Schreg, Feeding the village 301–320
Processing, Storage, Distribution of Food. Food in the Medieval Rural Environment, ed. by Jan Klápště & Petr Sommer,
Ruralia, VIII (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), Pp. 301–320.
FHG 10.1484/M.RURALIA-EB.1.100175
Feeding the village
– Reflections on the ecology and resilience
of the medieval rural economy
Survivre au village
– Réflexions sur l’écologie et la résilience de l’économie
du village médiéval
Überleben im Dorf
– Überlegungen zur Ökologie und Krisenresistenz
mittelalterlicher Dorfwirtschaft
Rainer Schreg
In recent decades, archaeological research has
shown that the development of rural settlements in
Europe was more complex than previously thought.
There are important changes within the settlement system
seen not only in colonization, abandonment, and
concentration but also in ecology, society and mentality.
These changes are poorly understood.
Models reflecting on the ecology and resilience of
the medieval rural economy provide important possibilities
to explain these changes. This contribution will
present some theoretical concepts derived from system
theory recently discussed in environmental history.
As all pre-modern cultures were based on solar
energy, food production is a central element of every
human-ecological system.
Medieval village ecosystems mainly in western central
Europe are reconsidered in light of these concepts,
in an attempt to understand their changes and to evaluate
the risk of starvation and the need for continuous
adaptation.
In this article I want to suggest an ecological approach
to analyze these changes and to broaden the
archaeological perspective. I will do this in a rather
theoretical way, as it is not the intention to analyze a
specific landscape but to look at medieval food production
and its role for changing settlement systems in a
more general way.
This contribution aims:
• to call attention to the ecological dimensions of food
production, storage, and consumption
• to examine dynamics underlying changes in settlement
systems and food production
• to evaluate the usefulness of archaeological approaches
based on systems theory.
Food production as a limit to growth
Starvation and poverty are one of the most important
and probably one of the most popular perceptions
of the ‘dark’ Middle Ages. As population increased continuously
from the Merovingian period until the late
medieval crisis in the 14th century, historians understand
food production as a determining as well as a
limiting factor of medieval history. They deal with colonisation
as well as with technological innovation as
a reaction to increasing population (Herrmann 1987).
Colonisation opened new land for agriculture (Erlen
1992). Technological innovation in agrarian tools and
production strategies increased rural productivity
(White, Jr. 1968). However, the Middle Ages have been
seen as a prominent example for a Malthusian crisis,
as the increase in food production did not meet the
needs of growing population (Malthus 1977; Postan
1966).
In dealing with these changes, historians have focussed
on aspects of the economic market and have
emphasised the role of demography. In recent years
an ecological perspective has gained more importance
among historians. It has been suggested that over-exploitation
and deforestation were responsible for at
least some of the problems of the late medieval crisis
(Schreg 2009b). The crisis of the 14th century including
processes of settlement abandonment, economic
problems, starvation and a major decline in population
has been understood as an ecological crisis
(Bowlus 1988).
There is ongoing debate about the extent to which
late medieval events can be understood as a Malthusian
crisis. Desai criticized the notion of a Malthusian
crisis in 14th century England by arguing that the
famines of the early 14th century had no long-lasting
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301–320
development of the Prussian concept of State and nation,
and national socialistic ideology as well as democratisation,
westernisation and European integration of
Germany after WWII and after 1989. For a very long
time German medieval history leaned towards an imperial
national state as an aim of history. A strengthening
of central power has been seen as progress, while decentralisation
or processes which balance interests of
different social groups were denounced as weaknesses
of the state. Changes were often perceived as progress
or decline relative to the values of the present. Even today,
history and especially medieval and modern history
foms part of our modern identities and therefore is
part of a teleological view concentrated on continuities
rather than on changes. Historians, archaeologists,
and geographers primarily follow a genetic approach,
seeking origins, continuity of traditions, and preconditions
of the present (or at least later situations).
