement and standard.29 In this study, the following published standards are used for cattle and sheep respectively: archaeological mean measurements from late Roman to early Saxon Elms Farm, Essex;30 and modern mean measurements from female Shetland sheep.31 The statistical significance of observed differences in size between chronological periods was tested using the unequal variances, or Welch’s, t-test, which tests the hypothesis that the size measurements from each phase have the same mean.

25 Cf. Payne and Bull, ‘Components of Variation in Measurements of Pig Bones and Teeth, and the Use of Measurements to Distinguish Wild from Domestic Pig Remains’. 26 Meadow, ‘The Use of Size Index Scaling Techniques for Research on Archaeozoological Collections from the Middle East’. 27 Davis, ‘Measurements of a Group of Adult Female Shetland Sheep Skeletons from a Single Flock’. 28 Albarella and Payne, ‘Neolithic Pigs from Durrington Walls, Wiltshire, England’. 29 Simpson, Roe, and Lewontin, Quantitative Zoology. 30 Johnstone and Albarella, ‘The Late Iron Age and Romano-British Mammal and Bird Bone Assemblage from Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex’. 31 Davis, ‘Measurements from a Group of Adult Female Shetland Sheep’.

107

108

ta m syn f r as e r

Age-at-death was established for cattle and sheep using dental data. Tooth eruption and wear were recorded for cattle using the method devised by Annie Grant, with Terry O’Connor’s wear stage descriptors, and for sheep using Sebastian Payne’s system.32 This data was then used to construct mortality profiles for both species from each phase of the site. This information will indicate whether there was a change in slaughter age, and therefore the exploitation, of livestock on the site during the medieval to post-medieval transition.

Results Cattle

Initial investigation into cattle size using the width of the third mandibular molars (Fig. 5.2) does not reveal the significant size change shown in previous studies33 of late medieval urban and high-status sites. While a small sample size meant that only broad comparison between the late and post-medieval periods was possible, there is very little difference in terms of mean values. This suggests that cattle teeth at Great Linford did not increase in size during the late medieval to post-medieval transition. Similarly, Figure 5.3 compares astragalus measurement ratios for cattle, again between the late and post-medieval periods, and shows very little indication of change. Generally, late medieval specimens have a greater distal breadth in relation to their length than post-medieval examples, which may suggest a variation in cattle shape between the two periods. however, a small sample size prevents the assessment of the reliability of this observation. Figures 5.4 and 5.5 show the results of log ratio analysis for cattle tooth widths and lengths respectively. Both cattle tooth widths and lengths were assessed across the broader late and post-medieval periods due to a small sample size. The mean widths for both periods are very similar, with post-medieval cattle teeth only slightly larger on average. The difference in cattle tooth lengths is greater, though not statistically significant (p = 0.09). These results suggest that there is no clear evidence that cattle tooth size changed between the late and post-medieval periods, in contrast to the results from previous studies of urban sites. The slight increase, however, should ideally be further explored with a larger sample.

32 Grant, ‘The Use of Tooth Wear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic Ungulates’; O’Connor, Bones from the General Accident Site, Tanner Row, London; Payne, ‘Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats’. 33 Albarella and Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle, Cornwall’; Maltby, ‘The Animal Bones from Exeter: 1971–1975’; Albarella and others, Norwich Castle Excavations and Historical Survey, 1987–98; Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” Sixteenth Century’.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Figure 5.2. Histograms plotting width measurements of cattle lower third molars, split into late medieval and post-medieval phases. The arrows indicate the position of the mean. Figure by author.

Figure 5.3. Scatter plot comparing the ratios of astragalus measurements for cattle between the late medieval and post-medieval periods. Figure by author.

A similar pattern is displayed in the log ratio analysis of cattle postcranial bone length and breadth measurements from Great Linford (Figs 5.6 and 5.7). Again, a small sample size did not allow for a more detailed chronological definition, so dimensions from the broad late and post-medieval periods are compared. Similarly to tooth measurements, there appears to be little change

109

110

ta m syn f r as e r

Figure 5.4. Log ratio histograms combining cattle tooth width measurements. The arrow represents the mean, and the vertical line at 0 indicates the mean of the standard sample. Figure by author.

Figure 5.5. Log ratio histograms combining cattle tooth length measurements. The arrow represents the mean, and the vertical line indicates the mean of the standard sample. Figure by author.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Figure 5.6. Log ratio histograms combining cattle postcranial bone length measurements. The arrow represents the mean, and the vertical line indicates the mean of the standard sample. Figure by author.

Figure 5.7. Log ratio histograms combining cattle postcranial bone breadth measurements. The arrow represents the mean, and the vertical line indicates the mean of the standard sample. Figure by author.

111

112

ta m syn f r as e r

Figure 5.8. Cattle dental age profile, showing the percentage kill-off at each age stage. Figure by author.

in cattle postcranial dimensions between the two periods. The mean log ratio values for bone lengths are exactly the same for the late and post-medieval phases, and the mean values for breadth measurements are also very similar in both phases. Unsurprisingly, there is no statistically significant difference in the late and post-medieval values for either length or breadth. This suggests that there is no evidence for change in postcranial cattle size at Great Linford between the late and post-medieval periods. Overall, the cattle metric results from Great Linford are not suggestive of the noticeable change in size displayed on urban and high-status sites. The comparison of cattle herd age profiles using dental ageing may indicate whether the use or management of cattle at Great Linford changed between the late and post-medieval periods. Figure 5.8 presents a comparison of the percentage kill-off for cattle at each age stage for both phases. It suggests that in the late medieval period a large proportion of cattle survive to adulthood and into the elderly stage, which displays the highest percentage of cattle kill-off. Kill-off in the juvenile, immature, and subadult stages does not exceed 20 per cent, suggesting minimal young cattle slaughter at Great Linford in the late medieval period. There appears to be a complete lack of neonatal remains during both periods; however, due to the absence of sieving on site, the reliability of this piece of evidence cannot be reliably assessed as neonatal remains may have merely been overlooked. Tooth wear results suggest that in the post-medieval period there was also a prevalence of adult and elderly cattle being killed at the site, though the proportion of adults is higher during this phase, and there is also an increase in the amount of juvenile and subadult remains present. This could suggest that a greater number of juvenile cattle were being killed during the post-medieval period, perhaps due to a change in herd management during the sixteenth

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

century onwards. This post-medieval kill-off pattern is still not indicative of an emphasis on meat production at the site and suggests the use of cattle for secondary products such as traction, though potentially with a higher turnover. Sheep

A larger sample size for sheep meant that lower third molar measurements could be compared for each century at Great Linford, providing greater definition (Fig. 5.9). Through all phases the range of measurements is very similar, with no clear shift in either direction. The largest average measurement occurs in the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries, suggesting a small increase in sheep size during the fourteenth century. The mean values for the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries are very similar to the previous phase, which could mean a continuation of larger sheep throughout that period. The average third molar width decreases to the smallest observed value in the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries, which might suggest a decrease in sheep tooth size at the site during this time. However, the sample size is much smaller during this period; therefore, the results in this phase may not fully represent the size of seventeenth–eighteenth-century sheep. Astragalus measurement ratios for sheep were plotted in order to establish whether this was accompanied by a change in shape (Fig. 5.10), though a small sample size resulted in the comparison of the late and post-medieval phases only. The ratios are largely similar and overlap when plotted, except one late medieval example. This particular case may suggest a greater astragalus depth, in relation to length, in late medieval animals. However, without other examples exhibiting the same characteristics it is unclear whether this represents an actual change in shape or a lone outlier. Log ratio analysis of sheep postcranial bone lengths was used to further investigate the size of sheep at Great Linford during the late to post-medieval transition. Once again, a small sample size prohibited the comparison of size by century, thus measurements from either side of the sixteenth century are compared (Fig. 5.11). In direct contrast to previous studies of urban animal size, the mean value for bone length decreases in the post-medieval period, suggesting a reduction in sheep size. T-test results show that this change is statistically significant (p = 0.02), which implies a marked decrease in the length of sheep postcranial elements after the sixteenth century. Figure 5.12 shows the log ratio values for sheep breadth measurements by century. The mean values are very similar in all phases but the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries where they are slightly smaller, though not significantly. This suggests that, despite a significant change in bone length, there is little change in the breadth of sheep elements at any point during that chronological range. It seems that any size change experienced by sheep in the late to post-medieval transition was in a single axis and should therefore be characterized as a change in shape rather than size.

113

114

ta m syn f r as e r

Figure 5.9. Histograms plotting width measurements of sheep lower third molars by century. The arrows indicate the position of the mean. Figure by author.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Figure 5.10. Scatter plot comparing the ratios of astragalus measurements for sheep between the late medieval and post-medieval periods. Figure by author.

Figure 5.11. Log ratio histograms combining sheep postcranial bone length measurements. The arrow represents the mean, and the vertical line indicates the mean of the standard sample. Figure by author.

115

116

ta m syn f r as e r

Figure 5.12. Log ratio histograms combining sheep postcranial bone breadth measurements. The arrow represents the mean, and the vertical line indicates the mean of the standard sample. Figure by author.

The age distribution of sheep was also compared for the late and post-medieval periods, in order to distinguish any potential change in use or management. Figure 5.13 displays the percentage kill-off for sheep during these phases, based on tooth-wear. In both periods, sheep percentage kill-off is highest in stage E (2–3 years) and remains relatively high at stage F (3–4 years). This distribution is remarkably similar between the two periods, which suggests that there was minimal change in the management and exploitation of sheep at Great Linford between the late and post-medieval phases.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Figure 5.13. Sheep dental age profile, showing the percentage kill-off at each age stage. Figure by author.

Land Organization

An investigation into the historical land management in the parish of Great Linford was carried out in order to assess how land organization changes may have affected the size and exploitation of livestock in the late to post-medieval transition. From historical accounts, the pattern of land organization can be established and compared to the contemporaneous faunal data. The earliest documents referring to the landscape organization of the parish come from 1449, and describe an open field system, with two large open fields: Segelowfeld (Secklow Field) and Le Dounfield (probably Lower Field).34 Later in the medieval period three large open arable fields were recorded: Woodfield, Middle Field, and Newport Field, accompanied by small closes in the very centre of the village.35 It seems that the parish reflected the typical open field pattern of much of the Midlands during this time, with large open fields being farmed in tenant-owned strips, and grazing occurring on common land.36 In Great Linford, the half-acre arable holdings of farmers were spread throughout the fields, and common grazing on Ley Field, to the south, was allotted each year to those with strips in the open fields.37 An estate map of the parish produced in 1641 illustrates this layout, with the large grazing common to the south particularly clear (Fig. 5.14). Court rolls from this pre-enclosure period outline the strict regulations for the use of common grazing land, as

34 Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes; Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire County Records Office (BuCRO) D/U/1/103/1; BuCRO D/U/1/104/3. 35 Mynard and Zeepvat, Great Linford. 36 Rippon, Making Sense of an Historic Landscape. 37 Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’.

