Agricultural Technology in Medieval Denmark

Here is an example of a heavy wheeled plow, and if you’re thinking “so what?,” that might be because the ubiquity of our modern technology has made us jaded to more ordinary-looking inventions. But this plow was responsible for allowing major agricultural change in the Middle Ages, as a recent study focusing on farmland in Denmark showcases.

In the Ancient Roman Mediterranean basin, a small scratch-plow (called an “ard”) sufficed to get the most out of the sandy soils. The Roman landholders used slave labor widely, which also brought a lot of productivity to the land. But with the collapse of Rome, the focus of the arable farmland changed.

In the northwest of Europe, heavy clay soils made the scratch-plow not nearly as useful, and the use of enslaved people was not as widespread. So instead a new type of plow eventually developed called the “mouldboard plow”, and it was super powerful in comparison. It could cut the soil horizontally with an asymmetric plow share! It could cut the soil vertically with its coulter! And finally, it could turn the cut sod earth to the side with its mold mouldboard! That’s a lot of exclamation points, but what it amounted to was important — All these components meant that soils were turned, cutting down on weeds, allowing for better drainage, and permitting manure to get stirred into the earth more efficiently.

And voila! Agricultural productivity rose enormously. The heavy plow had made an impact across much of northwest Europe by 1000, and increasing amounts of cereal production generated such crop surplus that historians refer to the “agricultural revolution” of the Central Middle Ages. However, the technology changed long before the greatest boom in productivity — it just took a while to spread.

Historians Thomas Barnebeck Andersen, Peter Sandholt Jensen, and Christian Volmar Skobsgaard examined data from Danish farmland before and after the heavy plow was introduced, and they argue that this technology was so significant that it accounted for “more than 40% of new urban centers in medieval Denmark.” In other words, the increase in crops put such a boost into the economy that it galvanized the creation of cities.