Are there any credible sources on medieval farming statistics. I'm not looking for how they farmed but how much and what percentages of crops.
Can include:
Area of farmland total
Average area of land owned by farmer
How much farmland was needed per person/family (anyone commenting about hides might want to do the maths and realise that the area being farmed would be wrong using hides)
How much of certain crops was needed as in was it 1% fruit or more
E.g. How much farmland was in England at any point in the middle ages and what were they farming (20% wheat or only 10% sorta thing)
Thanks in advance and please tell me if my question is breaking any rules this is my first (of many) question. Also I have no idea how to format
I'm curious as to what you mean by
anyone commenting about hides might want to do the maths and realise that the area being farmed would be wrong using hides
Hides are the basic unit of land assessment for much of the Early Medieval period, they're very hard to disentangle from any question of land use. The problem comes from the irregularity of size of a 'hide'.
Most freemen, and indeed some tenant farmers, are likely to have farmed virgates of land, usually about a quarter of a hide and roughly equivalent to perhaps 30 acres. Your go-to source for land use though is Domesday Book.