117

118

ta m syn f r as e r

well as instructions for the cultivation of barley, wheat, rye, maslin, pease, and beans, with a single field left fallow each year.38 By the mid-sixteenth century, the precedent for enclosure had been set in North Buckinghamshire with the enclosure of Hartwell in 1551.39 With enclosure becoming less controversial, and fines for enclosing no longer enforced by the government, the process became more common in the county from the start of the seventeenth century.40 This was prompted by a number of objections raised regarding open field land management; for example, in 1656 an anonymous pamphlet described open field parishes as ‘seedplots of contention’, which encouraged inefficient farming practice.41 In Great Linford specifically, concerns had been raised about escaped cattle causing damage in arable fields, causing several disputes between neighbours.42 Michael Reed also points out further issues with open fields in the county; for example, increasing population led to pressure on resources, requiring increasingly elaborate regulations and balancing of arable and grazing land to maintain food production.43 The process of enclosure in Great Linford was led by the chief landowner in the parish, Sir Richard Napier, who had steadily amalgamated land from 1637 onwards.44 By 1649, when he married, he had amassed 11 messauges (cottages with adjoining land), 1000 acres of land, and commons for 1220 sheep and 220 cattle or horses.45 The parish was ultimately enclosed in 1658 by agreement — a method of enclosure where the principal landowners in a parish reached a formal agreement in which land was enclosed and reallocated.46 This method required the consent of all landowners, which was often difficult to obtain; however, Reed postulates that in Great Linford the agreement was genuine and received little opposition.47 Thus, the enclosure agreement for the parish was drawn up in September 1658, and signed by Sir Richard Napier, as well as the eight other major landowners and the rector.48 Immediately after enclosure there was a larger proportion of pastoral land use, most likely caused by the disruption brought about by the alteration of land and a decline in population.49 Furthermore, in the fifteen years after enclosure, Reed states that the parish was transformed, with new hedges, ditches, roads, and closes.50 Mortgage documents in this 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

BuCRO D/U/2/3–6; BuCRO D/U/2/17. Reed, ‘Enclosure in North Buckinghamshire, 1500–1750’. Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’. Thirsk and Cooper, Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents, p. 144. Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’. Reed, ‘Enclosure in North Buckinghamshire’. Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’. BuCRO D/U/12. Williamson, Liddiard, and Partida, Champion. Reed, ‘Enclosure in North Buckinghamshire’. BuCRO D/U1/48/1. Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’; Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes. Reed, ‘Enclosure in North Buckinghamshire’.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Figure 5.14. Reconstruction of the 1641 estate map. Figure after Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes.

period demonstrate this, as they document the creation of new fields and the reallocation of land parcels. They also highlight the predominance of pasture after 1657, as grazing was most likely maintained until land was redesignated.51 A second estate map (Fig. 5.15) was produced in 1678 by the new chief landlord, Sir William Pritchard, which shows the change in the parish twenty years after enclosure. This illustration shows the newly created closes, as well as the striking lack of common grazing to the south of the village. Historical sources suggest that livestock was still an important aspect of the parish economy by this time, though mixed farming had probably been re-established.52 By 1700,

51 Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’. 52 Blackmore, ‘The Enclosure’.

119

120

ta m syn f r as e r

Figure 5.15. Reconstruction of the 1678 estate map. Figure after Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes.

Great Linford is described as a ‘very modern estate by the prevailing standards of the area; totally enclosed, with a varied and up-to-date pattern of farming’.53

Discussion Based on previous urban and high-status case studies, outlined above, an increase in late medieval livestock size seemed clear from around the fifteenth century. This apparent improvement of animals associated with an increase in size is supported by numerous historical sources, some listed by Simon Davis, which

53 Croft and Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

suggest that larger animals were perceived as better by late medieval farmers as they produced a greater profit.54 As highlighted by Gervase Markham, this would certainly have been the case for livestock exploited for meat or traction, as a larger body size would have provided a higher meat yield and greater traction capability.55 This size change may have been caused by a number of factors, and it is not always easy to distinguish between environmental causes, such as improved nutrition, or a change in breeding strategy. The change in tooth size documented by Albarella and Davis at Launceston Castle points towards a genetic change in the population.56 Whether this genetic change was due to local selective breeding or the introduction of new stock from elsewhere is unclear, though there are several references to imported stock; for example, a pied strain of cattle displaying the large bodies characteristic of Dutch origin were present in England by the seventeenth century, and there is evidence for the import of large cattle with a high milk yield to Lincolnshire at a similar time.57 Evidence is also present for the introduction of rams and bulls from elsewhere by the seventeenth century.58 This previously documented size change does not seem immediately apparent at Great Linford. Neither tooth or postcranial cattle measurements change significantly between the late and post-medieval periods, suggesting a continuation of husbandry and breeding strategy in the parish. Evidence for post-medieval size change in sheep is also minimal at Great Linford, even where a more detailed chronological assessment is possible. In contrast to urban case studies, there is evidence for a decrease in sheep bone length after the sixteenth century, perhaps even suggesting a decrease in sheep size. It may be that the increased importance of the wool trade in Britain from the thirteenth century onwards promoted a more specialized sheep exploitation at Great Linford.59 Any improvement of sheep may have focused on increasing wool quality rather than animal size, and thus not led to greater animal size. However, historical accounts of the county do not fully support this — John Mortimer stated that, while specialized wool exploitation did lead to smaller animals in some cases, the Buckinghamshire sheep used to produce wool were ‘large boned’.60 Another indicator of improvement may be a change in herd age profiles, as animals were selected to be faster-growing and therefore produce meat more rapidly.61 This may have particularly been the case for cattle, as from around the fifteenth century there is evidence for a greater demand for meat, particularly veal.62 In both late and post-medieval phases at Great Linford the

54 Davis, ‘British Agriculture’. 55 Markham, Cheape and Goode Husbandry. 56 Albarella and Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle’. 57 Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700. 58 Clifford Darby, ‘The Age of the Improver: 1600–1800’. 59 Albarella, ‘Size, Power, Wool and Veal’. 60 Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry. 61 Thomas, ‘Zooarchaeology, Improvement and the British Agricultural Revolution’. 62 Albarella, ‘Size, Power, Wool and Veal’.

121

1 22

ta m syn f r as e r

majority of cattle remains are adult or elderly, suggesting that most animals were kept for draught purposes, as well as breeding stock to ensure herd survival. After the sixteenth century there seems to be a slight increase in juvenile and subadult material. This might reflect a shift to veal production, and potentially the selection of faster-growing animals, albeit the change is not as marked as that on urban and high-status sites like Exeter, Norwich, and Launceston Castle.63 It is therefore more likely that cattle at Great Linford were still exploited for secondary products, including traction, but herds were subject to a faster turnover in the post-medieval period. It is possible that the apparent lack of change in animal size and age at death at Great Linford is due to its rural location, and a different livestock management strategy compared to urban sites. By the late medieval period rural parishes were increasingly required to supply the growing urban populations with food, meaning that livestock was increasingly driven to urban centres to be slaughtered and butchered.64 According to Edward Lisle, it was possible to drive sheep and cattle fifty miles without losing much of their weight.65 This makes the fifty-mile journey from Great Linford to the nearest urban centre of London feasible with livestock for market. Michael Reed argues that, particularly after enclosure, Great Linford was farmed by a number of prosperous tenants who were not closely linked to the parish, but instead were butchers, graziers, and dairymen whose main incentive was supplying the London market.66 Perhaps then, any improvement at Great Linford after the sixteenth century is not evident as it was limited to the animals destined for the London meat market which would produce a greater yield and therefore profit. This could explain why the larger animals seen so clearly in urban case studies are not present in the rural parish and could also serve to exaggerate the size of animals in post-medieval towns. This may also explain the relative lack of juvenile livestock mortality at Great Linford, especially in the post-medieval period, as these animals were driven to urban centres to be butchered, leaving adult individuals in the parish to continue breeding. It is therefore possible that the faunal remains recorded from Great Linford represent non-meat herds remaining in the parish, which did not undergo the same size increase as meat-producing animals. This movement of livestock makes the assessment of the effects of enclosure on animal management and improvement more problematic, as it reduces our ability to identify when change may have occurred. There was clearly a significant change in terms of land organization and ownership at Great Linford in a relatively short space of time, but what effects, if any, did this have 63 Maltby, ‘The Animal Bones from Exeter’; Albarella, Beech, and Mulville, The Saxon, Medieval, and Post-Medieval Mammal and Bird Bones Excavated 1989–91 from Castle Mall, Norwich, Norfolk; Albarella and Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle’. 64 Thomas, Holmes, and Morris, ‘“So Bigge as Bigge May Be”’. 65 Lisle, Observations in Husbandry. 66 Reed, ‘Enclosure in North Buckinghamshire, 1500–1750’.

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

on the management of livestock? It has been argued that enclosure and the abolition of common grazing rights prompted the improvement of livestock in a number of ways. Firstly, it could have allowed for greater control over nutrition, breeding, and disease. As Phillip Armitage states, in open field areas ‘good and indifferent stock were allowed to mingle on the common pasture’, preventing the control of breeding and selection for specific characteristics such as size.67 The reduction of communal regulations with enclosure probably meant that farmers were more able to react to market demands and implement new husbandry methods or the introduction of new stock. This may have prompted the selection of larger or faster-growing animals. Finally, enclosure was often accompanied by the conversion of land to pasture. This increase in the abundance of pasture may have allowed livestock access to prime grazing, rather than marginal and overgrazed land, potentially increasing their size.68 Identifying these links archaeologically is more problematic, as it relies on detailed contemporaneous landscape and zooarchaeological data. In this respect, Great Linford is a useful case study as maps drawn up immediately before and after enclosure provide an indication of changes brought about by this landscape management change; however, a detailed chronological assessment of zooarchaeological evidence before and after enclosure is not always possible due to sample size. This study was not able to identify the consequences of enclosure in the parish, due to lack of chronological resolution and the possible effects of the meat trade. We can postulate that the removal of common grazing and large-scale conversion to pasture evident in historical records significantly altered livestock management practices. This analysis provides a warning about the nature of the archaeological evidence which, we must remember, does not always reflect what occurred locally, as sites were often part of a complex network of trade activities. The evidence from Great Linford is complementary to that deriving from net-consumer sites, such as towns, and should be interpreted in that light.

Conclusion Overall, the metric assessment and evaluation of herd structures of cattle and sheep at Great Linford do not demonstrate the same change seen on urban and high-status sites in the late to post-medieval transition, particularly around the sixteenth century. While this pattern could represent a lack of livestock improvement, it is more likely a result of trade to larger urban centres like London, where the size of animals is exaggerated by an influx of improved individuals. This exchange of animals could mask the effects of enclosure on

67 Armitage, A Preliminary Description of British Cattle from the Late 12th to the Early 16th Century. 68 Thomas, Holmes, and Morris, ‘“So Bigge as Bigge May Be”’.