Classical historical research traditions, as represented
by historism – which has not been a purely
German phenomenon (Oexle 1996) – emphasized human
action. Many historians were very sceptical about
abstract factors and many approaches of social or economic
history were appreciated as deterministic, functionalistic
or more generally as “ahistoric”. History was
linked with events, juridical institutions and human
action; history has been seen as a teleological process
driven by human individuals, human polities or
nations. Even Marxist historical materialism followed
this teleological view of history leading to a communist
society as the aim of history. Transformations leading
to this goal were thought of as a series of revolutions
realized by humans, but determined by dialectical conditions
of the socio-economic situation. Today several
modern historical schools are reconsidering daily life,
mentality and socio-economic conditions. They showed
different processes of cultural adaptation, cultural exchange,
and cultural change lasting over generations.
When Fernand Braudel and the French Annales introduced
their concept of different time scales – which
gives priority to long-term historical structures over
conjunctures and short-time events – it was possible
to integrate economic and social history with their
mid- and long-time perspective (Braudel 1958).
Today environmental history gains more and more
importance and requires again a broadening of the
historic perspective. Because environmental research
gains its topics mainly from current debates on climate
change and ecological problems, its key concepts go
beyond historical perceptions of the environment and
cannot be taken from historical texts. Environmental
history has three levels: 1) the study of natural environments
of the past to understand ecological interdependencies
irrespective of human activities; 2) human
modes of production to understand the socioeconomic
effects (Desai 1991). More general critics focus on the
lack of explanatory value or they suspect that the interpretation
as “crisis” is a projection of our own modern
concepts of crises back to the medieval past (Schuster
1999; Winiwarter in press).
It is the case that over large areas of Europe many
villages, farmsteads and agrarian fields were abandoned
in the 14th century, and there are many other
arguments for some kind of crisis (Abel 1976; Siedlungsforschung
1994; Seibt 1984). There are numerous
studies, mainly in physical anthropology, which show
that medieval populations were deficient in nutrition,
both in terms of the quantities of food consumed, as
well as in the necessary balance of minerals and vitamins
(Haidle 1997). We also know of pestilence, heavy
rain events, and climate change as well as changes in
settlement systems, economy, society, and mentality
(Dahlerup 2009). It is hardly possible to think of them
as isolated processes.
At present, medieval settlement abandonment is
poorly understood. The fact that we must take into account
many factors, regional differences and complex
interactions means that it is a great methodological
challenge to build a more objective basis for argumen-
tation.
With respect to changes in food production in an historical
perspective, it is necessary to use a long-term
perspective and to analyse changes using a structural
or systemic approach. It is not enough to describe the
changes; we also need to evaluate them.
Theoretical approaches to cultural
and environmental changes
It is one of the most challenging tasks of global history
to analyze processes of cultural and ecological
change as an interaction of several quite different historical,
anthropological or natural factors. There are
several difficulties to overcome. The lack of data is a
serious issue, but it is probably not the most important
challenge, as controversies about cultural changes
in well documented historical situations show (Brüggemeier
– Rommelspacher 1991). Rather more important
are the intellectual concepts which are used to understand
historical processes (Radkau 2002). In many
cases the value judgements of modern researchers
and their preconceptions of nature and humans affect
the insights more fundamental.
Changes in past political and social systems have
often been understood as the evolution of our own
present. German historiography provides an example.
The evolution of historical thought has been heavily
dependent on political history after the Napoleonic
wars, reflecting nostalgia for the lost national state, the
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realm as it interacts with the environment; and 3) the
perception, ideology and value of the environment as
a basis for human decisions, reactions and activities
(Worster 1988, 293ff).
As environmental history took its origins from modern
ecological disasters and problems, the analysis of
ecological systems, interrelations of natural and cultural
factors and understanding of systems or regimes
is the most important research topic. A systemic view
is therefore quite often characteristic for an environmental
perspective. Human culture and action is seen
within the framework of ecological systems. However,
there are several concepts within environmental history
which do not form one coherent general theory
(Winiwarter 2007). As they pay attention to different aspects
of cultural changes and provide alternative perspectives,
they may be able to give new insights even to
well established discussions. Environmental history
promises a synthesis of quite different approaches to
historical processes and changes, providing also some
concepts which deal specifically with the role of culture
and human perceptions of the environment.
