{"id":657,"date":"2026-10-05T10:53:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T10:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/?p=657"},"modified":"2026-10-05T11:34:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T11:34:33","slug":"past-harvests-at-the-leeds-international-medieval-congress-july-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/2026\/10\/05\/past-harvests-at-the-leeds-international-medieval-congress-july-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Past Harvests at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-659\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In July I was delighted to be part of an excellent series of talks sponsored by the Yorkist History Trust. These were scheduled for the Tuesday during the IMC held as ever at the University of Leeds. This conference brings together an exceptionally large, multi-national set of participants and provides a forum for presenters at every stage of their academic career to discuss their work with a well-informed and enthusiastic audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paper I gave was entitled \u2018Sustainability in Late Medieval Agriculture: A Social, Environmental and Economic Analysis of Five Landed Estates across England\u2019. It provided an introduction and summary of the Past Harvests project with an emphasis, given the forum, on the medieval period. The session was very well-attended and led to some interesting questions and comments at the end. Past Harvests is challenging in that it seeks to use sources from the medieval period to help populate a modern model that focuses on sustainability in agriculture. This Global Farm Metrics model or GFM requires inputs that may or not be present in the records produced by the medieval reeve or bailiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"386\" height=\"218\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-661\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture2.png 386w, https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture2-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 386px) 100vw, 386px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our colleagues working on the early modern period for Past Harvests have as their focus the farm. These can be identified from their source material and especially from some of the excellent estate maps that were produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The great estates with whom we are working such as Chatsworth and Holkham hold many detailed such maps in their archives. For the medieval period there are no such maps, and the only definitive information available that approximates to a farm-level record is that for the manorial demesnes of the lords. These might be characterised as describing the home farm of the lord\u2019s possessions. Where such records have survived, they can be a rich source of information on farming activity. They show what crops were grown and on what acreage as well as the numbers of stock and how many animals were bought and sold in that accounting year. They list the produce of the dairy sold and their quantities. They describe such things as the sale of wood, hay etc. and in particular a good level detail of detail about pasture. The pasture might be charged by the lord on an animal by animal basis (known as agistment), or the parcel of land might be leased to a tenant for that year. In the former case we might be given a complete list of the type and number of animals on the pasture. The manorial demesne was a very commercial enterprise; once the needs of the lord\u2019s households had been met, the rest of the produce was sold. For a productive and well-run demesne, the level of profit could be considerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of these reeves\u2019 accounts from the period before the Black Death can provide much valuable information to populate our GFM. However there is much that is missing and has to be inferred or calculated from other sources. Sometimes we may need to rely on work done by scholars working on agricultural history to estimate numbers such as the amount of manure produced per year by animals feeding on the lord\u2019s pastures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are other problems with these records. For any individual manor, such a detailed set of accounts may not survive at all, or there may only be a single example in the period 1250 to 1400. Furthermore it became very common for lords to lease out their demesnes in return for a known, regular income. A consequence is that the level of detail from the earlier period is no longer present in the surviving records. This becomes very common in the period after 1400.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All of these factors were discussed in my presentation and were well-understood by my well-informed audience. I always try to include plenty of visual stimulus in my presentations and there were many striking images I could choose from to brighten up the session. The Luttrell Psalter was a great example. At the end of the session there were some very helpful and supportive comments and questions. One provided a useful hint on where to find some further material for manors in Cornwall. Finally I promised to return to Leeds in 2028 to provide a summary of how well our project has succeeded in fulfilling its objectives. I am quietly confident that we will have much good news to convey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-663\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Scenes from the Luttrell Psalter, BL Add MS 42130 (early fourteenth century)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"165\" height=\"165\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture4.png 165w, https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/689\/2026\/10\/Picture4-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 165px) 100vw, 165px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Yorkist History Trust<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This blog was provided by Dr Des Atkinson, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Exeter on the Past Harvests project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July I was delighted to be part of an excellent series of talks sponsored by the Yorkist History Trust. These were scheduled for the Tuesday during the IMC held as ever at the University of Leeds. This conference brings together an exceptionally large, multi-national set of participants and provides a forum for presenters at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Past Harvests at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 2026 - The Past Harvests Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/pastharvests\/2026\/10\/05\/past-harvests-at-the-leeds-international-medieval-congress-july-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Past Harvests at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 2026 - The Past Harvests Project\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In July I was delighted to be part of an excellent series of talks sponsored by the Yorkist History Trust. 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