123

124

ta m syn f r as e r

livestock management in a county where the reshaping of land ownership was already underway in the sixteenth century and was likely having an effect on the management of animal nutrition and breeding. Similar assessments of the mechanisms of enclosure and livestock change on other rural sites in England are currently underway, in order to establish whether this pattern is the same for all areas of animal production in the late to post-medieval transition. This information will then be compared to nearby urban centres to evaluate the hypothesis put forward by this study. This will provide a greater understanding of the timing of livestock improvement in England in relation to the agricultural developments occurring in the sixteenth century, and the role of rural areas in the supply of food to urban sites.

Acknowledgements This work is based on part of the author’s PhD thesis, which was funded by a WRoCAH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership, and carried out in collaboration with Historic England. Thanks go to the author’s supervisors Umberto Albarella, Polydora Baker, Andrew Lowere, and David McOmish for their support and patience. Finally, thanks to Brett Thorn at the Buckinghamshire County Museum for access to the Great Linford faunal material.

Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire County Records Office (BuCRO), D/U/1/103/1 ———, D/U/1/104/3 ———, D/U/2/17 ———, D/U/2/3–6 ———, D/U/12 ———, D/U1/48/1

Secondary Works Albarella, Umberto, ‘Size, Power, Wool and Veal: Zooarchaeological Evidence for Late Medieval Innovations’, Environment and Subsistence in Medieval Europe, 9 (1997), 19–30 Albarella, Umberto, Mark Beech, Julie Curl, Alison Locker, Marta Moreno García, and Jacqui Mulville, Norwich Castle Excavations and Historical Survey, 1987–98, iii: A Zooarchaeological Study, East Anglian Archaeology Occasional Papers, 22 (Norwich: Historic Environment Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, 2009)

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Albarella, Umberto, Mark J. Beech, and Jacqui Mulville, The Saxon, Medieval, and Post-Medieval Mammal and Bird Bones Excavated 1989–91 from Castle Mall, Norwich, Norfolk, Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report, 72/97 (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, 1997) Albarella, Umberto, and Simon J. M. Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle, Cornwall: Decline in Status and the Rise of Agriculture’, Circaea, 12 (1996), 1–26 Albarella, Umberto, and Sebastian Payne, ‘Neolithic Pigs from Durrington Walls, Wiltshire, England: A Biometrical Database’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 32 (2005), 589–99 Armitage, Phillip L., A Preliminary Description of British Cattle from the Late 12th to the Early 16th Century, Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report, 3131 (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, 1980) Beckett, John V., The Agricultural Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) Blackmore, Elizabeth, ‘The Enclosure’, in Great Linford, ed. by Dennis C. Mynard and Robert J. Zeepvat, Monograph Series, 3 (Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, 1991), pp. 33–42 Boessneck, Joachim, ‘Osteological Differences between Sheep (Ovis aries Linné) and Goat (Capra hircus Linné)’, in Science in Archaeology: A Survey of Progress and Research, ed. by Don Brothwell and Eric Higgs (London: Thames and Hudson, 1969), pp. 331–58 Chambers, Jonathan D., and Gordon E. Mingay, The Agricultural Revolution, 1750–1880 (London: Batsford, 1966) Clark, Gregory, ‘Labour Productivity in English Agriculture, 1300–1860’, in Land, Labour and Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity, ed. by Bruce M. S. Campbell and Mark Overton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp. 209–31 Clifford Darby, Henry, ‘The Age of the Improver: 1600–1800’, in A New Historical Geography of England, ed. by Henry Clifford Darby (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 302–88 Croft, R. A., and Dennis C. Mynard, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Archaeological Society Monograph Series, 5 (Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, 1993) Davis, Simon J. M., Prudhoe Castle: A Report on the Animal Remains, Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report, 162/87 (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, 1987) ———, Faunal Remains from Closegate I and II, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, 1988 and 1990 Excavations, Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report, 81/91 (London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, 1991) ———, ‘Measurements of a Group of Adult Female Shetland Sheep Skeletons from a Single Flock: A Baseline for Zooarchaeologists’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 23 (1996), 593–612 ———, ‘British Agriculture: Texts for the Zoo-Archaeologist’, Environmental Archaeology, 7 (2002), 47–60

125

1 26

ta m syn f r as e r

Davis, Simon J. M., and John V. Beckett, ‘Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Improvement: The Archaeological Evidence from Animal Bones and Teeth’, Rural History, 10 (1999), 1–17 Driesch, Angela von den, A Guide to the Measurement of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites (Harvard: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1976) Grant, Annie, ‘The Use of Tooth Wear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic Ungulates’, in Ageing and Sexing Bones from Archaeological Sites, ed. by Bob Wilson, Caroline Grigson, and Sebastian Payne, British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 109 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1982), pp. 91–108 ———, ‘Animal Resources’, in The Countryside of Medieval England, ed. by Grenville Astill and Annie Grant (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), pp. 149–87 Grau Sologestoa, Idoia, and Umberto Albarella, ‘The “Long” Sixteenth Century: A Key Period of Animal Husbandry Change in England’, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 11 (2019), 2781–2803 Halstead, Paul, Patricia Collins, and Valasia Isaakidou, ‘Sorting the Sheep from the Goats: Morphological Distinctions between the Mandibles and Mandibular Teeth of Adult Ovis and Capra’, Journal of Archaeological Sciences, 29 (2002), 545–53 Holmes, Jonathan M., ‘Report on the Animal Bones from the Resonance Chambers of the Whitefriars Church, Coventry’, in ‘Finds from the Free Grammar School at the Whitefriars, Coventry, c. 1545–1557-58’, ed. by Charmian Woodfield, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 15 (1981), 81–159 Johnstone, Cluny, and Umberto Albarella, The Late Iron Age and Romano-British Mammal and Bird Bone Assemblage from Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex, Centre for Archaeology Report, 45 (London: English Heritage, 2002) Jones, Eric L., ‘Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1660–1750: Agricultural Change’, The Journal of Economic History, 25 (1965), 1–18 Kerridge, Eric, The Agricultural Revolution (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967) Kratochvil, Zdeněk, ‘Species Criteria on the Distal Section of the Tibia in Ovis Ammon F. Aries and Capra Aegagrus F. Hircus L.’, Acta veterinaria (Brno), 38 (1969), 483–90 Lisle, Edward, Observations in Husbandry (London: J. Hughs, 1757) Maltby, Mark, The Animal Bones from Exeter: 1971–1975, Exeter Archaeological Reports, 2 (Huddersfield: Charlesworth, 1979) Markham, Gervase, Cheape and Goode Husbandry (London: Thomas Harper, 1653) Meadow, Richard H., ‘The Use of Size Index Scaling Techniques for Research on Archaeozoological Collections from the Middle East’, in Historia animalium ex ossibus: Beiträge zur Paläoanatomie, Archäologie, Ethnologie und Geschichte der Tiermedizin; Festschrift für Angela von den Driesch (Rahden: Leidorf, 1999), pp. 285–300 Mortimer, John, The Whole Art of Husbandry (London: J. H. for H. Mortlock, 1712) Mynard, Dennis C., and Robert J. Zeepvat, eds, Great Linford, Monograph Series, 3 (Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, 1991) O’Connor, Terry, Bones from the General Accident Site, Tanner Row, London (London: Council for British Archaeology, 1988)

L i ve s to c k I m p rove m e n t an d Land scape Enc lo su re

Overton, Mark, ‘Agricultural Revolution? Development of the Agrarian Economy in Early Modern England’, in Explorations in Historical Geography: Interpretative Essays, ed. by Alan R. H. Baker and Derek Gregory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 118–39 ———, ‘Re-establishing the English Agricultural Revolution’, The Agricultural History Review, 44 (1996), 1–20 Overton, Mark, and Bruce M. S. Campbell, ‘Productivity Change in European Agricultural Development’, in Land, Labour and Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity, ed. by Bruce M. S. Campbell and Mark Overton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp. 1–50 Payne, Sebastian, ‘A Metrical Distinction between Sheep and Goat Metacarpals’, in The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, ed. by Peter Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby (London: Duckworth, 1969), pp. 295–305 ———, ‘Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from Aşvan Kale’, Anatolian Studies, 23 (1973), 281–303 ———, ‘Morphological Distinctions between the Mandibular Teeth of Young Sheep, Ovis, and Goats, Capra’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 12 (1985), 139–47 Payne, Sebastian, and Gail Bull, ‘Components of Variation in Measurements of Pig Bones and Teeth, and the Use of Measurements to Distinguish Wild from Domestic Pig Remains’, Archaeozoologia, 2 (1988), 27–66 Prummel, Wietske, and Hans-Jörg Frisch, ‘A Guide for the Distinction of Species, Sex, and Body Side in Bones of Sheep and Goat’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 13 (1986), 567–77 Pryor, Francis, The Making of the British Landscape (London: Penguin, 2011) Reed, Michael, ‘Enclosure in North Buckinghamshire, 1500–1750’, The Agriculture History Review, 32 (1984), 133–44 Rippon, Stephen, Making Sense of an Historic Landscape (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) Salvagno, Lenny, and Umberto Albarella, ‘A Morphometric System to Distinguish Sheep and Goat Postcranial Bones’, PLOS ONE, 12.6 (2017), 1–37 Simpson, George G., Anne Roe, and Richard C. Lewontin, Quantitative Zoology (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960) Thirsk, Joan, and John P. Cooper, Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) Thomas, Richard, ‘Zooarchaeology, Improvement and the British Agricultural Revolution’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 9 (2005), 71–88 Thomas, Richard, Matilda Holmes, and James Morris, ‘“So Bigge as Bigge May Be”: Tracking Size and Shape Change in Domestic Livestock in London (ad 1220–1900)’, Journal of Archaeological Sciences, 40 (2013), 3309–25 Trow-Smith, Robert, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957) Williamson, Tom, Robert Liddiard, and Tracey Partida, Champion: The Making and Unmaking of the English Midland Landscape (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013)

127

1 28

ta m syn f r as e r

Zeder, Melinda A., and Heather A. Lapham, ‘Assessing the Reliability of Criteria Used to Identify Postcranial Bones in Sheep, Ovis, and Goats, Capra’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 37 (2010), 2887–2905 Zeder, Melinda A., and Suzanne E. Pilaar, ‘Assessing the Reliability of Criteria Used to Identify Mandibles and Mandibular Teeth in Sheep, Ovis, and Goats, Capra’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 37 (2010), 225–42

Ido ia Grau Solo g e s toa and U mberto Albarella

Improvements in Animal Husbandry between the End of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era in England and the Basque Country: A Zooarchaeological Comparison A b str act  Although many historians have extensively discussed the agricultural history of Europe between the late Middle Ages and the modern era, this period of crucial changes has received less attention from archaeologists. In this paper, zooarchaeological evidence from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period is studied to investigate evidence for improvements in animal husbandry during the ‘long’ sixteenth century. The size and shape of the principal domestic animals (cattle, sheep, pig, and chicken) are explored through biometrical data and integrated with evidence of taxonomic frequencies, age-at-death, and sex ratios. Evidence from twelve English sites and nine Basque sites is compared. The results show that in England a remarkable size increase of animals occurred throughout the post-medieval period, with much of this improvement occurring in the sixteenth century. In the Basque Country, a slight improvement is attested only during the ‘long’ sixteenth century, while in the following centuries the size of the animals decreased, perhaps in relation to the economic crisis that affected the Iberian Peninsula for much of the seventeenth century. The nature and causes of these changes and the different scenarios characterizing the two countries are discussed with the aim of understanding the development of early modern farming and the foundations of the so-called Agricultural Revolution.