Food production is a key element of every human
society since the Neolithic; and consequently changes
in food production are crucial for environmental history.
The analysis of food production in the Middle Ages
provides deeper insights into settlement history, periods
of historical expansion and crises, and may also
bring to mind the complexity and ecological sensibility
of modern food production.
The close association of archaeology with physical
geology, anthropology, botany and zoology has ensured
that the relationship of man and environment has
played an important role in archaeological research
since the 19th century (Fig. 1). Discussions of diluvial
human fossils as well as the pile dwellings of the circum-Alpine
region, or the kitchen middens of Southern
Scandinavia, have referred to man-environment
relations. Though historians emphasized the role of
man as an active agent in history, early 20th century
Fig. 1. Archaeological concepts related to man and environment ((Schreg in press b), adapted from Smyntyna 2003).
Schreg, Feeding the village
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archaeologists generally viewed human actions as being
determined by nature. Even in the late 1970s, Herbert
Jankuhn’s introduction to settlement archaeology
viewed the environment as a determining factor for
settlement (Jankuhn 1977). However, several new approaches
were also developed in those years.
Within Anglo-American archaeology in particular,
researchers had begun to focus on processes of cultural
changes since at least the 1960s. They favoured
an anthropological point of view which was interested
to a much higher degree in general observations than
in the specific historical situations. Many theoretical
concepts were adopted from the natural sciences, especially
from ecology (Jochim 1981; Butzer 1982). Processual
archaeologists tried to explain culture as the
non-biological adaptation of man to his environment
and emphasized the functions of distinct system elements
(Binford 1962; Johnson 2003, 75f). Early processual
archaeologists preferred systemic models which
emphasized the dependencies of humans in their environment.
Typical approaches included site catchment
analysis, carrying capacity assessment, or cultural
adaptation. It showed however, that these approaches
reduced humans to a rather passive element of closed
systems (Preucel 1991). In one reaction, aspects of human
cognition and agency gained importance. Another
consequence was a refinement of the systemic
approach by referring to ecosystems (Butzer 1982),
and by integrating ideas of stress, nature colonization,
sustainability and metabolism. Early deterministic approaches
have developed towards the idea of mutual
creativity of man and nature (Smyntyna 2003). In recent
years, however, complexity theory has been introduced
to archaeology producing new models which are
more abstract on the one hand, but which provide new
questions and insights on the other (Bentley 2003;
Redman 2005).
We can understand systems only by describing
them within simplified models. In practice, archaeologists
primarily analyzed small sub-systems. As archaeologists
depend on material data sources, they have
preferred a materialistic point of view, neglecting the
humans as agents who depend on cognition, ideology
and religion. It is not the purpose of these models
to describe the past reality or to show the totality of
all factors and all relations. They are simply a methodological
tool to detect possible interrelations and to
make research questions more precise. Depending on
the research questions, they select certain elements
and spatial/temporal scales in order to get a simplified,
understandable, more abstract idea about the interaction,
which can be used as an hypothesis for further
research.
Systemic models suitable for dealing with changes
in medieval food production need: 1) to concentrate on
the level of single settlements or landscapes; 2) to describe
ecology and society in one complex system; and
3) to deal with regimes and their stages through time.
Pre-industrial village ecosystems
Models of pre-industrial village ecosystems provide a
perspective which allows us to reflect on specific functions
and characteristics at the scale of a rural settlement
community (Fig. 2).
The village ecosystem comprises the totality of the
settlement, its inhabitants, its surrounding landscape
and their mutual activities as a dynamic and organic
whole. The function of a village ecosystem mainly depends
on the major bio-productive systems such as
agricultural lands, grasslands, forest and wetland.
Plants transform the solar energy which is basic for
every pre-industrial ecosystem. Other central aspects
of the village ecosystem are the extent and nature of
the available land as well as the labour reserve. Technological
skills, subsistence strategies, land tenure,
social structures, reproduction, and power relations,
as well as social values and world-view are crucial for
the specific layout of the village ecosystem.
