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Supplementary Material to Chapter 19 [Home] [Chapter 19 Main]

1. Agrarian Economy

http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/ihr/reviews/mingay.html

Agricultural Revolution in England - The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500- 1850.
Professor Mark Overton (University of Exeter)
Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography
Cambridge University Press 1996
Pp. 257, 29 figures, 45 tables
Reviewed by Professor Gordon Mingay
University of Kent at Canterbury.

This new study of the agricultural revolution is clearly the product of many years of study and research. It is closely argued, liberally illustrated with figures and tables, and tersely written and remarkably compressed. Intended primarily for students, it will repay careful reading, and re-reading, by teachers as well as students of the subject.
The book' s thesis is supported at numerous points by statistical material gathered from a number of sources, but at the core of the argument stand the key figures of output and productivity. There are three tables of estimates of the agricultural output of England, one based on the growth of population numbers and allowing for net imports, the second on the assumed demand of this population taking account of the movements in prices and wages, and the third on contemporary estimates and modern guesses of the value of output at different periods. Surprisingly, over the period 1700-1831/1851 the results are not hugely different, but the important point is that all show a very substantial growth in output to have occurred in the course of the later eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth century. The estimates based on population numbers go back much further in time and suggest thaw while between 1520 and 1651 there was a considerable growth of output (when it rather more than doubled), there then followed a lengthy static period of very little or no growth until well into the eighteenth century. This, however, conflicts with the demand- based estimates which show a growth of output of as much as 43 per cent occurring between 1700 and 1760.
These discrepancies apart, output is one matter, of course (as Professor Overton points out), and productivity another. The first can be achieved merely by bringing additional resources into play, while the second depends on advances in the modes of exploiting existing resources of land, livestock and labour. It is therefore to a rise in productivity, and the causes of it, that the argument for an agricultural revolution must look. For lack of adequate source materials the rise in livestock productivity cannot be properly charted, although the author concludes that there were considerable advances well before the later eighteenth century, in the hundred years following 1660. It is possible, however, to produce figures for the productivity of land which suggest that this more than doubled between 1700 and 1850, with the larger part of the increase coming after 1800. Figures for cereal yields also point to the eighteenth century as the era of breakthrough, with only a slow improvement in the yields occurring before 1700, and a major improvement in the following half-century. The productivity of labour showed a sustained rise from at least 1700, as a result, it is believed, of the gradual substitution of horse for human power, an increase in the size of farms which made for the more economical use of labour, the development of better hand tools, and from the middle nineteenth century the mechanisation of more farming operations.
Further figures indicate that over the period 1700 - 1850 it may be concluded that, in general, output rose by some 170 -180 per cent on a total farm area that had risen by only one third; the productivity of land had rather more than doubled, cereal yields rose two and a half times, and the productivity of labour roughly doubled.
What explanation is there for this revival of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries as the crucible of agricultural revolution ? As we have long known, there were already in 1700 a variety of advances in the improvement of pastures and the growing of new fodder crops, some of the innovations going back well before 1660, but Professor Overton puts his main emphasis on the spread after 1750 of the growing of fodder crops on a large scale as the key to technical change. He bases this argument, in part, on the research carried out by B.M.S. Campbell and himself into Norfolk farming, where it was found that the production of legumes made no advance over medieval levels, in terms of sown area, until some time between 1739 and 1836, while lover and turnips, not grown at all previously, occupied between them nine per cent of the sown area in 1660-1739, and as much as 49 per cent by 1836.
The spread in Norfolk and else where of the 'new' fodder crops resulted, as it is well known, in the reduction of land Iying fallow and a big injection of nitrogen into the soil. These advances were encouraged by a number of accompanying developments, most notably the growth of the market for agricultural produce and a variety of institutional changes involving the spread of leasehold tenures and the sweeping away of common fields and common rights. Enclosure, in particular, made for greater flexibility in land use while the institution of sole occupation of land over a larger proportion of the farmland, enabled farmers to be more readily responsive to shifts in markets and prices. p> The extent to which markets expanded may be judged more clearly now than in the past by resort to E.A. Wrigley's 1985 figures for the non- agricultural population, both urban and rural (reprinted by Professor Overton). These indicate that the non- agricultural population rose from under a quarter of the whole in 1520 to as much as 45 per cent by 1700, and to as high as nearly 64 per cent by 1801. In consequence, the numbers of landholders farming primarily for subsistence and selling relatively little produce in the markets (estimated at 80 per cent of the total in 1520) must have fallen gradually to a much lower level. By the eighteenth century market forces, together with institutional changes in landowning and land tenure, had brought into being an agricultural system dominated by farms that had grown in average size and were mainly occupied by landlord' s tenants concerned with producing for the market. Although the small freeholders may have declined, there still remained, in addition to the tenants of landed estates, numbers of larger freeholders, and if we may believe Arthur Young, these substantial independent cultivators were among the most progressive farmers of his time.