T

Keywo r d s  Biometry, domestic livestock, Britain, Iberian Peninsula, post-medieval, innovations

T

Idoia Grau Sologestoa    Integrative Prähistorische und Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie (IPNA), Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, [email protected] Umberto Albarella    Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, [email protected] The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 129–155 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127108

130

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Introduction The sixteenth century is a key period in our understanding of the history of animal husbandry. It characterizes the beginning of the modern era, and therefore the time when new strategies that led to the onset of contemporary farming began to be developed. While one would have thought it should be a priority area of investigation in archaeology, it has notoriously been neglected. Perhaps this is because it is often considered too recent to be of interest for a discipline predominantly engaged with our more distant past. Additionally, historical evidence tends to become more abundant as we move towards more recent times, leading to the entirely flawed assumption that archaeology would then become redundant. In the last few decades, this attitude has, fortunately, begun to change, and a greater emphasis has been placed on post-medieval zooarchaeology, not just comparing it with the zooarchaeology of the Middle Ages, but also as an interesting period in itself.1 Awareness of the value of integrating archaeological and historical evidence has also increased based on the understanding that the two disciplines provide different, rather than duplicate, insights into the past. Such positive developments have, however, occurred rather unevenly across Europe (and the rest of the world), with the archaeological study of post-medieval husbandry remaining virtually an unknown entity in several geographic areas. Conversely, although some early pioneering work was carried out by Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau in the 1990s in France,2 England has arguably been at the forefront of such change in attitude, producing a reasonably rich literature on the subject.3 Though this is positive, the relative lack of parallel progress made in other countries has meant that the study of English early modern husbandry developments has suffered from a certain degree of isolation. This is unfortunate, because some of the analysed historical phenomena, such as the development of modern livestock breeds, the industrialization of meat and dairy production, and livestock trade, occurred at a broad geographic scale. In the last few years, a greater awareness of the importance of the archaeology of the modern period has, however, begun to emerge also on the European mainland4 and the opportunity for interregional comparison has improved, though it is destined to remain in its infancy for a few more





1 Cf. Thomas, ‘Bones of Contention’. 2 For example: Audoin-Rouzeau, ‘La taille du bœuf ’, ‘La taille du mouton’, or ‘Compter et mesurer les os animaux’. 3 E.g. Albarella and Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle’; Davis, ‘The Agricultural Revolution in England’; Davis and Beckett, ‘Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Improvement’; Thomas, ‘Zooarchaeology, Improvement and the British Agricultural Revolution’; Albarella, ‘Size, Power, Wool and Veal’. 4 E.g. Ervynck and Van Neer, ‘Beef, Pork and Mutton’; Tourunen, ‘Animals in an Urban Context’.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

years. In particular, recent work carried out in the Basque Country (Iberian Peninsula), has produced the kind of data that are needed to place the English evidence in its broader context. The amount of Basque data available is still limited, but sufficient to make some initial comparisons worthwhile. With time, these datasets will improve in quantity, quality, and diversity, thus making any regional comparison more significant. Despite it being early days, it is, we feel, necessary to get the process started, so that well-informed working hypotheses can be proposed, with the aim to stimulate future research. This paper, therefore, compares the English and Basque zooarchaeological evidence with the aim of understanding changes in animal husbandry during the ‘long’ sixteenth century. It focuses primarily on livestock size, as this is a line of evidence that is well suited to interregional analyses. The emphasis of the research is to understand husbandry innovations that characterized the transition from medieval to modern times, which are likely to have included changes in livestock size and shape. It is well known that perceived ‘improvements’ in animal types led to size increase and changes in husbandry strategies.5 The key questions that we address are: – Were animal size and husbandry strategies during the ‘long’ sixteenth century in England and the Basque Country comparable? – How do the processes of change that we see at the transition between medieval and modern times compare between the two regions? The overall aim of those questions is the understanding of the degree of globalization and/or localization of the husbandry developments that occurred in Europe after the end of the Middle Ages. Additionally, we want to gain better insights into the differences that existed between different contemporary European communities, and how and to what extent livestock played a role in shaping them.

Materials and Methods In the framework of a research project looking at changes in animal husbandry between the late Middle Ages and the early post-medieval period, the faunal remains recovered from a number of English6 and Basque7 sites were recently analysed or reanalysed (Fig. 6.1). Attention was paid to biometrical data of the main four domestic species (cattle, sheep, pig, and chicken).8 Some brief

5 6 7 8

Albarella, ‘Size Matters’. Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” 16th Century’. Grau Sologestoa, ‘Livestock Size Change and Animal Husbandry’. Horse remains are too scarce to be considered. Goat was excluded from the analysis when it was identified, and in both regions goats were very infrequent — more infrequent in England than in the Basque Country —, so the large majority of the caprine remains

131

13 2

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.1. Location of the sites in the Basque Country (left) and England (right). Map by authors.

comments will be given in this section in order to explain the basic methods used in our analysis; however, we would like to draw the readers’ attention to the original publications9 of these datasets for further details on the zooarchaeological methods used for the recording and analysis of these assemblages. In this paper, biometrical evidence for these four taxa will be analysed from a comparative perspective, focusing on the comparison between the two geographic areas. The biometrical evidence that we present relies upon a scaling technique that involves using log ratios of size measurements.10 This method increases the sample size and allows direct comparison between measurements,11 by relating them to a standard individual or the mean of a given population.12 To do so, the decimal logarithm of the ratio between the measurement and its standard needs to be calculated. Only a selection of measurements was considered for the analyses based on the log ratio technique. The parts of the skeleton that were chosen are those that are especially common in archaeological assemblages as they tend to preserve well. Also, the chosen measurements can be easily defined and taken, and are well suited for comparing measurements taken by different people. Finally, these measurements show a relatively low degree of sexual dimorphism and



9

10 11 12

considered here belong to sheep. In any case, the inclusion of a few goat measurements to a sample largely predominated by sheep does not affect the observed patterns in any significant way. Details in Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” 16th Century’ and Grau Sologestoa, ‘Livestock Size Change and Animal’. Simpson, ‘The Large Pleistocene Felines of North America’. Meadow, ‘The Use of Size Index Scaling Techniques’ and Albarella, ‘Size Matters’. Payne and Bull, ‘Components of Variation in Measurements’.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

show little or no change with the age of the animal.13 In this study our priority was to investigate morphometric differences between livestock types, rather than the identification of age and sex groups, though these must be taken into account in the interpretation, as changes in sex ratios and age patterns can generate apparent changes in size. There is better correlation between measurements taken along the same axis than between those on different axes14 and, ideally, only measurements taken in the same plane should be combined, making sure that only one measurement per bone is considered. Lengths, widths, and depths have therefore been plotted separately. Bones with fused and fusing epiphyses, but not unfused, are included in the analysis. The inclusion of fusing bones may result in a potential bias in the size patterns, as some fusing bones may still be in the process of growth; however, their number was small and therefore they are unlikely to have produced any substantial effect on the observed patterns. The set of standard measurements used for cattle, sheep, and chicken have been calculated from our own data from The Shires (England) dated to the fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries.15 For the biometrical analysis of pig postcranial and tooth measurements, the standards are those derived from Late Neolithic Durrington Walls.16 One important aspect to consider for the interpretation of the results presented here is the very diverse sample sizes from England (where almost 17,600 measurements were collected), and the Basque Country (with just over 1200) (Table 6.1).17 Due to the much smaller number of measurements at our disposal from the Basque Country, the results of this analysis must be considered cautiously, although they still provide valuable insights into an unexplored topic. The data have been divided into three periods for comparative purposes: late Middle Ages (roughly, thirteenth–fifteenth centuries ad), transition (mid-fifteenth–mid-seventeenth centuries ad, i.e. our ‘long’ sixteenth century), and the modern era (mid-seventeenth–nineteenth centuries ad). In order to test the statistical significance of the patterns observed through descriptive statistics, detailed analyses were carried out, both for changes through time and for differences between the two geographical regions. Data were found to be non-normally distributed. For this reason, we performed Mann-Whitney U-tests adjusted using the Bonferroni correction. For the sake of simplicity, the precise results will not be reported, but summaries of the

13 Payne and Bull, ‘Components of Variation in Measurements’; Davis, ‘Measurements of a Group of Adult Female Shetland Sheep’; Davis, ‘The Effect of Castration and Age on the Development of the Shetland Sheep’; Popkin and others, ‘The Sheep Project (1)’. 14 Davis, ‘Measurements of a Group of Adult Female Shetland Sheep’. 15 Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” 16th Century’. 16 Albarella and Payne, ‘Neolithic Pigs from Durrington Walls’. 17 The raw biometrical data used here will not be provided, because they have been already published elsewhere. Please see the original publications of these datasets: Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” 16th Century’ and references therein, and Grau Sologestoa, ‘Livestock Size Change and Animal Husbandry’.

133

134

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

statistical significance of the differences will be provided wherever appropriate, as follows: ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant. England

Late Middle Ages

Postcranial length Postcranial Cattle width Postcranial depth Postcranial length Postcranial Sheep width Postcranial depth Tooth length Tooth width Postcranial Pig width Postcranial length Postcranial length Postcranial Chicken width Postcranial depth TOTAL

Basque Country

Cattle

Sheep

Postcranial length Postcranial width Postcranial depth Postcranial length Postcranial width Postcranial depth

Transition Modern Era TOTAL

520

515

253

1124

901

821

389

497

156

441

765

448

1219

2162

1347

222

617

151

246 368 71

151 225 57

55 94 50

114

71

49

530

552

263

806

541

124

309

282

64

6359

7336

3875

Late Middle Ages

5176

7372

1551

3471

17,570

Transition Modern Era TOTAL

45

24

12

76

36

23

36

24

14

47

32

44

96

109

42

57

74

24

290

591

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Basque Country Tooth length Tooth width All postcranial Postcranial length Chicken Postcranial width TOTAL Pig

Late Middle Ages

Transition Modern Era TOTAL

38 43 31 23

20 24 11 16

16 18 12 9

28

25

12

558

429

238

213

131 1225

Table 6.1. Number of measurements considered for each axis, animal species, and period.