Within the village ecosystem several elements are in
mutual dependency. For example, in most European
agrarian village ecosystems, cattle were required for
manuring fields to preserve their fertility. As cattle
herding produces lower yields per hectare than arable
production, this may place stress on agrarian societies.
The needs for more agrarian products could not
be met by converting meadows into fields, because fertility
would decline. Food production, storage and consumption
form another subsystem, as consumption
influences production in different ways (Fig. 3).
Sonnlechner and others have sketched a model of
the pre-industrial village ecosystem on the basis of
some villages in Austria (Sonnlechner-Winiwarter 2001;
Sieferle et al. 2006). Less abstract approaches which
are closer to the written record have also been pursued,
and Rainer Beck described the small village of
Unterfinning in Southwestern Bavaria, representing
the “typical” village with around 220 inhabitants, approximately
165 hectares of fields and 237 hectares
of meadows in 1721 (Beck 2004; Freudenberger 1998).
Based on late medieval / early modern data on yields,
taxes, family sizes, and food requirements, several
studies calculated the sufficiency of nutrition. For example,
David Sabean has shown that peasants’ wealth
in the decades before the 16th century peasant’s war
was quite good generally – in contrast to their complaints.
However some families were at great risk of
poverty and famine (Sabean 1972).
These studies represent a pre-industrial situation of
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the late middle ages/ early modern period, as they are
based on distinct farmsteads which are understood to
have been largely independent economic units. There
are some common regulations regarding land management
(“Zwing und Bann”) but storage and distribution
of food are mainly organized at the level of single farmsteads.
The models used are rather static and provide
little basis for understanding change.
Recent archaeological research has shown in many
regions that settlement patterns were not static, as
farmsteads gradually shifted their position and there
were substantial restructurings during the later middle
ages. We must ask whether these changes were
more than just a spatial reorganization or if they were
even a systemic transformation.
Ebersbach’s recent studies of Neolithic cattle breeding
(Ebersbach 2002; Ebersbach 2008) has drawn on
historical and ethnographical data from several villages,
mainly within temperate climate zones, to sketch
different models of village ecosystems. Most of her
examples do not come from Europe, but she included
Unterfinning and the data from Peterborough abbey
during the 12th/13th century (Biddick 1989), representing
medieval village ecosystems, even if the latter
is part of a monastic economy. Based on the relative
sizes of population, or more specifically labour capacity,
usable land and livestock, she distinguished different
models of village ecosystems (Fig. 4).
The “closed system” is associated with a relatively
small territory suited for agriculture. Land use intensity
is not very high, there is ploughing and manuring,
and the yields rarely exceed 1000 kg per hectare. The
Fig. 2. Model of the European agrarian village ecosystem of pre-industrial period (graphics by R. Schreg).
Fig. 3. The system of food production, storage and consumption (graphics
by R. Schreg).
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amount of farmland that each person needed to cultivate
is quite high, averaging 0.39 ha. The amount of
meadow within closed system villages is rather limited.
Cattle are used mainly for their work and to a lesser
degree for their dung. Because they are of secondary
importance for nutrition, they are often in a bad state;
there are only 0.28 cattle per person. This type of village
ecosystem typifies the pre-industrial late medieval
village.
Within the “maximum system,” villages have restricted
areas of arable land, which could be used as
meadows as well. The economy is based on livestock,
but the farmland is used very intensively. On average
only 0.15 ha is cultivated per person; but yields average
nearly 2400 kg per hectare. The land is intensively
manured, ploughed repeatedly and often heavily transformed
by terraces or irrigation. Land use is therefore
a kind of garden cultivation. In contrast to arable fields,
villages of the maximum systems comprise large areas
of meadows. The number of animals is not limited by
the area but rather by the human labour reserve which
is needed for the farmland. According to the case studies
used by Ebersbach, the average livestock is around
0.63 cattle per person, more than double the number
in the closed system. Examples of villages corresponding
to the maximum system are Alpine villages. Anthropologist
Robert McNetting’s influential study of
the Alpine village of Toerbel in Switzerland gave more
emphasis to the ecological balance between the community‘s
inhabitants and its environment (McNetting
1981). His study, entitled “balancing on an Alp”, investigated
population, resources, and environment which
have been in balance in the village of Toerbel because
of compensating social mechanisms. Integrating aspects
of geography, technology and land-use management
with historical demography and social practices
and their adaptation to varying conditions, the idea of
the ecological system is less static and offers an understanding
of cultural changes. In contrast to the northAlpine
examples, Toerbel represents a maximum village
ecosystem where food production is based on a
restricted area of agrarian fields.