The growth of the market, as delineated above, appears to pose something of a problem of timing for Professor Overton's mid-eighteenth- century technical breakthrough. According to Wrigley's figures the non- agricultural population was already nearly a half of the total in 1700, and as a proportion of the whole had grown by some 90 per cent sine 1520. The total population itself, of course, is estimated by Wrigley and Schofield to have been very much larger in 1700 (at just over 5 million) than in 1520 (2.4 million), so that with the growth of the non- agricultural numbers the food market of 1700 must have been very greatly in excess of that available to farmers at the earlier date. If the market were a key factor in agricultural expansion, as must be supposed, it seems strange in the circumstances that the great leap forward in agricultural output and productivity should have been delayed until after 1750, and in fact until mainly after 1800, the more especially as the accompanying institutional factors were already in train before 1700. The figure for cereal yields and the demand- based output estimates, quoted above, do suggest in fact that considerable progress was being made already in the first half of the eighteenth century.
Of course, the rise in the numbers of the English population, of nearly three million in the fifty years between 1751 and 1801, is larger than the overall rise of the whole two centuries between 1551 and 1751; and the growth of numbers after 1801 totally dwarfed all previous experience. However, prior to the bad seasons of the French Wars period the effects on prices of the expansion of the market were not very clear or pronounced. And given contemporary doubts whether the population was growing or not, farmers would have been fool-hardy to gamble on a long sustained increase in price levels.
Professor Overton recognises of course that important changes in agriculture did occur before 1700, especially in regard to the improvement of livestock production, but these changes, he considers, cannot compare in terms of output and productivity with those flowing from the spread after 1750 of fodder crops: these made for more intensive farming, a reduction in land lying fallow, and ''a massive increase in the supply of nitrogen to farmland". On the contrary, he argues, the ploughing up of the pastures in the earlier period can be interpreted as ''a desperate attempt by farmers to cash in on reserves of nitrogen to produce as much grain as possible in the face of overwhelming demand.... Kerridge's arguments are not persuasive.... '' ''Coupled with evidence of wide-spread reclamation and the halt to population growth in the mid- seventeenth century this period is more suggestive of a Malthusian check than agricultural triumph."
However, the timing of the post-1750 revolution based on the widespread use of the fodder crops, Professor Overton accepts, is difficult to explain. Farmers no doubt became more sensitive to market prices but there is no evidence that they were aware of long-term price trends. Furthermore, it might be urged, a limited expectation of life (which made some eighteenth-century farmers reluctant to take up long leases) and the prevalence of natural setbacks to production caused by pests and disease combined to make farmers adopt a foreshortened outlook towards the future. Seventeenth-century farmers' early experiments with clover and turnips, Professor Overton thinks, may have had more to do with attempts to safeguard supplies of fodder than with appreciation of their potential to raise productivity, while the attraction of clover may have been its ability to form a ley more quickly and more reliably than by using other means. The role of these crops in raising yields may have been ''unintended consequences of the initial innovation in the late seventeenth century" rather than a rational response to the unfavourable price movements of the period.
In his conclusion Professor Overton recognises that changing attitude among occupiers towards the business of farming was as significant as changes in prices and costs in determining agricultural progress. Prior to the eighteenth century there had always been some large-scale farming for the market, of course, especially in regard to livestock; and there were also some farmers who kept careful records and adopted a pragmatic, innovative approach towards their livelihood. This kind of farmer became rather more common in the eighteenth century, especially among the bigger freeholders and tenants of the larger farms which some landlords were gradually creating by a deliberate policy of transferring additional land into the hands of more capable men. No doubt the division remarked upon by Arthur Young between the enlightened large farmers and the benighted small ones, though no doubt exaggerated and over- simplified, had some substance in fact. The spread of more efficient farming was a long process, of course, and still had a long way to go even in 1850, as Caird's strictures remind us, and many fairly simple and obvious means of reducing costs and improving output were slow to be adopted. Among dairy farmers, for instance, the introduction of milk recording in order to identify and remove the low-producing cows was quite exceptional before 1920 and developed in earnest only after 1950.
Another aspect of the pre-1850 changes which deserves more attention is that of capital supply and investment. Landlords' investment in creating larger farms and in enclosure, with associated expenditures on land reclamation, drainage, and new farm buildings, was clearly substantial, as was farmers' investment in improved livestock, better implements, and carts and wagons, as well, often enough, as a share of the costs of land reclamation and drainage. The mechanism by which the involved were diverted from landlords' rentals and farmers' profits, and the role of banks and of the informal network of local lenders and borrowers, still remains little explored for the period of crucial agricultural change. And, of course, as Professor Overton notes, one major weakness of contemporary farming, the losses caused by pests and disease to both crops and livestock, remained unremedied until well after 1850
To repeat, Agricultural Revolution in England is a compact study primarily intended for students, and some of the material is presented at an elementary level. Much of it, however is not, and probably the finer points of Professor Overton's complex analysis can be appreciated and assessed only by those with some considerable background in the subject. This applies particularly to the controversies surrounding Brenner's argument on the development of agrarian capitalism, and to Kerridge's ''early agricultural revolution" which are considered in very summary terms, but applies also elsewhere, for example in considering the effects of enclosure. It may be that the author decided to err on the side of brevity but there is something to be said for more extended discussions, especially in a book intended for students. The summary approach has also led to errors at a few points (e.g. the statement on p.176 that ''small farmers", rather than small owners, had to sell land in order to finance enclosure - an important distinction often misunderstood by students - and the exaggeration of the effects of the New Poor Law on p.187). More serious is the lack of references to the text. True, sources for the tables are given, and there are, nevertheless. statements in the text for which one would like to have chapter and verse.
These are minor blemishes on a study that is important not only for its forthright, statistics-based arguments, but also for the collected statistics themselves, which indeed make it an invaluable work of reference. It is an achievement in which the author may justly take pride.
November 1996

