AGRICULTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 159 



appear that in France and Germany agricultural science was some- 

 what less advanced ; in the south of Europe it was in a much higher 

 condition, as might be expected from the greater advancement of 

 these nations in the other departments of civilization. We find in 

 Italy during the Middle Ages agricultural improvements which in 

 the more northern countries belong only to modern times. 



The great obstacles to agricultural progress were two : the 

 simplicity of medieval life, which was satisfied with a few gross 

 products, and the artificial restrictions of society, which hampered 

 all individuality and enterprise. 



The first of these obstacles was removed by the rapid growth 

 of the cities in population, wealth, and power, a growth which 

 belongs mainly to the fourteenth century. The rich burghers 

 plebeians as they were were not satisfied with the coarse, un- 

 varied fare of a baron's table, nor with the homespun garments 

 of wool and hemp. Commerce began to supply them abundantly 

 with the wines, silks, and spices of the South and the East, and 

 home productions were likewise more delicate and varied. The 

 extravagance and luxury which characterized the closing years 

 of the Middle Ages had at least this good result, that they gave 

 a powerful stimulus to every branch of production. From this 

 new city life begins the first decisive progress in agriculture. 



The second obstacle was also removed, but more slowly. With 

 the breaking up of feudalism serfdom, its natural companion, 

 perished too ; but the process was a slow one, and in many 

 parts of Europe serfdom, instead of being mitigated with the new 

 life of modern times, was made more harsh and burdensome. 

 Still slower to disappear was the control over modes of cultivation 

 exercised by the communities, with their constrained cultivation in 

 common. In some parts of western Europe these usages have 

 not even yet disappeared ; in eastern Europe they are in full 

 operation to this day. 



I have shown, I think, that with all its shortcomings, medieval 

 agriculture was not at so very low a stage. Unscientific as it was, 

 it was nevertheless careful and faithful ; no one can look over 

 the registers and rent rolls of the English manors of the thir- 

 teenth and fourteenth centuries without being convinced that their 