The “open system” represents a third model of the
balance between agrarian land use, livestock breeding
and labour. Within this system, the amount of land
is not limited. Village territories can be up to several
days’ walking distances and composed of several areas
with different land use. Land management can comprise
relatively small “infields” and large areas of less
intensively worked “outfields,” sometimes associated
with seasonal settlements. Today, examples of these
systems are quite rare within Central Europe, but
early medieval economies in low mountain ranges or
mountainous landscapes were probably organized in
this way. Stock breeding is most often extensive, without
indoor housing of animals, fodder storage or the
collecting of dung, but with relatively large stocks of
animal per person. On average 0.85 cattle were kept
per person. Labour needed for the infield economy is
the most important limiting factor for the size of live
stock-herds.
Ebersbach’s models were intended to deal with early
Neolithic economy and therefore they are not completely
adequate for our questions concerning the Middle
Ages and the early modern period. Factors such as
centralisation, social diversity, and specialisation and
organisational complexity of polities or states lead to
an increasing need for surplus and to an increasing
pressure on land use. Urban centres tend toward export-orientated
systems in which a market economy
plays an increasing role. Therefore we need to add an
export-orientated system. There is a huge material and
energetic flow from rural landscapes to urban centres.
For the rural economy, this means an intensification
of agrarian production limited mainly by the available
land. In the early modern period, the introduction of
the potato offered the possibility of a more productive
use of agrarian land. Cattle breeding is a less efFig.
4. Closed, maximum and open village systems (graphics by
R. Schreg).
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Schreg, Feeding the village 301–320
ficient use of land area but is important for the urban
market. In many regions, feudal authorities reorganized
land use in the early modern period in favour of
livestock breeding, which resulted in village abandonment.
In England, the enclosure movement strengthened
wool production; the Turkish cattle economy in
the Carpathian basin exported meat to German towns;
and the “Vereinödung” in the pre-Alpine landscapes
of Southern Germany was largely oriented towards
cheese production.
Archaeologists have long made use of these kinds
of ecosystem models. In processual archaeology since
late 1960s, many studies have analyzed small communities
as ecological systems (Moran 1990; Jochim 1981).
Such studies have mainly concerned hunter-gatherer
communities, to a lesser degree Neolithic settlements,
and quite seldom permanent villages (Flannery 1976).
Jochim investigated resource procurement strategies
among Mesolithic groups in the Upper Danube. Based
on assumptions on the early Holocene landscape, he
drew on ethnographic examples to come up with a
model of hunter-gatherer decision-making, based on
efficiency and risk minimization, and he used that
model to develop hypotheses about Mesolithic subsistence
and settlement (Jochim 1976).
For medieval archaeology the calculations at the early
medieval settlement of Kootwijk in the Netherlands
are of special interest (Pals 1987). Based on archaeological
data and ethnographic and historical analogies
it was possible to provide some estimations of livestock,
farmland, yields, and inhabitants. In most cases
the archaeological application of the village ecosystem
does not aim at exact calculations of food production
and consumption, but rather shows the limits of certain
land use strategies. Estimates of the early medieval
settlement region at Geislingen, situated at the
northern rim of the Swabian Alb in Southwest Germany,
showed that there was probably a shortage of land
as early as the Merovingian period (Schreg 2009a).