http://www.britannica.com/frm_redir.jsp?query=agrarian&redir=http://www.mediapro.net/cdadesign/paine/agjst.html&isbol=0
Agrarian Justice
by Thomas Paine

To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.
Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized.
To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.
Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.
The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to the rich.
Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.
It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The reason is that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated.
When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, art and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state.
In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.
But the fact is that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before civilization begin, had been born among the Indians of North America at the present. I will show how this fact has happened.
It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.
But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that parable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.
Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund prod in this plan is to issue.
It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing as from all the stories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced with cultivation, and that there was no such thing, as landed property before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that of hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the Bible may credited in probable things, were owners of land.
Their property consisted, as is always enumerated in flocks and herds, they traveled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions at that time about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, where those people lived, also show that there was no landed property. It was not admitted that land could be claimed as property.
There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made.
The value of the improvement so far exceeded the value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right of the individual. But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of rights, and will continue to be, so long as the earth endures.
It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we, discover the boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own. I have entitled this tract "Agrarian Justice" to distinguish it from "Agrarian Law."
Nothing could be more unjust than agrarian law in a country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted, became the property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them, or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. While, therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor to the part which is his.
Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.
In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honor to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings.
Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,
To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:
And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

MEANS BY WHICH THE FUND IS TO BE CREATED
I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race; that in that state, every person would have been born to property; and that the system of landed property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss.
The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is tended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen perceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after, as I shall show.
It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious distinctions. It is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above property he may have created, or inherited from those who did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the common fund.
Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.
Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes or emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the Revolution, but because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it) is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.
My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree sufficiently with fact. In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity, all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though many persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years, after the age of twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of that time.
Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without any material variation one way or other, the average of time in which the whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have gone by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the possession of one person, other parts will have revolved two or three times before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to that average; for were one-half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole revolved once.
Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole capital of a nation, or a -sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year, that is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being thus known, and the ratio per cent to be subtracted from It determined, it will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, to be applied as already mentioned.
In looking over the discourse of the English Minister, Pitt, in his opening of what is called in England the budget (the scheme of finance for the year 1796), I find an estimate of the national capital of that unity. As this estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and population be more or less.
I am the more disposed to take this estimate of Mr. Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own calculation, how much better money may be employed than in wasting it, as he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What, in the name of heaven, re Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is better that the people have bread.
Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal, to one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about one-fourth part of the national capital of France, including Belgia. The event of the last harvest in each country proves that the soil of France more productive than that of England, and that it can better support twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of England n seven or seven and a half millions.
The thirtieth part of this capital of £ 1,300,000,000 is L 43,333,333 which the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country to new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France in the proportion of four to one, will be about one hundred and seventy-three millions sterling. From this sum of £ 43,333,333 annually revolving, is be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance absorbed in it, which, perhaps, in fair justice, cannot be taken at less, and ought not be taken for more, than a tenth part.
It will always happen that of the property thus revolving by deaths every year a part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, and other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of £ 413,333,333 to more distant relations, and in part to strangers.

2. Famine Foods

http://www.economics.toronto.edu/munro5/pricerv2.htm

3. Common Lands

Microsoft Encarta: Feudal Agriculture.
The cultivation regime was rigidly prescribed. The arable land was divided into three fields: one sown in the autumn in wheat or rye; a second sown in the spring in barley, rye, oats, beans, or peas; and the third left fallow. The fields were laid out in strips distributed over the three fields, and without hedges or fences to separate one strip from another. Each male peasant head of household was allotted about 30 strips. Helped by his family and a yoke of oxen, he worked under the direction of the lord's officials. When he worked on his own fields, if he had any, he followed village custom that was probably as rigid as the rule of an overseer.
About the 8th century a four-year cycle of rotation of fallow appeared. The annual plowing routine on 400 hectares would be 100 hectares plowed in the autumn and 100 in the spring, and 200 hectares of fallow plowed in June. These three periods of plowing, over the year, could produce two crops on 200 hectares, depending on the weather. Typically, ten or more oxen were hitched to the tongue of the plow, often little more than a forked tree trunk. The oxen were no larger than modern heifers. At harvest time, all the peasants, including women and children, were expected to work in the fields. After the harvest, the community's animals were let loose on the fields to forage.
Some manors used a strip system. Each strip, with an area of roughly 0.4 hectare (about 1 acre), measured about 200 m (about 220 yd) in length and from 1.2 to 5 m (4 to 16.5 ft) in width. The lord's strips were similar to those of the peasants distributed throughout good and bad field areas. The parish priest might have lands separate from the community fields or strips that he worked himself or that were worked by the peasants.
In all systems, the lord's fields and needs came first, but about three days a week might be left for work on the family strips and garden plots. Wood and peat for fuel were gathered from the commonly held wood lots, and animals were pastured on village meadows. When surpluses of grain, hides, and wool were produced, they were sent to market.
In about 1300 a tendency developed to enclose the common lands and to raise sheep for their wool alone. The rise of the textile industry made sheep raising more profitable in England, Flanders (now in Belgium), Champagne (France), Tuscany and Lombardy (Italy), and the Augsburg region of Germany. At the same time, regions about the medieval towns began to specialize in garden produce and dairy products. Independent manorialism was also affected by the wars of 14th- and 15th-century Europe and by the widespread plague outbreaks of the 14th century. Villages were wiped out, and much arable land was abandoned. The remaining peasants were discontented and attempted to improve their conditions.
With the decline in the labor force, only the best land was kept in cultivation. In southern Italy, for instance, irrigation helped increase production on the more fertile soils. The emphasis on grain was replaced by diversification, and items requiring more care were produced, such as wine, oil, cheese, butter, and vegetables.