Results Recent biometric analyses have already discussed the interesting trends observed in the size of cattle, sheep, pig, and chicken between the late Middle Ages and the modern era in the Basque Country18 and in England.19 Here, differences between the two geographical regions are discussed. It must be noted that age and sex variation can affect biometric trends, but this has already been discussed in the original papers dealing with individual regions and discarded as one of the main reasons behind the observed patterns. For the specific, technical discussion of how these variables affected the datasets, the reader is therefore referred to this original literature. Cattle

Figures 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4 show the log ratios of cattle postcranial bones (lengths, widths, and depths) from the Basque Country and from England, arranged chronologically according to three phases: the late Middle Ages, transition, and modern era. Basque cattle became larger during the transition period, and then decreased in size after the seventeenth century, according to the evidence provided by the three postcranial axes, although it is not statistically significant (Table 6.2), probably due to the small sample size. On the other hand, English cattle increased in size throughout the period considered here, based on the evidence provided by the three axes, and this increase is, statistically, very highly significant. More detailed analyses have been ca rried out comparing some linear measurements of cattle astragali in a scatter plot (Fig. 6.5), as this is the element that has provided the largest number of measurements. The graphs 18 Grau Sologestoa, ‘Livestock Size Change and Animal Husbandry’. 19 Grau Sologestoa and Albarella, ‘The “Long” 16th Century’.

135

1 36

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.2. Box plot showing the log ratios of cattle postcranial lengths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

Figure 6.3. Box plot showing the log ratios of cattle postcranial widths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Figure 6.4. Box plot showing the log ratios of cattle postcranial depths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

show a progressive increase in cattle size through time in England while, in contrast Basque cattle seem to become slightly smaller by the modern era, although the limited number of measurements dated to the transition period makes it difficult to establish when this size decrease happened. It is also interesting to see that late medieval Basque cattle plot, in general, at the upper end of the range of late medieval English cattle. Overall, these more detailed analyses corroborate the pattern observed through the log ratio size index scaling technique. On average, Basque late medieval and transitional cattle were larger than English cattle from the same periods, though only marginally so in length. They were also more robust, with width and depth measurements being much larger than those of English cattle, especially in the late medieval period, as is statistically proven for that period (Table 6.3). By the modern era, English cattle were larger than Basque ones, in all dimensions, although this is statistically significant only for cattle postcranial widths.20 This change is a consequence of both the size decrease in the Basque Country and the size increase in England.

20 The alpha value comparing Basque and English cattle postcranial depths in the modern era is very close to being statistically significant: p value 0.055.

137

138

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.5. Scatter plots comparing the cattle astragalus measurements (greatest length of the lateral half, GLl, and greatest breadth of the distal end, Bd) during the late Middle Ages (left), the transition period (centre), and modern era (right). Figure by authors.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

 

Basque Country

1 39

England

 

Late Middle Ages– Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Lengths Widths Depths

Increase Increase Similar/increase

Decrease Decrease Decrease

Late Middle Ages– Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Increase*** Increase*** Increase***

Increase*** Increase*** Increase***

Table 6.2. Summary of the changes in size of cattle postcranial measurements. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

 

Lengths Widths Depths

Late Middle Ages Basque Country vs England

Transition Basque Country vs England

Modern Era Basque Country vs England

Basque larger * Basque larger *** Basque larger ***

Basque larger Basque larger Basque larger

English larger English larger * English larger

Table 6.3. Summary of the differences in size of cattle postcranial measurements between the Basque Country and England, in different time periods. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

Sheep

The box plots with the log ratios of sheep postcranial length, width, and depth measurements are shown in Figures 6.6, 6.7, and 6.8. respectively. The three axes show the same pattern as cattle. In the Basque Country sheep increased in size during the transition period and decreased in the modern era. On the other hand, English sheep increased in size throughout the period considered here. Table 6.4 summarizes the changes in sheep size and shows their statistical significance. The situation for England is the same as for cattle, with significant size increase for all three dimensions in both transitions. For the Basque Country, though the trend is also similar to that observed for cattle, the size increase between the late medieval and transition periods can be more solidly demonstrated as they are supported by statistical significance for both widths and depths.21 More detailed analyses have been carried out considering only the most common sheep anatomical element: the astragalus. When comparing some linear measurements of sheep astragali in a scatter plot (Fig. 6.9), it appears quite evident that, although all sheep increased in size in both geographical

21 The alpha value for Basque sheep postcranial lengths between the late Middle Ages and the transition period is very close to being statistically significant: p value 0.059.

140

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.6. Box plot showing the log ratios of sheep postcranial lengths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

Figure 6.7. Box plot showing the log ratios of sheep postcranial widths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

141

Figure 6.8. Box plot showing the log ratios of sheep postcranial depths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

    Lengths Widths Depths

Basque Country

England

Late Middle Ages–Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Late Middle Ages– Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Increase Increase** Increase*

Decrease Decrease Decrease

Increase*** Increase*** Increase***

Increase*** Increase*** Increase***

Table 6.4. Summary of the changes in size of sheep postcranial measurements. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

 

Lengths Widths Depths

Late Middle Ages Basque Country vs England

Transition Basque Country vs England

Modern Era Basque Country vs England

Basque larger *** Basque larger *** Basque larger ***

Basque larger *** Basque larger *** Basque larger ***

Basque larger * Similar Similar

Table 6.5. Summary of the differences in size of sheep postcranial measurements between the Basque Country and England, in different time periods. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

142

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.9. Scatter plots comparing the sheep astragalus measurements (greatest length of the lateral half, GLl, and greatest breadth of the distal end, Bd) during the late Middle Ages (left) and in the transition period (right). Figure by authors.

regions between the late Middle Ages and the transition period, Basque sheep were on average much larger than the English ones in both time periods shown in this figure; unfortunately, there are insufficient biometrical data for the modern era to produce a similar graph for that period.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Sheep from the Basque Country are, on average, much larger than the English ones throughout the periods considered here, and this is supported by statistical analyses (Table 6.5). English sheep only reached a size comparable to that of the Basque animals as late as the modern era, particularly concerning their robustness; the results show that modern Basque sheep were still slightly taller than their English counterparts, which is also statistically supported. Pig

Pig postcranial bones are not very well represented, due to their young average age, but for this species we can also rely on dental measurements. Figures 6.10 and 6.11 show the log ratios for pig tooth lengths and widths, respectively. Pig tooth lengths (Fig. 6.10) remained quite similar in size in the Basque Country during the periods considered here; if anything, a slight decrease is visible, especially for the modern era. Pig tooth widths (Fig. 6.11) recorded in the Basque Country, again, do not seem to change much throughout the period considered here, but there is a very slight increase of the average values for the modern era. In any case, none of these slight changes observed for Basque pig teeth are statistically significant (Table 6.6). In England, pig teeth increased both in length and width in the transition period and decreased in the modern era, perhaps in connection with the shortening of the snout, a trait commonly found in many modern-day pig breeds.22 The evidence is very different for pig postcranial measurements (only lengths and widths), which have been plotted all together — to enhance sample size, as the Basque evidence is quite limited — in the box plots in Figure 6.12. The figure shows, for the Basque Country, a very similar pattern to that observed for the other animals in this geographical area: an increase in size during the transition period, followed by a size decrease in the modern era, while English pigs increased in size mainly in the transition period and only very marginally in the modern period. Most of the statistical analyses (Table 6.6) for pig measurements from the Basque Country show that the changes are not statistically significant, but this is almost certainly due to the small sample size and therefore needs verification in the future with more specimens. The exception is the size increase of pig postcranial bones between the late Middle Ages and the transition period, which is significant. The changes that have been highlighted for the English material are invariably supported by statistical testing.

22 Albarella, ‘Pig Husbandry and Pork Consumption in Medieval England’; Albarella and others, ‘The Domestication of the Pig’.

143

144

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

 

Basque Country

  Tooth lengths Tooth widths All postcranial

England

Late Middle Ages–Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Late Middle Ages–Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Similar

Similar/decrease?

Increase***

Decrease*

Similar

Similar/increase?

Increase**

Decrease***

Increase*

Decrease

Increase***

Similar

Table 6.6. Summary of the changes in size of pig measurements. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

When the two geographical regions are compared statistically in the different periods (Table 6.7), there is no clear trend for pigs, but the pattern is certainly different from the one observed for cattle and sheep postcranial bones. The teeth of English pigs appear to be slightly larger, especially before the time of the post-medieval size reduction, but even after that, English pig teeth remained longer in size than those of Basque pigs. There is no statistical significance in the observed differences in pig tooth widths between the two regions in the late Middle Ages and the modern era, although English pigs were again larger than the Basque ones during the transitional period. Evidence from postcranial bones, on the other hand, shows that English pigs were in general larger than Basque pigs, and this is statistically significant during the modern era. Overall, unlike cattle and sheep, Basque pigs were small in comparison to those from England. This is particularly the case for transitional and modern pigs.  

Tooth lengths Tooth widths All postcranial

Late Middle Ages Basque Country vs England

Transition Basque Country vs England

Modern Era Basque Country vs England

English larger *

English larger ***

English larger ***

English larger

English larger *

Basque larger

Similar

English larger

English larger **

Table 6.7. Summary of the differences in size of pig postcranial and tooth measurements between the Basque Country and England, in different time periods. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Figure 6.10. Box plot showing the log ratios of pig tooth lengths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

Figure 6.11. Box plot showing the log ratios of pig tooth widths, for each period/region. Figure by authors.

145

146

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.12. Box plot showing the log ratios of pig postcranial measurements (lengths + widths), for each period/region. Figure by authors.

Figure 6.13. Box plot showing the log ratios of chicken postcranial measurements (lengths + widths), for each period/region. Figure by authors.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

147

Chicken

While English chicken became larger throughout the period considered here, there is no substantial change in the size of Basque chicken, according to their postcranial measurements, plotted all together (only lengths and widths) in Figure 6.13. A slight increase in size is visible for the modern era, but the sample size is small for this period and therefore it must be treated with caution. In fact, the change is not statistically significant (Table 6.8). English chickens increased in size progressively, during all the periods considered here, and this is highly statistically significant. What seems evident is that Basque chickens, like pig, were smaller than the ones from England, and this is confirmed by statistical analysis (Table 6.9). More detailed analyses were carried out on the most frequent chicken bone, the tibiotarsus (Fig. 6.14). These scatter plots show the progressive size increase of English chicken and the smaller size of Basque chickens, throughout the sequence (note, however, the small sample size for the Basque Country).    

Basque Country

England

Late Middle Ages–Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Late Middle Ages–Transition

Transition– Modern Era

Similar

Similar

Increase ***

Increase ***

All postcranial

Table 6.8. Summary of the changes in size of chicken measurements. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

 

All postcranial

Late Middle Ages Basque Country vs England

Transition Basque Country vs England

Modern Era Basque Country vs England

English larger **

English larger ***

English larger ***

Table 6.9. Summary of the differences in size of chicken postcranial measurements between the Basque Country and England, in different time periods. ***, very highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.001); **, highly significant (alpha value ≤ 0.01); *, significant (alpha value ≤ 0.05); without *, not significant statistically.

