Medieval agricultural technology
Topic: Medieval Europe: Feudalism and the Three Orders · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 4 "The Three Orders"
Meaning
This term covers the new farming tools and methods that spread in Europe by the eleventh century. They included:
- heavy iron-tipped ploughs with mouldboards
- the shoulder-harness, which replaced the neck-harness so that animals could pull with more power
- iron horseshoes, which stopped horses' hooves from rotting
- more water-powered and wind-powered mills for grinding corn and pressing grapes
Together these changes raised food output and weakened the old pattern of hunger and famine.
Example
Lords set up the water mills and windmills, because peasants could not afford them. Peasants took their own steps. They extended the land under farming, adopted crop rotation and set up village forges and smithies (blacksmiths' workshops).
Don't confuse with
- Three-field system: a way of rotating crops across fields. It was a change in farming method, not a new tool or machine.