4. Open-field system

Medieval Open-Field Farming
The economy of medieval England was based almost solely upon agriculture, which was dominated by the so-called 'open-field' system. This farming technique featured manor-based land management that first evolved in central England during late Saxon times. Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the new rulers of England quickly realized the potential of the 'open-field' system, both for agricultural efficiency and population control, and expanded and developed the system by adapting it to their newly introduced feudal administration.
The success of an open-field community called for strong central control at manor or parish level. Leaving aside the ruling elite and the clergy, Norman manors were populated by three categories of individual. Most senior were the 'freemen,' such as yeoman farmers, millers and craftsmen. Freemen, as their name implies, were permitted to move freely about the countryside and negotiate payment with the lord-of-the-manor for work they undertook on his land. The next category were 'villeins' who lived in semi-slavery, obliged to work two or three days a week without pay on the lord's 'demesne' (private land). In return they received the lord's protection, a house in the village and permission to cultivate their own crops in the manor's open fields. Villeins were permitted to sell their excess production and, when they accumulated sufficient money, could purchase their freedom. Finally, at the base of the social pyramid were the serfs. Serfs were bonded to the manor for life as slaves. Most lived in abject poverty enjoying little or no rights and only able to leave the confines of the manor with their lord's consent.
Life in these rural communities revolved around the open-fields. 'Open-field' agriculture had at its core a three year cycle of crop rotation. Most farming communities maintained three or more 'great fields' of approximately similar size, usually one 'hide' in area (roughly equivalent to between 60 and 130 acres, depending on the soil). Each field was divided into sections, called furlongs, which were in turn further sub-divided into long narrow strips. These strips formed the basis of cultivation, each being the responsibility of a particular family within the manor, and cultivated under central direction. Every head of household (villein) in the village had an equal sized plot in each of the great fields. These family plots, usually averaging 60 strips (20 in each field) and totaling around 20 to 30 acres, were known as 'virgates.'
By far the lion's share of the land however went to the lord of the manor. As already mentioned the lord possessed his own private land holding in the fields called the 'demesne' (later often known as the 'home farm'). In keeping with feudal custom the demesne was worked by the lord's villeins in payment of the dues of service they owed him as their feudal master. Hence, in addition to the indirect profits the lord made from his villagers through fines and manorial taxes, he also had a steady income, supplemented by free labor, through the sale of produce from his demesne farm. In a similar way the Church had land set aside in the great fields. Known as the 'glebe,' this land was established to support the parish church and village priest, and was in addition to the annual 'tithe' tax (one tenth of all their years earnings in either money or kind) levied on all villagers.
Labor in the open fields was back breaking and manpower intensive. During the Middle Ages, all plowing was done by ox team. Few villeins could afford their own team, so they were obliged to borrow or pay another when plowing time came around. Constant re-plowing of field strips resulted, over the years, in the formation of the characteristic 'ridge and furrow' patterns, which can occasionally still be seen today. These ridges were the natural result of the action of the plough for, in contrast to the modern method of plowing, the medieval farmer used an anti-clockwise technique, moving inward from the boundary of the strip to the center, describing in an elongated spiral. Gradually soil built up along the center axis of the strip forming a long low ridge (as seen in the landscape above). Ridging was actively encouraged to help drain the planting area by encouraging excess water to wash off the deep soil in the center of the strip into the furrows which formed the margins of the strip. Strips were usually aligned to take advantage of the natural slope of the land, running parallel to the fall line and thereby ensuring that water collecting in the furrows would run off to the bottom of the field or furlong.
The key to the success of the open-field system lay in the strict application of crop rotation, designed to prevent soil exhaustion. Each year, under manorial direction, villager's were required to sow winter crops, such as wheat or rye, in one field while the next field would be sown with a spring crop like oats, peas or barley. The third field would be held fallow and left for stock grazing, allowing village livestock to fertilize the soil with their droppings, enriching the ground and preparing it for the next cycle of planting. The following year, the field previously used for winter wheat would be sown with spring crops while the fallow field would be sown with winter wheat. After three years each field would have thus experienced a year of winter and spring arable use as well as one year of fallow grazing. This regular cycle was repeated from decade to decade imposing a regular rhythm on manor life.
In addition to the open-fields, many manors had set aside additional land purely for the grazing of village livestock. This land was usually too poor to sustain arable cultivation and would have otherwise been unproductive. This so called 'common' land also provided villagers with access to limited quantities of timber for building, wood for the hearth, and in some cases stone, quarried for building materials. Many medieval commons still exist in the border region thanks to their stout defence by local communities, supporting their ancient rights of common grazing. A particularly fine example is Castlemorton Common, south of Malvern, where over a two thousand acres of unenclosed common grazing are still in daily use by local flocks and herds.
Today open-field farming has been relegated to the pages of history, forced into retirement during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries by more efficient enclosure farming, a method still practiced today. Nevertheless, evidence of old open-fields can still be found throughout the English midlands where small areas, that have remained under pasture since the enclosure of the old open fields, still retain their characteristic ridge and furrow pattern.

*Supplement information from www.borderdisc.com/mag/openfield.htm

5. Enclosure

Source: www.encyclopedia.com
Enclosure, in British history, the process of inclosing (with fences, ditches, hedges, or other barriers) land formerly subject to common rights. Such land included fields cultivated by the open-field or strip system, wasteland, and the common pasture land. Enclosure accompanied and accelerated the breakdown of the manorial system. In England the practice, dating from the 12th century, received legal sanction through statutes permitting landlords to enclose wastelands on condition they left sufficient land for their free tenants.

6. Mercantilism

Source: www.factmonster.com
Mercatilism was the economic system of the major trading nations during the 16th, 17th, and 18th century, based on the premise that national wealth and power were best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return. Mercantilist nations were impressed by the fact that the precious metals, especially gold, were in universal demand as the ready means of obtaining other commodities; hence they tended to identify money with wealth. As the best means of acquiring bullion, foreign trade was favored above domestic trade, and manufacturing or processing, which provided the goods for foreign trade, was favored at the expense of the extractive industries (e.g., agriculture). State action, an essential feature of the mercantile system, was used to accomplish its purposes. Under a mercantilist policy a nation sought to sell more than it bought so as to accumulate bullion. Besides bullion, raw materials for domestic manufacturers were also sought, and duties were levied on the importation of such goods in order to provide revenue for the government. The state exercised much control over economic life, chiefly through corporations and trading companies. Production was carefully regulated with the object of securing goods of high quality and low cost, thus enabling the nation to hold its place in foreign markets. Treaties were made to obtain exclusive trading privileges, and the commerce of colonies was exploited for the benefit of the mother country. In England mercantilist policies were effective in creating a skilled industrial population and a large shipping industry. As economists were later to point out, however, even a successful mercantilist policy was not likely to be beneficial, because it produced an oversupply of money and, with it, serious inflation. Mercantilist ideas did not decline until the coming of the Industrial Revolution and of laissez-faire. Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Oliver Cromwell conformed their policies to mercantilism. In France its chief exponent was Jean Baptiste Colbert.