Discussion The evidence presented above shows that there are some similarities between the nature and development of English and Basque animal husbandry but, all in all, these are overshadowed by differences in the animals’ size and the

1 48

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Figure 6.14. Scatter plots comparing the chicken tibiotarsus measurements (greatest breadth of the distal end, Bd, and depth of the distal end, Dd) during the late Middle Ages (left), the transition period (centre), and modern era (right). Figure by authors.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

processes of change livestock underwent in the early modern period. These differences do not apply to all livestock in the same way. Such a substantial picture of diversity alerts us to the risk of generalization — local conditions and historical processes appear to have had a greater influence than globalized phenomena, such as the general improvement in knowledge and access to new materials and techniques. We must also consider the existence of geographic, climatic, and environmental differences between the two areas, despite the two regions being both characterized by largely temperate and Atlantic conditions (a comparison between England and southern Iberia would have proven to be more problematic). To sum up the evidence, Basque cattle and sheep were larger than English ones, while the opposite is the case for pig and chicken. This generalization of course masks subtler differences: by fully modern times, English sheep had caught up in size with Basque ones, and English cattle had even overtaken their Basque counterparts. The differences between the two regions are obvious when one considers the dynamic processes of chronological change. Cattle and sheep were the mainstay of the animal economy and probably provide the core narrative of husbandry developments. They highlight the importance of the sixteenth century (i.e. the ‘transition’ period) as a period of change and improvement. In both regions, cattle and sheep increase in size, almost certainly as a consequence of a push to maximize yield. Larger, improved animals provide more meat per head and greater traction power and tend to grow faster than more primitive breeds, generating the desired meat output in a shorter time. The significance of such change in the two regions is, however, very different. In England, this size increase provided the basis for further, and more substantial, improvement in later modern times; this means that we can trace back the origins of English modern farming to that period, which seems to have triggered a phenomenon that, largely, became unstoppable in the ensuing centuries. This was not so in the Basque Country, where the size increase of the sixteenth century is followed by a decrease in the later modern era. The improvements of the early post-medieval times were not to be sustained in the following centuries, due to deliberate choice or constraint. This means that contemporary farming in the Basque country did not follow the innovations of the sixteenth century and is rather a product of very late improvements. The small size of the late medieval English domestic ruminants also meant that there was a more urgent need to increase meat output to feed the ever-growing human population.23 This consideration also opens up the question why were cattle and sheep smaller in England in the first place. This is not easy to answer and would require a detailed analysis of the medieval evidence in the two areas, which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, the insular condition of Britain may have played a role, perhaps in addition to a husbandry style that was largely extensive, particularly after the very substantial demographic decrease caused 23 Postan, The Medieval Economy and Society.

149

1 50

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

by the fourteenth-century famines and the Black Death and, consequently, the availability of ample areas of pasture.24 Although similar conditions may have occurred in the Basque Country,25 clearly herders responded to them with different strategies, which led to the keeping of larger livestock. For pig and chicken, the situation appears to be more complex, presumably due to different husbandry regimes used to keep these animals and possibly also due to the different value attached to them in the two regions. For these species too, the sixteenth century was a period of size increase in England, but in the Basque Country that was only the case for pig, while no investment seems to have been made in chicken improvement (not even in the later modern period). This may reflect a lesser value attached to the importance of poultry breeding in the Basque Country, though larger samples will be needed in the future to verify this hypothesis. It is possible that pig and chicken were mainly kept as part of a small-scale rural economy, mostly for self-subsistence. Conversely, cattle and sheep were probably bred also by wealthier landowners or farmers who had the capability to experiment with breeding and feeding techniques and purchase larger breeding stock, in a market-oriented production. As with the other livestock animals, pigs decreased in size in the Basque Country in the later post-medieval period, indicating that in this period a broad and large-scale change in the direction of husbandry strategies took place, though it affected different animals in different ways. There appears to have been a loss of interest in increasing productivity, which may be due to a reduction in demand or to a reorganization of the farming economy; historians have suggested that both factors occurred in the context of the severe economic difficulties that the Basque Country (and most of the Iberian Peninsula) underwent in the seventeenth century (see below).26 In evaluating the size increase in pigs, we must, however, consider, that it only applies, in some cases, to its body mass. Larger and faster-growing pig breeds were probably developed and/or introduced. Tooth size, in fact, decreased in England in the modern era, as an indication of snout shortening and the occurrence of breeds that no longer needed to forage for themselves. Enclosed pigs must have been the norm by then, as opposed to the free-range pigs of earlier times.27 In the sixteenth century we have an intermediate situation, as pigs did increase in size but that affects both teeth and bones. Therefore, in terms of their shape, the sixteenth-century English pigs would not have been very different from medieval ones, but just larger. The more substantial change in pig shape occurs in England after the sixteenth century. The Basque evidence is more ambiguous, but it does also show that changes in postcranial bones and teeth in pigs did not necessarily occur in parallel. 24 Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages. 25 Sobrequés, ‘La Peste Negra en la península ibérica’; Ruiz de Loizaga, La Peste en los reinos peninsulares según documentación del Archivo Vaticano (1348–1460); Castán, La construcción de la idea de la peste negra (1348–1350) como catástrofe demográfica en la historiografía española. 26 Marcos, ‘La “crisis” del siglo XVII’; Sanz, ‘La decadencia económica del siglo XVII’. 27 See also Albarella, ‘Pig Husbandry and Pork Consumption in Medieval England’.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Some simple conclusions can be drawn from the evidence discussed above. First of all, it seems that in both regions the ‘long’ sixteenth century was a period of change and experimentation. There is some variation, not all species are affected equally, and some of the Basque samples are still too small to provide full confidence in the results, but, cumulatively, the evidence appears fairly clear. This is important, because not so long ago, some historical literature would have been reluctant to accept that substantial innovations in farming had occurred so much earlier than the eighteenth-century Agricultural Revolution in England.28 We can now see that not just in England but in Spain too, change was on its way early in the modern era. To evaluate the extent to which such a trend was genuinely global, comparison with other European areas will be needed. After this point in time, the fortunes of the two regions appear to diverge. Demographic increase, trade intensification, and enhanced urbanization probably triggered a process of increased productivity in England, which led to further improvement in livestock types. In the Basque Country, however, we do see a trend in the opposite direction. During the later modern era, the Basque Country, unlike England, underwent a profound recession of all key economic sectors (trade, metallurgy, whaling, and fishing), several epidemics (including one affecting cattle),29 and political and military tensions.30 All these factors probably had important consequences for the demand for agricultural products. Perhaps the observed size decrease in later modern Basque livestock can be explained in this context, combined with the limited interest in innovation that the oligarchies who owned the livestock and the land too perhaps may have had, as discussed elsewhere.31 We must, however, be careful not to interpret these trends in a simplistic, linear, and entirely positivistic fashion. In agricultural terms, ‘improvement’ merely means an increase in yield. This was not necessarily desirable in all situations. To keep relatively small livestock, which required less feed and reduced labour, could have been the best possible response to certain economic and ecological conditions. It could have been an efficient way to deal with the circumstances, which guaranteed long-term economic stability and basic and reliable provision for the population. We must be wary about interpreting a reduction of animal size merely as a regressive step, though it is likely to have been a response to a challenging context.

28 For a discussion on this issue see Kerridge, The Agricultural Revolution; Beckett, The Agricultural Revolution; Albarella and Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle’; Davis, ‘The Agricultural Revolution in England’; Davis and Beckett, ‘Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Improvement’; Thomas, ‘Zooarchaeology, Improvement and the British Agricultural Revolution’. 29 Aragón, ‘Ganadería, transterminancia y trashumancia’, p. 44. 30 Angulo and others, Historia del País Vasco; Marcos, ‘La “crisis” del siglo XVII’; Sanz, ‘La decadencia económica del siglo XVII’. 31 Grau Sologestoa, ‘Livestock Size Change and Animal Husbandry’ and Grau Sologestoa and others, ‘Urban Medieval and Post-Medieval Zooarchaeology in the Basque Country’.

15 1

1 52

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Conclusions In this article we have only begun to scratch the surface of the important question concerning the origins of modern farming in Europe. This is, as far as we are aware, the first contribution that investigates the relevant zooarchaeological evidence in a pan-European perspective. Did modern farming, and animal husbandry in particular, originate as independent strategies in different regions of Europe, or were they part of a broader and interconnected phenomenon of agricultural innovation, which affected much of the continent? How were modern developments in farming adopted in the territories colonized by European countries? We have suggested that a key period of potential change occurred as early as the sixteenth century, but can this be extended to other regions? How interconnected were the strategies adopted in different countries, and to what extent did local social, climatic, and environmental conditions override more global patterns? Answers to these questions are likely to be complex, and we have only started dealing with them from an archaeological perspective. The contribution provided here intends to offer a stimulus to extend the research to other areas and improve the current datasets. To do this, cooperation between researchers from different disciplines, as well as countries, will be essential.

Acknowledgements This research benefited from a post-doctoral grant at the Universities of the Basque Country and Sheffield, awarded to IGS by the Basque Government. It was supported by the project ‘Peasant Agency and Social Complexity in North-Western Iberia in the Medieval Period’ (Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness AEI/FEDER UE HAR2016-76094-C4-2R), the Research Group in Heritage and Cultural Landscapes (Government of the Basque Country, IT931-16), and the Group of Rural Studies (Unidad Asociada UPV/EHU-CSIC). The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology awarded IGS a Research Grant that helped her towards the study of the Basque materials. Umberto Albarella would like to thank the University of Sheffield Learned Society Fund, which facilitated his participation in the EAA conference in Maastricht, where this paper was initially delivered. The authors would like to thank the following colleagues and institutions (in alphabetical order) who helped in various ways: Chiara Corbino, Simon Davis, Sergio Escribano, Matty Holmes, Mark Maltby, David Martínez, Jim Morris, Kostas Sechidis, Sue Stallibrass, Richard Thomas, Lizzie Wright, as well as the following museums: the Museum of London Archaeology, Guildford Museum, The Collection in Lincoln, Leicester Museums, and Arkeologi Museoa Bilbo.

