Agriculture in Polish Territory during the Early Middle Ages

Abstract

The history of agriculture in Polish territory during the Early Middle Ages has attracted growing interest since the Second World War, particularly in connection with research on the origins of the Polish state. Recent archaeological discoveries have shown that the developmental paths of early medieval agriculture were far more complex than previously assumed, warranting a new synthesis of the available evidence.
This article examines selected problems in Polish early medieval agriculture: the arable instruments and harvest tools and their technical evolution, the systems of soil cultivation (slash-and-burn, fallow system, three-field system), the area cultivated by individual farms, and the structure of rural settlement (territorial community, opole).
The analysis draws on archaeological sources (iron parts and wooden fragments of ards recovered from excavations of 6th-11th century sites), written sources from the 12th century onwards, and the author's earlier monographs (Technika uprawy roli w Polsce średniowiecznej, Wrocław 1962; Zmiany form osadnictwa wiejskiego, Wrocław 1971).
The analysis shows that the arable instruments known in Polish territory comprised several types of ards and ploughs with iron shares, whose use spread progressively from the 6th-7th centuries. Slash-and-burn cultivation dominated in the early phases and gave way gradually to fallow systems and the three-field system. The permanently cultivated area of an individual farm rarely exceeded 1-2 ha. The territorial community (opole) constituted the basic settlement unit, comprising several multi-hearth sites within an area of up to 100-250 sq. km by the 8th-9th centuries. The stabilization of rural settlement, culminating in the fixed village of the High Middle Ages based on the quit-rent economy, resulted from population growth and the adoption of more intensive cultivation methods.