7. Cottage Industry

http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozhistory/c/136380.html

http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/014.html

http://www.homestead.com/chaffeyaphistory/files/Euro_Economics_Overview.htm

9. Fallow Fields

Cropland that is not seeded for a season; it may or may not be plowed. The land may be cultivated or chemically treated for control of weeds and other pests or may be left unaltered. Allowing land to lie fallow serves to accumulate moisture in dry regions (see dry farming) or to check weeds and plant diseases. As a method of restoring productivity, rotation of crops is now preferred to fallowing, which is considered wasteful of humus and nitrogen.

10. Agricultural Revolution

HTTP://EBOOKS.WHSMITHONLINE.CO.UK/ENCYCLOPEDIA/80/M0024580.HTM

Sweeping changes that took place in British agriculture over the period 1750-1850. The changes were a response to the increased demand for food from a rapidly expanding population. Major events included the enclosure of open fields; the development of improved breeds of livestock; the introduction of four-course crop rotation; and the use of new crops such as turnips as animal fodder. Recent research has shown that these changes were only part of a much larger, ongoing process of development: many were in fact underway before 1750, and other breakthroughs, such as farm mechanization, did not occur until after 1859. The introduction of new crops - such as potatoes, red clover, and turnips - into Britain in the 17th century led to a considerable advance in farming practices, since farmers could use them to feed their livestock throughout the winter. Their use did away with the practice of slaughtering animals in the autumn and salting the meat for storage through the winter, which had been particularly detrimental to the health of the community. In the latter part of the 18th century, moreover, Jethro Tull demonstrated the advantage of thorough soil cultivation, and, with the invention of the first practical mechanized seed drill in about 1701, initiated the practice of drilling rather than broadcasting seed.

Four-course rotation: Tull's invention allowed crops to be planted in regular rows, while the intervals between rows could be stirred and cleaned by horse-hoeing. It also afforded a place for turnips and other root crops, and eventually led to the replacement of the 'three-field' system of the village community by the four-course rotation system, which was designed to ensure that no land would need to lie fallow between periods of cultivation and, to this end, rotated crops which absorb different kinds and quantities of nutrients from the soil. The four-course rotation system was subsequently developed by enlightened landowners such as Viscount 'Turnip' Townshend and Thomas Coke (1752-1842), who used it to produce greatly increased crop yields on his farmland in Norfolk, and encouraged other farmers and landowners to use the same method. Because both Coke and Townshend lived in Norfolk the system also became known as the 'Norfolk System'.

Livestock farming Other pioneers of the new farming methods developed in Britain in the latter part of the 18th century included Arthur Young the first secretary of the British Board of Agriculture and the author of numerous works on agriculture; and the livestock farmer Robert Bakewell , who improved the quality of horned stock and sheep, largely by means of inbreeding. His work resulted in a great reduction in the age at which bullocks and sheep were ready for the butcher.

Fertilizers and crop improvement In the early 19th century crop yields were significantly improved with the introduction of artificial fertilizers such as phosphate of lime, sulphate of potash, and salts of magnesia, which began to replace the use of dung and various forms of rubbish. 'Super-phosphate' fertilizers, which were first patented by the English agriculturalist John Lawes, were also developed, and began to be used on a large scale in the early 1840s; and further advances were made with the introduction of crop crossing, initially with wheat and cereal crops.

Agricultural machinery: Other important changes in the agricultural methods of the time were brought about with the invention of a number of harvesting and processing machines in the USA. The first of these was the mechanized cotton gin, which was patented by Eli Whitney in 1794, and significantly reduced the time needed to remove cotton seeds from cotton fibres. This was followed, in turn, by the first successful harvesting machine, which was patented by Cyrus McCormick in 1834; the first thresher, which was patented in the same year by the brothers John and Hiram Pitts; and the steel plough, which was invented by John Deere in 1837. The Pitts' thresher and McCormick's harvesting machine were also the basis of the modern combine harvester, which was only developed, however, in the late 1800s.

11. Crop Rotation

http://europeanhistory.about.com/
System of regularly changing the crops grown on a piece of land. The crops are grown in a particular order to utilize and add to the nutrients in the soil and to prevent the build-up of insect and fungal pests. Including a legume crop, such as peas or beans, in the rotation helps build up nitrate in the soil, because the roots contain bacteria capable of fixing nitrogen from the air.
A simple seven-year rotation, for example, might include a three-year ley followed by two years of wheat and then two years of barley, before returning the land to temporary grass once more. In this way, the cereal crops can take advantage of the build-up of soil fertility which occurs during the period under grass. In the 18th century a four-field rotation was widely adopted; over four years a field might be planted with autumn-sown cereal, followed by a root crop, then spring cereal, and finally a leguminous crop. Innovative farmers such as Charles 'Turnip' Townshend improved cultivation techniques.
18th-century developments
Landowners in the 18th century were increasingly motivated by the search for better farming methods to increase productivity and profits. The land market was active; numerous long-established landowners were being forced by debt to sell off portions of their estates, and the buyers were frequently newcomers from business backgrounds for whom ownership of land conferred the right to vote. They regarded the running of their farms as another commercial enterprise and, with other landowners, sought to cut costs, improve methods and output, and maximize profits. From 1750 food prices began to rise steadily with the increase in population and, after the outbreak of war with France in 1793, the disruption to food imports. The prospect of high prices encouraged farmers to attempt to raise yields.
From the late 17th century British farmers had been aware of successful Dutch agricultural techniques, which included the sowing of clover seed with barley (clover being a legume with nitrogen-fixing abilities); after the barley harvest, cattle were fattened on the clover crop, their manure further enhancing the soil. During the 18th century enterprising British landowners replaced the old three-field system with a new four-field rotation of crops. Each field was sown annually with a different crop, a four-year rotation typically being turnips (for winter animal feed), followed by barley, clover, and wheat. The system favoured both stockrearing and cereal-growing.

