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Agriculture in Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century and the establishment of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. Scotland has between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or good pastoral land of England and Wales, mostly located in the south and east. Heavy rainfall encouraged the spread of acidic blanket peat bog, which with wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made internal communication and agriculture difficult. The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration resulting in more land becoming unproductive. Most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet of meat, dairy products and cereals, supplemented by hunter-gathering. Farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family and cattle were the most important domesticated animal. In the period 1150 to 1300, warm dry summers and less severe winters allowed cultivation at much greater heights above sea level and made land more productive. Arable farming grew significantly, but was still more common in low-lying areas than in high-lying areas such as the Highlands, Galloway and the Southern Uplands. The system of infield and outfield agriculture, a variation of open field farming widely used across Europe, may have been introduced with feudalism from the twelfth century Crops were bere (a form of barley), oats and sometimes wheat, rye and legumes. Hunting reserves were also adopted by Anglo-Norman lords and then by Gaelic ones. The more extensive outfield was used for oats. New monastic orders such as the Cistercians became major landholders and sheep farmers, particularly in the Borders where they were organised in granges. By the late Medieval period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland baile, settlements of a handful of families that jointly farmed an area notionally suitable for two or three plough teams, allocated in run rigs to tenant farmers, known as husbandmen. Runrigs usually ran downhill so that they included both wet and dry land. Most ploughing was done with a heavy wooden plough with an iron coulter, pulled by oxen, which were more effective and cheaper to feed than horses. Key crops included kale, hemp and flax. Sheep and goats were probably the main sources of milk, while cattle were raised for meat. The rural economy appears to have boomed in the thirteenth century and in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death was still buoyant, but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off in incomes to be followed by a slow recovery in the fifteenth century. ==Early Middle Ages== Scotland is roughly half the size of England and Wales and has approximately the same amount of coastline, but only between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or good pastoral land, under 60 metres above sea level, and most of this is located in the south and east. This made marginal pastoral farming and fishing, the key factors in the pre-modern economy.〔E. Gemmill and N. J. Mayhew, ''Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: a Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), ISBN 0521473853, pp. 8–10.〕 Its east Atlantic position means that it has very heavy rainfall: today about 700 cm per year in the east and over 1,000 cm in the west. This encouraged the spread of blanket peat bog, the acidity of which, combined with high level of wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made agriculture and internal communication difficult.〔C. Harvie, ''Scotland: a Short History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ISBN 0192100548, pp. 10–11.〕 The early Middle Ages, from the fifth century to the tenth century, were a period of climate deterioration, with a drop in temperature and an increase in rainfall, resulting in more land becoming unproductive.〔P. Fouracre and R. McKitterick, eds, ''The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 500-c. 700'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), ISBN 0521362911, p. 234.〕 With a lack of significant transport links and wider markets, most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet of meat, dairy products and cereals, supplemented by hunter-gathering. Limited archaeological evidence indicates that throughout Northern Britain farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family, with kinship relationships likely to be common among neighbouring houses and settlements, reflecting the partition of land through inheritance.〔A. Woolf, ''From Pictland to Alba: 789 – 1070'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 0748612343, pp. 17–20.〕 The climate meant that more oats and barley were grown than wheat.〔A. MacQuarrie, ''Medieval Scotland: Kinship and Nation'' (Thrupp: Sutton, 2004), ISBN 0-7509-2977-4, pp. 136–40.〕 The evidence of bones indicates that cattle were by far the most important domesticated animal, followed by pigs, sheep and goats, while domesticated fowl were very rare.〔K. J. Edwards and I. Ralston, ''Scotland after the Ice Age: Environment, Archaeology and History, 8000 BC – AD 1000'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), ISBN 0748617361, p. 230.〕 Missionaries from Ireland may have changed agricultural practice, bringing innovations such as the horizontal water mill and mould board ploughs, which were more effective in turning the soil.〔S. M. Foster, "The topography of peoples lives: geography to 1314", in I. Brown, ed., ''The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: From Columba to the Union, until 1707'' (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 074862760X, p. 47.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Agriculture in Scotland in the Middle Ages」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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