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Works Cited Albarella, Umberto, ‘Size, Power, Wool and Veal: Zooarchaeological Evidence for Late Medieval Innovations’, in Environment and Subsistence in Medieval Europe: Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference, ix, ed. by Guy De Boe and Frans Verhaeghe (Zellik: Instituut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium, 1997), pp. 19–30 ———, ‘Size Matters: How and Why Biometry Is Still Important in Zooarchaeology’, in Bones and the Man: Studies in Honour of Don Brothwell, ed. by Keith Dobney and Terry O’Connor (Oxford: Oxbow, 2002), pp. 51–62 ———, ‘Pig Husbandry and Pork Consumption in Medieval England’, in Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, ed. by Chris M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, and Tony Waldron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 72–87 Albarella, Umberto, and Sebastian Payne, ‘Neolithic Pigs from Durrington Walls, Wiltshire, England: A Biometrical Database’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 32 (2005), 589–99 Albarella, Umberto, and Simon Davis, ‘Mammals and Birds from Launceston Castle, Cornwall: Decline in Status and the Rise of Agriculture’, Circaea, 12 (1996), 1–156 Albarella, Umberto, Keith Dobney, and Peter Rowley-Conwy, ‘The Domestication of the Pig (Sus scrofa): New Challenges and Approaches’, in Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, ed. by Melinda A. Zeder, Daniel Bradley, Eve Emshwiller, and Bruce D. Smith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 209–27 Angulo, Alberto, Rosario Porres, and Iñaki Reguera, Historia del País Vasco: Edad Moderna (siglos XVI–XVIII) (San Sebastián: Hiria, 2004) Aragón, Álvaro, ‘Ganadería, transterminancia y trashumancia en los territorios vascos en el tránsito del medioevo a la modernidad (siglos XV y XVI)’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna, 31 (2006), 39–61 Audoin-Rouzeau, Frédérique, ‘La taille du bœuf domestique en Europa de l’Antiquité aux Temps Modernes’, Fiches d’ostéologie animale pour l’archéologie, ser. B, 2 (1991), 1–40 ———, ‘La taille du mouton en Europa de l’Antiquité aux Temps Modernes’, Fiches d’ostéologie animale pour l’archéologie, ser. B., 3 (1991), 3–36 ———, ‘Compter et mesurer les os animaux. Pour une histoire de l’élevage et de l’alimentation en Europe de l’Antiquité aux Temps Modernes’, Histoire & Mesure, 10 (1995), 277–312 Beckett, John V., The Agricultural Revolution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) Castán, Guillermo, La construcción de la idea de la peste negra (1348–1350) como catástrofe demográfica en la historiografía española (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2020)

15 3

154

i do i a gr au s o lo g e s toa an d u m b e rto alb are lla

Davis, Simon J. M., ‘Measurements of a Group of Adult Female Shetland Sheep Skeletons from a Single Flock: A Baseline for Zooarchaeologists’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 23 (1996), 593–612 ———, ‘The Agricultural Revolution in England: Some Zoo-Archaeological Evidence’, Anthropozoologica, 25/26 (1997), 413–28 ———, ‘The Effect of Castration and Age on the Development of the Shetland Sheep Skeleton and a Metric Comparison between Bones of Males, Females and Castrates’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 27 (2000), 373–90 Davis, Simon J. M., and John V. Beckett, ‘Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Improvement: The Archaeological Evidence from Animal Bones and Teeth’, Rural History, 10 (1999), 1–17 Dyer, Cristopher, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520 (Cambridge: Cambridge Medieval Textbooks, 1989) Ervynck, Anton, and Wim Van Neer, ‘Beef, Pork and Mutton: An Archaeological Survey of Meat Consumption in Medieval and Postmedieval Towns in the Southern Low Countries (Flanders & Brussels, Belgium)’, Quaternary International, 460 (2017), 65–73 Grau Sologestoa, Idoia, ‘Livestock Size Change and Animal Husbandry between the Late Middle Ages and the Modern Era in the Basque Country and its Surroundings’, in Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco y su entorno, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020), pp. 140–64 Grau Sologestoa, Idoia, and Umberto Albarella, ‘The “Long” 16th Century: A Key Period of Animal Husbandry Change in England’, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 11 (2019), 2781–2803 Grau Sologestoa, Idoia, Umberto Albarella, and Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, ‘Urban Medieval and Post-Medieval Zooarchaeology in the Basque Country: Meat Supply and Consumption’, Quaternary International, 399 (2016), 1–12 Kerridge, Eric, The Agricultural Revolution (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967) Marcos, Alberto, ‘La “crisis” del siglo XVII’, in España en los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII, ed. by Alberto Marcos (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), pp. 454–551 Meadow, Richard, ‘The Use of Size Index Scaling Techniques for Research on Archaeozoological Collections from the Middle East’, in Historia animalium ex ossibus: Festschrift für Angela von den Driesch, ed. by Cornelia Becker, Henriette Manhart, Joris Peters, and Jörg Schibler (Rahden: Leidorf, 1999), pp. 285–300 Payne, Sebastian, and Gail Bull, ‘Components of Variation in Measurements of Pig Bones and Teeth, and the Use of Measurements to Distinguish Wild from Domestic Pig Remains’, Archaeozoologia, 2 (1988), 27–66 Popkin, Peter, Polydora Baker, Fay Worley, Sebastian Payne, and Andy Hammond, ‘The Sheep Project (1): Determining Skeletal Growth, Timing of Epiphyseal Fusion and Morphometric Variation in Unimproved Shetland Sheep of Known Age, Sex, Castration Status and Nutrition’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 39 (2012), 1775–92 Postan, Michael M., The Medieval Economy and Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972)

I m p rove m e n t s i n Ani mal Hu sb and ry

Ruiz de Loizaga, Saturnino, La Peste en los reinos peninsulares según documentación del Archivo Vaticano (1348–1460) (Bilbao: Museo Vasco de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia, 2009) Sanz, Carmen, ‘La decadencia económica del siglo XVII’, in Historia de España en la Edad Moderna, ed. by Alfredo Floristán (Barcelona: Ariel, 2004), pp. 391–408 Simpson, George G., ‘The Large Pleistocene Felines of North America’, American Museum Novitates, 1136 (1941), 1–27 Sobrequés, Jaume, ‘La Peste Negra en la península ibérica’, Anuario de estudios medievales, 7 (1970), 90–92 Thomas, Richard, ‘Zooarchaeology, Improvement and the British Agricultural Revolution’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 9 (2005), 71–88 ———, ‘Bones of Contention: Why Later Post-Medieval Assemblages of Animal Bones Matter’, in Crossing Paths or Sharing Tracks: Future Directions in the Archaeological Study of Post-1550 Britain and Ireland, ed. by Audrey Horning and Marilyn Palmer (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2009), pp. 133–48 Tourunen, Auli, ‘Animals in an Urban Context. A Zooarchaeological Study of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Town of Turku’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Turku, 2008)

15 5

Ann a M a ri a Gr a sso, Silvi a D’Aquino, Eli g io Vacc a, Ma rco Nicoli, Mil e n a  Pri mav er a, an d Girol am o Fior e ntino

Innovation: Turning Something Old into Something New. Vicia faba var. major

A b str act  The sixteenth century was a period of fundamental change and transformation that revolutionized many aspects of life. Innovations were seen in a range of areas, including agriculture: the Age of Exploration had already started and new plants were being introduced from the New World to the Old. From an archaeobotanical point of view, however, were these innovations exclusively linked to the introduction of new plant species or could they also be attributed to a process of finding ways for ‘old’ species to fulfil new needs? If so, how can such innovations be identified using plant remains? This paper attempts to answer these questions with reference to biometric and shape analyses of charred remains of Vicia faba (broad bean) specimens (152 seeds) collected from five archaeological sites located in south-east Puglia (Italy) dated to a range of periods. The geographical homogeneity and chronological separation of the data

T

Anna Maria Grasso    Laboratorio di Archeobotanica e Paleoecologia, Dipartimento Beni Culturali, Università del Salento, [email protected] Silvia D’Aquino    Laboratorio di Archeobotanica e Paleoecologia, Dipartimento Beni Culturali, Università del Salento, [email protected] Eligio Vacca    Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, [email protected] Marco Nicoli    Institut für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, [email protected] Milena Primavera    Laboratorio di Archeobotanica e Paleoecologia, Dipartimento Beni Culturali, Università del Salento, [email protected] Girolamo Fiorentino    Laboratorio di Archeobotanica e Paleoecologia, Dipartimento Beni Culturali, Università del Salento, girolamo.fiorentino@ unisalento.it The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century, Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe, ed. by Idoia Grau Sologestoa and Umberto Albarella, HDL 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 157–175 © FHG10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.127109

158

Gr a s s o, D’Aq u i n o, Vacc a, N i co l i , P r i mav e ra, an d F i o re nt i no are expected to enable recognition of any improvements/ enhancements suggested by the shape and/or size of the crop investigated. The data reveal the presence in the analysed assemblage of two different morphotypes, chronologically separated by the twelfth century. A secondary feature is a gradual increase in the cotyledon size of the more recent morphotype. This paper discusses a possible transition period, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, in which selective breeding led to a new faba cultivar (Vicia faba var. major) in the Salento area.

K e y wo r ds  Faba bean, shape analysis, archaeobotany, agricultural innovation, Salento Peninsula

T

Introduction In the last decade, studies of the history of agriculture, rural workers, and rural societies have tended to become increasingly integrated, with the traditional topics of agricultural productivity, crop organization, and ownership patterns seen in relation to social, economic, institutional, ecological, and cultural dynamics.1 The approach adopted is often comparative,2 i.e. based on a systematic comparison by theme, dynamics, and chronology of distinct areas. Obviously, this requires a body of data that is not always available for all geographical areas and historical periods, hence the need for further regional studies and the choice of a well-defined field of action as the object of the research. One theme that often draws the interest of scholars of rural history is that of innovation processes, because they are perceived as elements of rupture with respect to the preceding period. In reality these processes have almost always been gradual, characterized by micro-changes and the adaptation of pre-existing forms to tackle emerging new requirements. Generally speaking, it is only when a series of originally separate improvements to the agricultural system have been accepted and adopted as a whole — with profound economic and social consequences — that macro-variations in the historical record become visible.3 Such a situation may have occurred in southern Puglia (Italy) around the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era. The period



1 For a summary see Cristoferi, ‘La storia agraria dal medioevo all’età moderna’. 2 Cf. Congost and Luna, ‘Agrarian Change and Imperfect Property Emphyteusis in Europe (16th to 19th Centuries)’; Klapste, ‘Agrarian Technology in the Medieval Landscape, Agrartechnik in Mittelalterlichen Landschaften’; Thoen and Soens, ‘Struggling with the Environment’. 3 Van der Veen, ‘Agricultural Innovation’, p. 7.

I n n ovatio n : T u r n i n g S o m e t h i ng O l d i nto So me t hi ng N e w

from the mid-fifteenth century onwards saw a reorganization of the Salento sub-region, perhaps driven by its Aragonese rulers who, thanks to the end of their conflicts with the Angevins and the decline of the minor feudal lords, were seeking to re-establish their control over the territory.4 This reorganization, which took place in a context of a gradual increase in the cultivation of olives (which had begun in the tenth–eleventh centuries) and cereals,5 led to the abandonment of numerous villages and the foundation of the so-called Terre Murate (walled towns), characterized by deliberate urban planning.6 In addition, many abandoned villages were replaced by the farmsteads known as masserie, suggesting that the farmland was not abandoned but rather that there was a transformation in the approach to its management.7 The tangible consequences of these changes in terms of agrarian production would begin to be seen in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with the creation of underground oil presses, masserie with large circular farmyards paved with flagstones, and the proliferation of regional fairs as a consequence of the renewed availability of saleable agricultural surpluses.8 Further archaeological evidence of these innovations comes from recent archaeobotanical discoveries, which led to the identification of the first evidence of cultivation in the Mediterranean of the broad bean (Vicia faba var. major).9 In Mediterranean countries, this crop is used as a source of protein for both people and livestock, thanks to the high nutritional value of its seeds.10 In addition, its cultivation improves the productivity of the soil, thanks to nitrogen fixation by symbiotic bacteria in the plant’s roots, which enables it to thrive in poor soils and render them more fertile.11 For this reason, it has been used for example in crop rotation systems, which have existed since the Roman period.12 Three main varieties of Vicia faba are currently recognized, distinguished on the basis of the size of the seeds: the bell bean (V. faba var. minor), the horse bean (V. faba var. equina), and the broad bean (V. faba var. major). The

4 Cf. Vetere and others, eds, Storia di Lecce. 5 Di Rita and Magri, ‘Holocene Drought, Deforestation and Evergreen Vegetation Development in the Central Mediterranean’, p. 301; Grasso, Primavera, and Fiorentino, ‘Ambiente, clima e agricoltura del Salento medievale’, p. 315. 6 Arthur, ‘L’Archeologia del Villaggio Medievale in Puglia’; Arthur, Bruno, and Alfarano, Archeologia urbana a Borgo Terra. 7 Visceglia, ‘Territorio feudo e potere locale: Terra d’Otranto tra medioevo ed età moderna’, p. 123; Arthur and others, ‘Crisi o resilienza nel Salento del Quattordicesimo secolo?’, p. 48. 8 Arthur and others, ‘Crisi o resilienza nel Salento del Quattordicesimo secolo?’, p. 49. 9 D’Aquino and others, ‘Tecniche agricole e miglioramento varietale nel Salento Basso medievale’. 10 Mejri and others, ‘Variation in Quantitative Characters of Faba Bean after Seed Irradiation and Associated Molecular Changes’. 11 Jensen, Peoples, and Hauggaard-Nielsen, ‘Faba Bean in Cropping Systems’. 12 White, ‘Fallowing, Crop Rotation, and Crop Yields in Roman Times’.