http://europeanhistory.about.com/

13. Mestizo

Indians and Mestizos in the Americas

www.indians.org/welker/indios.htm
Alfonso Perez Espindola Tenoch, a holy man of the Lakota nation spiritual tradition who lives in Laredo, Texas, languishes in a Mexican jail. His "crime" was having helped lead a "Peace and Dignity" prayer run across the Americas in 1992.
On Oct. 11th of that year, thousands of runners from hundreds of Indian nations from North and South America met in the ancient pyramid city of Teotihuacan Mexico to promote indigenous consciousness. They denounced 500 years of abuses against the indigenous (otherwise known as Indian) peoples of the Americas.
A year later, Perez was arrested in Michoacan, Mexico, for possessing peyote that he was taking to ceremonies with Huichol Indians. He was accused of possessing and trafficking drugs authorized only for use in religious ceremonies by Native Americans.
The government ceded that indigenous people have the right to perform peyote ceremonies, but determined that the Mexican-born Perez was not "indigenous, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Many governments define "Indians" as people who live in native communities and speak only a native tongue. When an Indian moves to a city and learns Spanish or another language, he or she is no longer considered "indigenous, but "mestizo."
Government sources estimate that there are 40 million Indians in North and South America. Non-governmental sources put the figure at closer to 100 million. The discrepancy in numbers is attributed to the large amount of "mestizos," or racially mixed people, who consider themselves or can be considered Indian, yet are not recognized as such by their governments.
While human rights groups throughout the Americas call for Perez's release, the issue of who is and who isn't "Indian" remains a familiar topic to Chicanos and other Latinos.
Tupac Enrique, a Chicano from Phoenix, who is part of an international alliance fighting for Perez's release, says that governments can determine who is a citizen, but cannot determine people's identities.
Enrique, who is of the Mexica spiritual tradition, says that people around the world determine identity differently from Western governments. For many he says, "It's not racial. We, not government, have been keeping indigenous identity alive for 500 years."
Most Chicanos and Latinos are at least part Native American and descend from such nations as Mexica, Nahua, Chichimeca, Tarahumara, Pueblo, Kikapu, Tarascan, Tlaxcalan, Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, Quechua, Mapuche or any one of hundreds of other Indian peoples.
Many of our own friends can trace their ancestry. Jose Barreiro, born in Cuba and editor of the Native American journal "Akwe:kon Press" at Cornell University, is Guajiro. Although Cuba and other Caribbean governments claim that there are no Indians in their countries, Barreiro says they do in fact live in the countryside, where Taino traditions are upheld by Guajiros -- the rural population.
Vivian Lopez, a counselor in Las Cruces, NM, who is originally from Tucson, is both Yaqui and Apache, and considers herself Chicana. "To be Chicana is be indigenous," she says, adding that she was raised among people who, as a form of cultural resistance, took pride in not being registered as Indians with the government. "I don't need to be on a Federal (Bureau of Indian Affairs) list to know who I am."
And El Paso, Texas-born Arturo Flores, a high-school vice principal in Washington, D.C., is Huichol. His sense of identity was not forged simply by his physical features, but by ancient traditions which his family has upheld "I've been nurtured by the same food my ancestors were nurtured by for thousands of years."
Like us, other friends can trace some, but not all of their ancestry. The reason, in part, is the role the Catholic church and missions played during the colonial era in "reducing," or culturally obliterating the Indian. The objective was to create a "Christian," and that meant to spiritually and culturally stamp out the Indian.
One result was that Indians and mestizos developed a hatred towards all things Indian--thus a hatred of themselves, which led to a denial of their ancestry. In this atmosphere, "Hispanicized Indians" became "mestizos" and mestizos became "Spanish." If you could claim one drop of European blood, you did. To this day, many Latinos or Hispanics claim they are "pure" white.
Many Latino college students, aware of their history, have long identified with their indigenous roots. Chicano students at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, for example, recently staged a hunger strike. They demanded that the university eliminate the "Hispanic" classification. The term, they maintain, is a negation of their indigenous ancestry.
As Barreiro says, "Every mestizo is one less Indian -- or one more Indian waiting to reemerge."

Mestizos
www.eduweb.com/rainforest/mestizo.html
In the centuries since Columbus discovered the New World, many Europeans have migrated to South America. Most of the people living in South America today have both European and indigenous ancestors. Until recently, however, few of them lived in the Amazon. They preferred to live in established cities along the coasts and in the Andes Mountains.
But in the past few decades, more and more mestizos have moved to the Amazon. They were having trouble finding work in their hometowns and saw opportunity in the Amazon. Many went looking for agricultural land. Others took jobs in oil fields or other industries.
Let's look at what's been happening in Ecuador. Ecuador is on the west coast of South America. About a third of the country lies within the Amazon. Since the 1950s, Ecuadorians (mostly mestizos) from the Andean highlands and the western coastal plain have been migrating to the Amazon. The population of the Ecuadorian Amazon has increased from about 60,000 people in the 1950s to 350,000 people now. By clearing forest to build homes, plant crops, and extract petroleum, these people have had a dramatic impact on the rainforest.

14. Primogeniture

http://www.mrdowling.com/703-primogeniture.html http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/syft/courts/syftrm0126.htm
http://www.Historychannel.com

PRIMOGENITURE
This form of land transfer was a holdover from medieval times that affected American colonization and ended in the wave of reforms that swept the newly created United States in the wake of the Revolution. In Britain, under primogeniture, a family's land was inherited entirely by the oldest male child, a system that served to keep estates intact and perpetuate the aristocracy. As a result, often lacking land or the means to buy it, many younger British sons turned to careers in the military or clergy, or sought marriage with the daughter of a wealthy family.
Another alternative was to leave England for the New World, and this possibility attracted many settlers to what became the thirteen colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. They brought the institution of primogeniture with them, but it began to fade as colonization continued, for, unlike Great Britain, America offered enough land to go around, and it was more easily acquired. The principle of primogeniture was followed only when a landowner died without a will.
The American Revolution ended the practice. During and after the war, the new states abolished such feudal holdovers as entail (which also kept land within a family) and quitrents (a tax paid to the land grantor). Primogeniture met a similar fate: Georgia was the first to end it in 1777, and the other states followed suit.

