Agricultural specialization in Europe 1300 onward

by GetSkied15

Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction for some primary and secondary sources on the specialization of agriculture after the black death? Thank you!

davepx

A good introduction and lots of references to sources can be found in vol 1 of the Cambridge economic history of Europe (and vol 4 for the 16th-17th centuries), BH Slicher van Bath's Agrarian history of western Europe AD 500-1850 and Wilhelm Abel's earlier Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe.

Specialisation had of course long been practiced subject to climate, terrain, soil and market access & demand, but Genicot confirms local shifts to livestock, barley, legumes, roots, vines, flax, hops, oil and dyestuffs. Part of the trend pre-dated the Plague, as in the rise of English wool output and the spread of vetch cultivation, while some crops (buckwheat, rice) only arrived later.