Matilda Holmes knew medieval England’s farms had changed as towns and trade expanded. What she did not expect was to see the cattle growing older.
When Holmes and her colleagues traced livestock ages across medieval England, cattle from the 10th through 12th centuries stood out. Many had lived beyond about age 4, by which time animals raised mainly for meat would often have already been slaughtered.
“The increase in older cattle in the tenth to twelfth centuries was unexpected and implies a real change in the working practices of farmers in that period,” the authors said in a press release. “It would have relied upon closer working relationships between people and cattle, and it is likely that they were valued members of the workforce.”
Their study, published in PLOS One, follows the changing uses of cattle and sheep from C.E. 400 to 1400 as England’s population and markets grew.
How Cattle Teeth Recorded Medieval Farm Work
The study drew on 701 groups of animal remains from 460 archaeological sites across England. Archaeologists could often date a group of bones only to a broad span of time, so the researchers spread each group’s influence across the years it could belong to. This allowed them to follow gradual changes without squeezing every find into periods such as “Saxon” or “high medieval.”
Explore All OptionsTo estimate the animals’ ages, the researchers looked at tooth eruption and wear. Between roughly C.E. 900 and 1100, 60 percent of cattle in the age dataset belonged to older age groups. Tooth wear alone cannot show whether an animal was kept for milk, breeding, or work.
But older cattle, including males, were becoming more common, whereas earlier work had found lower-leg changes associated with pulling heavy loads. The researchers argue that oxen became increasingly important for plowing as grain production expanded, with their use peaking during the 11th and 12th centuries.
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Monasteries and the Earlier Rise of England’s Wool Trade
After Roman rule faded, most settlements scaled back to smaller farms that produced mainly what people needed themselves, although a few kept older Roman agricultural practices alive.
Around C.E. 625, sheep began to make up a growing share of the remains. Several sites where sheep dominated were monasteries, and farmers were keeping the animals longer. Male sheep also became more common. Because farmers did not need large numbers of males for breeding, keeping them into adulthood points to the value of their fleeces.
The study therefore traces the beginnings of England’s medieval wool trade to seventh-century monastic communities, about two centuries earlier than often recognized. Those flocks also supplied milk, meat, and manure and grazed crop stubble, making them valuable to the grain economy as well as the cloth trade.
Why Horses Meant Younger Cattle
By the 12th century, farmers were slaughtering more cattle as young adults, suggesting that growing towns wanted more beef. More calves appear in the record during the 13th and 14th centuries, pointing to an expansion in dairy farming. Researchers had generally placed both changes later.
Around 1086, when William the Conqueror ordered the Domesday survey of English land and resources, horses made up about 5 percent of England’s draft animals. By C.E. 1400, that figure had risen to an estimated 20 to 50 percent. As horses took on more fieldwork, fewer cattle were needed to pull plows.
The countrywide pattern grew from choices made farm by farm: keep one animal for milk, train another to pull, hold sheep for another fleece, or send livestock to market for meat. Those decisions shaped what fed England’s growing towns and how long animals worked beside the people who depended on them.
Read More: Stone Age People in Denmark Kept Fishing Even After Farming Arrived 6,000 Years Ago
Article Sources
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- This article references information from a study published in PLOS One: Meat, milk, wool and grain: The animal economy of medieval England (CE 400 to 1400)
