When the Roman Empire left the shores of Britannia, it also left an island that would be invaded by a variety of tribes and conquerors. When the dust settled, England found itself in the Middle Ages, ruled by a king, in a time when knowledge was confined to the clergy, and when the whole of Europe was constantly embroiled in wars as it struggled to make a living and create a surplus.

Agriculture was again the order of the day - but this time, it became an important business, well enough for landowners to gain power and hold dominion, and well enough for the widening gap between the nobility and peasantry to create dissent in the lower classes. There was disunity as much as richness, harvests as well as shortage, good health in the midst of plagues. Medieval England was dark with sickness and the politics of ownership, but the time was ripe for literature and art to flourish.

In the meantime, there was food to be had, and England's agricultural system depended on the country's manors to give it. A manor was usually formed around old Roman villas, or assembled by tribes after they decided to settle down. It consisted of arable land, meadow land, waste land, and a village. The larger manors had a mill, blacksmiths, ovens to bake bread, fishponds, an orchard, a wine or oil press, vegetable gardens, and an apiary to keep bees to produce honey.

A lord reigned supreme over a manor, and collected rents from tenants lower than he. For an economy based solely on agriculture, life was a pleasure for the nobles, but one driven by desperation for the tenants, who worked on the land, but received much less in compensation.

Life revolved around tilling the land and making the most out of what it could bring. For most of Medieval England, agriculture dictated what dates were important on one's calendar. New Year, for instance, began on Lady Day, March 25, which marked the first plowing of a fallow field. Since there was little or no fertilizer besides manure, land was allowed to remain fallow every few years, where it would be planted with peas or beans. Medieval peasants did not fully comprehend how their land remained fertile even after they had sown it with legumes, but their efforts, based on years of trial and error, worked to bring nitrogen back into the soil.

Medieval agriculture prospered in its own way, thanks to three major innovations. The first was the mould board plow, which allowed six or more oxen to plow the land. The second was the horse collar, which fully utilized the animal's strength and allowed it to plow faster than oxen, if the latter were not available.

The third was the three-field system. In such a system, a given area of land was rotated amongst crops, or allowed to remain fallow in order not to deplete the soil's nutrients. Spring crops such as barley, oats, peas, and vetches had their own strips, and were sown by broadcast method, or together, in a mixture called a dredge.

Peasants took care to sow just the right amount of seed. If too few were planted, weeds could grow easily and choke the crops. On the other hand, if too much was planted, the plants would not grow properly, and they would choke themselves. As a rule, barley was sown at four bushels to the acre, while oats, peas, and beans were sown at three.

While plowing and sowing occupied April, May was a time for defending the newly sown seeds from birds. The lord's doves were usually the greatest pests - but they were off limits and could not be killed. With a dove's murder came a heavy prison penalty, and the bird, inasmuch as it caused considerable damage to agricultural crops, became a despised symbol of a lord's dominion.

May was also the time for cultivating cash crops. Peasants planted flax, hemp, and dyeplants such as madder (to produce red), woad (blue), dyer's greenwood (green), and weld (yellow). Also included were spices and herbs such as fennel, celery, mint, parsley, chamomile, catmint, summer savoury, mustard, coriander, and the opium poppy.

Come June were a number of agriculture-related activities. There was haymaking, which united the peasants as they made sure that their animals would survive through the winter. There was lamb shearing, to get wool for the garment trade. Fields were also fertilized by allowing beasts to pasture their, so that their dung would immediately land where needed.

July was a rather dark, desolate month, what with the weeding that had to be done. Weeds such as thistles, dock, charlock, corn cockle, and dead nettle thrived. There were also corn marigolds, associated with barley; and corn flower, which grew near rye.

July was also the lowest point of a manor's food supply. All year round, there would be game, ducks, pheasants, geese, hens, and partridge. There would be fish, beef, and mutton from the manor's animals; and cabbage, carrots, onions, peas, turnips, and beans from the garden. There was some bread, butter, cheese, wine, and ale, as well as some fruits from the larder.

Medieval crop yields, however, were very low, and come July, the grain was all but spent. As a result, peasants foraged or poached royal game for food - or, according to some studies, deliberately baked ergot-infected rye into bread. Ergot is a hallucinogenic mold, and it may have been used to ease many a peasant's hunger pangs.

Harvesting began in August, starting with wheat and rye, which were winter crops; and then barley and oats, the spring grains. By September, peas, beans, and vetches were collected from the field. At this point, the manor would be busy processing the grain, which had to be completed by September 29th, or Michaelmas, the start of the new financial year.

In October, wheat and rye were sown as winter crops, while the woods sounded with foraging pigs, which were driven there to partake of falling beechnuts and acorns. By this time, the winter winds were already blowing in, and by November, the manor was ready with its stores of cured meat, blood for black pudding, and grain to meet the coming frost.

Yields were low, and corruption and greed ran rampant through the glades and rolling heals. Wheat would yield 250-300 liters of grain per acre (meager in comparison with modern agriculture's 1,500 liters or more), oat gave 360-400, and peas 300-340. Barley brought in 700-720, and was used to make both bread and ale.

And so the year went, as the snow fell upon the land, and as the woods sang with traveling lords and outlaws alike. Medieval England's hardships gave birth to a new generation of songs, a new breed of minstrels, whose poetry and verses roused many a broken spirit - and whose tales would form the tapestry of a Renaissance waiting to emerge from the shadows.

Read more about agriculture in Medieval England at http://www.hyw.com/books/history/Agricult.htm, http://www.adbio.com/science/agri-history.htm, and http://www.witheridge-historical-archive.com/medieval-year.htm.

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