15. Creole Elite

Pronounced As: crol, Span. criollo crolyo [probably from crío=child], term originally applied in West Indies to the native-born descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The term has since been applied to certain descendants in the West Indies and the American continents of French, Portuguese, and Spanish settlers. The creoles were distinguished from the natives, the blacks, and from people born in Europe. A sharp distinction of interest always lay between the creoles, whose chief devotion was to the colony, and the foreign-born officials, whose devotion was to the mother country. Never precise, the term acquired various meanings in different countries. It has biological and cultural connotations. The term was early adopted in the United States in Louisiana, where it is still used to distinguish the descendants of the original French settlers from the Cajuns, who are at least partially descended from the Acadian exiles. The word is also commonly applied to things native to the New World, such as creole cuisine and creole horses. The term is also used in places distant from the Americas, such as the island of Mauritius, but there it has lost much of its original meaning. The picturesque life of the Louisiana creoles has been ably depicted in the works of Lafcadio Hearn, George Washington Cable, and Grace King.

16. Marquis de Montcalm

for more info: http://www.digitalhistory.org/montcalm.htm

18. Townsend

For more information go to http://www.soteria.com/brown/bios/charles.htm

2nd Viscount (1674-1738) English Statesman, was the eldest son of Viscount Townshend of Raynham (1630-1687) of an old Norfolk family descended from Sir Roger Townshend (d. 1493) of Raynham who acted as legal advisor to the Poston family.
Charles Townshend succeeded to the peerage in Dec. 1687 and was educated at Eaton and King's college, Cambridge. At first a Tory, when he took his seat in the House of Lords, he afterwards went over to the Whigs. In November 1708, he was appointed Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, having in the previous year been so summoned to the Privy Council.
As ambassador Extrordinary and Plenipotentiary to the States-General (1709-11), he took part in the negotiations preceding the Treaty of Utrecht. In September 1714, George I selected him as Secretary of Sate for the Northern Department. Townshend's policy, after the suppression of the Jacobite uprising in 1715, was one of peace at home and abroad. He prompted defensive alliances with the emperor and with France. But in 1716, he was dismissed from his position owing to the intrigues of Sunderland, who persuaded George I and Townshend's colleague, Stanhope, that Townshend and Walpole were plotting to place the Prince of Wales on the throne.
Early in 1720 a partial reconciliation took place between the parties of Stanhope and Townshend, who was President of the Council from June 1720 until February 1721 when, after the death of Stanhope and the forced retirement of Sunderland (as a result of the South Sea Bubble), he was again appointed Secretary of State for the Northern Department, with Walpole as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The two remained in power during the remainder of the reign of George I.
Townshend secured the dismissal of his rival, John Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville, but soon differences arose between himself and Walpole. Though disliking him, George I retained him in office, but the predominance in the Ministry passed gradually from him to Walpole. Failing, owing to Walpole's interference, Townshend retired on May 15, 1730.
His remaining years were spent at Raynham where he interested himself in agriculture. He died there on June 21, 1738.
Townshend was married twice, first to Elizabeth (d. 1711) daughter of Thomas Pelham (Pelham Manor) St. Baron of Laughton....and then to Dorothy (d. 1726) sister of Sir Robert Walpole.
The spelling of the name Townshend was changed to Townsend when the family moved to America

19. Cornelius Vermuyden (1595-1683) - Fen Reclamation

Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, born 1595, Tholen, Netherlands, died circa April 1683 in London, was an engineer who first introduced Dutch land reclamation methods into England and drained the Fens, the low marshy lands of the East of England.
An experienced embankment engineer, Vermuyden was employed in 1626 by King Charles I of England to drain Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axholme. Jointly financed by Dutch and English capitalists, Francis, Earl of Bedford and 13 Adventurers, the project was a controversial undertaking, not only for the engineering techniques used, but also because it employed Dutch, rather than English, workmen. The fenmen, men who made their living from fish and fowl in the Fens, attacked the Dutch workers. An agreement was finally made in 1630 to complete the project, the engineer had to employ English workers and compensate the fenmen for the loss of hunting and fishing rights; Vermuyden contracted to drain the Great Fen, or Bedford Level in Cambridgeshire, under an arrangement by which he would receive 95,000 acres of the drained lands, during this period the major contribution to the drainage were the Old Bedford River and the Forty Foot Drain: the project, completed in 1637, drew objections from other engineers, who claimed the draining system to be inadequate.
In 1642, during the English Civil War, Parliament ordered the dykes broken and the land flooded in order to stop a royalist army advance. In 1649 Vermuyden was commissioned to reclaim the Bedford Level. After the Civil War the work continued with the actual labour provided by Scottish prisoners of war captured at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and Dutchmen captured at a naval battle two years later. Some 40,000 acres were drained by 1652 and the New Bedford River cut.
As a result of this construction, neighboring farmlands were dried out and sank. Some have sunk as much as 20 feet below the waterway to this day. The loss of the peat that settled from the rise and fall of the water caused the "sinking." The surfaces of roads and railways were most often hard to keep even, having a large social and economic impact on the region. Houses and buildings have sunken looks with jammed windows and doorways.

20. Bubonic Plague

Xtra info: http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Plague.html

The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague occurred in China. Plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.
Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:
"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial."
The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian writer Boccaccio said its victims often
"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."
By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England, where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.
In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.
Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.
Medieval society never recovered from the results of the plague. So many people had died that there were serious labor shortages all over Europe. This led workers to demand higher wages, but landlords refused those demands. By the end of the 1300s peasant revolts broke out in England, France, Belgium and Italy.
The disease took its toll on the church as well. People throughout Christendom had prayed devoutly for deliverance from the plague. Why hadn't those prayers been answered? A new period of political turmoil and philosophical questioning lay ahead.
DISASTER STRIKES
Estimated population of Europe from 1000 to 1352.
· 1000 38 million
· 1100 48 million
· 1200 59 million
· 1300 70 million
· 1347 75 million
· 1352 50 million
25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352.