1 59

160

Gr a s s o, D’Aq u i n o, Vacc a, N i co l i , P r i mav e ra, an d F i o re nt i no

latter two varieties may be interfertile cultivars derived from the bell bean.13 This hypothesis is partly based on archaeobotanical evidence suggesting that the bell bean was the only variety present in Europe and the Mediterranean until the end of the early Middle Ages,14 and it continues to be the most diffused bean variety during all the Middle Ages.15 The interfertility of the varieties is a complex issue,16 not yet resolved.17 Although opinions on the origins of the larger-seeded varieties vary, there is broad agreement that they are the result of selection by people.18 This is believed to have led to the spread of the major cultivar in Mediterranean countries and China, equina in the Middle East, North Africa, and Australia, and minor in Ethiopia and northern Europe.19 Hence, Two main faba bean types have been proposed for Europe: a Central and Northwest European gene pool, consisting of V. faba var. minor and V. faba var. major types, and a Mediterranean gene pool which includes the former types but also V. faba var. equina,20 a suggestion confirmed by numerous genetic studies.21 Indeed, when comparing geographical and genetic diversity among modern faba bean samples, continental aggregation was observed. Instead, there was no identifiable correlation between seed size (i.e. minor, equina, major) and faba bean sample clustering. This seems to be particularly true in the case of the medium-sized (equina) and large (major) seeds.22 Therefore, despite seed size being the current criterion for the agronomic variety distinction used also by archaeobotanists, there is no certain correlation between this phenotypic feature and their genotypes.23

13 Cubero, ‘On the Evolution of Vicia faba L.’. 14 Schultze-Motel, ‘Die archäologischen Reste der Ackerbohne, Vicia faba L. und die Genese der Art’; Zohary and Hopf, Domestication of Plants in the Old World; Caracuta and others, ‘The Onset of Faba Bean Farming in the Southern Levant’. 15 Grasso and Fiorentino, ‘Studi archeobotanici per l’Italia medievale’. 16 Bond and Poulsen, ‘Pollination’; Le Guen, ‘Incompatibilité unilatérale chez Vicia faba L. I. Analyse globale de croisements intraspécifiques entre quatre sous-espèces’; Suso and others, ‘New Strategies for Increasing Heterozygosity in Crops’. 17 O’Sullivan and Angra, ‘Advances in Faba Bean Genetics and Genomics’. 18 Tanno and Willcox, ‘The Origins of Cultivation of Cicer arietinum L. and Vicia faba L.’. 19 Duc, ‘Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.)’. 20 Oliveira and others, ‘Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in Vicia faba L. Landraces and Wild Related Species Assessed by Nuclear SSRs’. 21 Terzopoulos and Bebeli, ‘Genetic Diversity of Mediterranean Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) with ISSR Markers’; Wang and others, ‘Genetic Diversity and Relationship of Global Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) Germplasm Revealed by ISSR Markers’; Akash and others, ‘Exploring Genetic Variations in Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) Accessions’. 22 Göl, Doğanlar, and Frary, ‘Relationship between Geographical Origin, Seed Size and Genetic Diversity in Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) as Revealed by SSR Markers’. 23 Cf. Zohary and Hopf, ‘Domestication of Plants in the Old World’.

I n n ovatio n : T u r n i n g S o m e t h i ng O l d i nto So me t hi ng N e w

In the light of these considerations, the aim of the present study is to use the recent discoveries of faba seeds in late medieval and early modern archaeological contexts in the Salento Peninsula in order to: – formulate hypotheses regarding where and when the varieties with medium-sized and large seeds were selected; – contribute to the taxonomic debate via the study of the size and shape of the seeds; – assess whether and how the new data on the history of this crop relate to the complex debate over innovations affecting the rural world of the Salento in the sixteenth century.

Materials A total of 152 intact Vicia faba seeds were analysed, all from archaeological contexts in Salento (Fig. 7.1), dated to a period from protohistory until the modern era and preserved thanks to their carbonization. The finds were analysed with reference to traditional morpho-biometric parameters and the morphological characteristics of the hilum, and in accordance with a new morphological-geometric approach. Specifically, the finds included: 1. Thirty-five bell bean cotyledons (V. faba var. minor) from the site of Roca Vecchia (Sample 1), recovered from a layer of infill material in a votive pit rich in combusted plant remains (such as caryopses of different cereals, olive stones, and acorns fruits) dated to the Recent Bronze Age (thirteenth–twelfth centuries bc).24 2. Thirty-five bell bean cotyledons (V. faba var. minor) from the site of OriaMonte Papalucio (Sample 2), recovered from a layer of infill material in a pit that contained plant offerings (charred caryopses of different cereals together with other charred fruits such as grapes, figs, olives, dates, apples) from a Hellenistic sanctuary dedicated to Demeter (fourth–third centuries bc).25 3. Thirty-five cotyledons of an indeterminate faba variety from what may be fortifications predating the current Carlo V castle complex in Lecce26 (Sample 3). Hand-collected samples from layers dated to the second quarter of the twelfth century,27 the beans are found together with caryopses of wheat and barley, bitter vetch, small grass seeds, and chaff remains. Plant remains were associated with locally produced ceramics, enamelled ceramics that

24 Primavera, ‘Roca’; Primavera, Roca e le dinamiche uomo-ambiente in Puglia durante l’Età del Bronzo. 25 Fiorentino, ‘Paleoambiente e aspetti rituali in un insediamento archeologico tra fase arcaica ed ellenistica’. 26 Arthur, ‘Dieci anni di archeologia al castello di Lecce’. 27 Nicolì, ‘Analisi archeobotaniche nel castello “Carlo V” di Lecce: il livello di XII secolo’.

161

162

Gr a s s o, D’Aq u i n o, Vacc a, N i co l i , P r i mav e ra, an d F i o re nt i no

Figure 7.1. Map of Apulia and location of the archaeological sites cited in the text. Map by authors.

were widespread in central Greece, and fragments of amphorae generally associated with ceramics from the Sicily-Maghreb area.28 4. Two cotyledons of an indeterminate faba variety from the Capanne district of Castro, a pluri-stratified settlement that saw various phases of occupation from the Messapian period until the late Middle Ages (Sample 4),29 recovered from levels dated to the first half of the twelfth century.30 5. Six cotyledons of an indeterminate faba variety associated with a small number of fruit fragments, almonds, and acorns from Giurdignano (Sample 5), found in the infill material of a small artificial chamber dated to the fifteenth century and identified during roadworks in a street of the old town (Via Chiesa).31 6. Four cotyledons of an indeterminate faba variety, which constituted the whole archaeobotanical assemblage recovered32 from levels of a block in 28 Arthur and Imperiale, ‘Mettendo a fuoco il XII secolo’, pp. 356–59. 29 D’Andria, Castrum Minervae. 30 D’Aquino, ‘Analisi archeobotaniche del sito pluristratificato di Castro, località Capanne’. 31 Primavera Milena, unpublished data. 32 Primavera Milena, unpublished data.

I n n ovatio n : T u r n i n g S o m e t h i ng O l d i nto So me t hi ng N e w

the previously cited context of Roca Vecchia, containing dwellings dated to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century (Sample 6).33 7. Lastly, thirty-five cotyledons of an indeterminate faba variety, again from the Capanne district of Castro but in levels dated to the first half of the sixteenth century (Sample 7). The beans are found together with caryopses of wheat and barley, lentil, pea, and flax.34 Unfortunately, the sample sizes were not always as large as we would have liked; in addition, the need to use only intact seeds without distortions further limited the size of the available samples.

Methods For each seed, the length, width, and thickness were measured using callipers in order to create a biometric dataset. The basic descriptive statistics were obtained for the dimensional data and to compare the differences of the group means the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed. The Levene’s test was used to check for equality of variances before the application of the appropriate post-hoc test. Subsequently, their biological shape was evaluated in ventral view (Fig. 7.2). Using the SHAPE program,35 the digital images of all the seeds were converted into chain codes36 and the chain code file was then used to calculate the Elliptic Fourier Descriptors (EFDs).37 The coefficients of the EFDs were normalized to avoid variation related to the size, rotation, and starting point of the contour traces, the shape of each seed was approximated by the first twenty harmonics, and eighty standardized EFDs were calculated. These data were then used to perform Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using Momocs38 in order to highlight any relationships among the data.

Results Descriptive statistics of the biometric data for the seven archaeological contexts are reported in Table 7.1. Considering the data and observing the sample distributions reported in Figure 7.3, the thickness variable does not seem to have clear diagnostic value. Samples from different locations and periods show areas of overlap. In contrast, the length and width variables more clearly point to 33 34 35 36 37 38

Güll and others, ‘I materiali ceramici degli scavi di Roca (Melendugno, Lecce)’, pp. 439–51. D’Aquino, ‘Analisi archeobotaniche del sito pluristratificato di Castro, località Capanne’. Iwata and Ukai, ‘SHAPE’. Freeman, ‘Computer Processing of Line Drawing Images’. Kuhl and Giardina, ‘Elliptic Fourier Features of a Closed Contour’. Bonhomme and others, ‘Momocs’.

163

164

Gr a s s o, D’Aq u i n o, Vacc a, N i co l i , P r i mav e ra, an d F i o re nt i no

Figure 7.2. Archaeological faba bean from Castro (sixteenth century), photographed in ventral and lateral view; in evidence the biometrical features measured: LE = length, WI = width, TH = thickness. Figure by authors.

the presence of two size groups, one containing the protohistoric samples from Roca (Sample 1) and the Hellenistic samples from Oria (Sample 2), and another containing the remaining samples from the medieval and late medieval sites. This evidence is generally confirmed by the statistically significant differences between all the group means as determined by one-way ANOVA (Welch’s ANOVA p