22. British Navigation Acts

www.proaxis.com/~sadben/navigation_main.html
www.encyclopedia.com/articles/09056.html

23. The Treaty of Paris

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/USA/TreatyParis.html
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=00C45000

The French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years War, began in 1754. The cause of the war was a race for possession of the same territory -- the trans-Appalachian region.
The Lieutenant-Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia decided to send George Washington with a message to the French commandant on French Creek asking for withdrawal of the French as trespassers. The French refused to leave. They captured a fort, today Pittsburgh, built by the British in 1754. In 1755, General Braddock came to America from Britain, with his army, to recapture the fort. He refused to take any advice of the people who knew the situation better and his army was defeated while he was killed. England withheld the declaration of the war until 1756.
When England's victory was almost sure, Spain entered the war in 1761. Now, the British triumph was delayed, and, with the involvement of England, France, and Spain, the war lasted until 1763.
The French and Indian War was part of a wider European conflict known as the Seven years War which pitted England and Prussia against France, Austria, Russia and Spain. The French and Indian War was concluded by the Treaty Of Paris of February 10, 1763. It was signed by England, France, and Spain.
By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France lost Canada in favor of Great Britain and all claims to territory east of the Mississippi, while Spain, in order to recover Cuba which Britain had taken, ceded Florida. New Orleans went with Louisiana to Spain, but with these exceptions England now held the whole of North America east of the Mississippi. The Treaty of Paris was a triumph for England over her rivals in the race for worldwide empire.

The Treaty of Paris signed on February 10, 1763, by Great Britain and its adversaries, France and Spain, ended the Seven Years' War in Europe and the New World phase of the conflict, the French and Indian War in America. For the issues and military engagements involved and for the provisions of the treaty, see French and Indian War; Seven Years' War.

25. Spinning Jenny

More additional information can be found at http://www.lancashire.vg/jameshargreaves.htm

James Hargreaves was born at Stanhill, a village within Oswaldtwistle and baptized on January 8th, 1720. He was a weaver and members of his family did spinning. There are no pictures of James Hargreaves in existence, but in Aikin's Athenaeum of 1807 describes Hargreaves as a tall broadset man with black hair, industrious but illiterate. He married Elizabeth Grimshaw at Church Kirk on September 10th, 1740. About the time Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny there was a great demand for yarn, John Kay's flying shuttle invented in 1733 but not widely used until the 1750's doubled the weaver's output and therefore a weaver was dependent on several spinners to keep him supplied with yarn. Weavers employed the use of spinners in their own homes and had to pay more and more to keep up with the demands of their masters. The weavers would call upon these spinners early in the morning so he could spend the rest of the day weaving.

One person who took up his position in front of the frame worked the 'jenny'. The roving were then drawn between the 'clove' or clasp bars of the carriage and attached to the spindle, the carriage having been placed in position for commencing work, that is, at the end of the traverse nearest the spindles. The bottom bar having been lowered, the carriage was drawn away from the spindles until a proper quantity to rove to form one 'draw' or length of yarn had been given out. The lower bar was then raised, the rove held and the spindles set in motion by the spinner turning the large wheel, at the same time commencing to draw the carriage farther out from its position near the spindles. Thus, the attenuation and twisting of the yarn went on simultaneously until the requisite degree of fineness was attained, when the outward traverse of the carriage was stopped, the spindles being kept in operation for a short time longer in order to impart sufficient twist to the thread. When this turning had been completed, the carriage was slightly backed, the guide or faller wire was gently brought down upon the threads, depressing them to the required level; the wheel was then turned slowly round causing the spindles to wind up the thread as the carriage returned to its first position.

26. Turnips

Turnips are garden vegetable of the same genus of the family Cruciferae (mustard family) as the cabbage. They are native to Europe, where it has been long cultivated. The two principal kinds are the white (Brassica rapa) and the yellow (B. napobrassica), which is known as the rutabaga, the Swedish turnip, or the swede. The rutabaga is grown extensively only in Europe, where it is believed to have originated during the Middle Ages as a cross between the white turnip and the cabbage. The turnip is one of the root crops used as a stock feed as well as for human food. The green leaves (greens) are often cooked like spinach. The turnip is a biennial cool-weather crop, grown mostly in cool climates. The worst turnip pests are the root maggot and the flea beetle; it is also attacked by clubroot fungus. Turnips are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Capparales, family Cruciferae. Turnips are one of the root crops, vegetable cultivated chiefly for its edible roots. All root crops have a large water content and grow best in deeply cultivated soil in cool, overcast weather when the plant's loss of water through transpiration is lowest. Because they require thorough cultivating they are often desirable in a rotation of crops-beets and turnips being most frequently so used. Root crops, especially beets, turnips, and carrots, are also grown as food for livestock. Not only is this root vegetable easy to grow, but it keeps well, too. Because of this, turnips have long been popular in Great Britain and northern Europe. The white-fleshed turnip has a white skin with a purple-tinged top. The so-called yellow turnip is actually a turnip relative, the rutabaga. Small, young turnips have a delicate, slightly sweet taste. As they age, however, their taste becomes stronger and their texture coarser, sometimes almost woody. Fresh turnips are available year-round, with the peak season from October through February. Choose heavy-for-their-size small turnips, as they are the youngsters and will be more delicately flavored and textured. The roots should be firm and the greens (if attached) bright-colored and fresh-looking. Though turnips can be refrigerated, tightly wrapped, for 2 weeks, they do best in a cool, well-ventilated area such as a root cellar. Before using, they should be washed, trimmed and peeled. Turnips may be boiled or steamed, then mashed or pureed. They can also be stir-fried, cubed and tossed with butter, or used raw in salads. Turnips are a fair source of vitamin C.