Archaeological studies have usually not attempted to
analyze rural villages as ecosystems because crucial
data is missing in most cases. It is rarely possible to
get accurate estimates of land surface, population and
agricultural yields. For medieval archaeology, it is possible
to use data from late medieval or early modern
texts, even if there is the risk of not recognizing substantial
changes through time. However, even if such
estimates cannot be taken as an accurate reconstruction
of the past, these estimates might provide substantive
information about the limits of rural economy at a
specific location or landscape. Estimates of population
and yields can be compared with the site catchment
and carrying capacities. This may help to determine
possible stress situations and to recognize the risks
coming from climatic and ecological changes.
Stress, risk, and crisis
The concept of stress was introduced from psychology
to cultural anthropology and to archaeology to
explain socio-economic as well as ecological changes
(Friesen 1999). Early studies dealt mainly with huntergatherers,
but the idea of socio-economic stress was
also applied to 7th century Anglo-Saxon England (Hodder
1979; Arnold 1982). Socio-economic changes were
thought of as a cultural adaptation to changed circumstances.
External hazards such as climate change
or military invasions have usually been advanced as
causal factors, but the concept of stress also allows for
a consideration of internal factors. Stress has been understood
as a state of disequilibrium in an organism
or a system (Brothwell 1998). Within the village ecosystem
there must be a balance between agrarian yields,
labourers and the number of cattle. If these factors are
out of balance a stress situation will develop.
To identify situations of socio-economic stress, Cohen
proposed fourteen criteria more than 30 years ago
(Cohen 1977, 78ff):
1. increasing foraging distances
2. expansion of settlement into new ecological
zones
3. concentration on previously ignored micro niches
while continuing to exploit the old niches
4. reduced selectivity of food
5. concentration on water-based resources relative
to its use of land-based resources
6. a shift from large to small animal resources
7. a shift from organisms at a high trophic level to
such of a lower trophic level
8. a shift from the utilization of foods requiring little
or no preparation to foods requiring more prepa-
ration
9. environmental degradation
10. significant increase of skeletal evidence of mal-
nutrition
11. a steady decline of quality and size of individuals
exploited through time
12. disappearance of exploited species
13. local specialisation (within hunter-gatherer societies)
as a result of increasing competition for resources
or increasing request of labour for their
exploitation
14. sedentism and increasing role of food storage.
Cohen was mainly interested in the origins of agrarian
production in Neolithic times. He focussed on population
pressure and nutritional stress within a prehistoric
situation of hunter-gatherers or early farmers.
For application to the pre-industrial village ecosystem
this list must be modified and enlarged:
15. an intensification of land use
16. disproportionate distribution of wealth
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308 RURALIA VIII
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17. a shift in labour and energy efforts
18. abandonment of farmsteads and settlements
19. traces of violence, either as trauma on skeletons
or as destruction horizons
20. safeguards, such as fortifications or hoards, especially
defended storage.
Single criteria are not adequate to indicate stress.
Settlement abandonment, for example, may have
many causes. Within a system of shifting settlement
locations it could be the consequence of a successful
land-use strategy (Schreg in prep.). Not all of these criteria
are directly visible in the archaeological record;
rather they represent a meta-level. For example, the detection
of increased storage capacities has to be seen
in relation to population size, while shifts in animal resources
must be examined closely with respect to possible
taphonomic processes. Indicators of stress may
vary within the different village ecosystems as defined
above. Furthermore, these criteria represent some
kind of reaction to, or consequence of stress, either
acute or structural.
It is necessary to distinguish between stress, risk
and crisis (Fig. 5). Whereas stress is a state of disequilibrium
or refers to environmental challenges to
organisms and polities, risk points to the possibilities
of consequences inherent in systems and statistically
predictable; commonly seen as dangers to the system
itself. This definition, taken from sociology and environmental
history is in contrast to the definition of
risk in archaeology (Beck 2007; Sieferle – Müller-Herold
1997). Many archaeologists who apply ecological theory
define risk as the probability of loss, danger, or
failure associated with certain decisions or courses of
action. Risk minimization has been defined as a main
motivation for economic as well as social organisations
(Jochim 1981, 90ff 101ff). Crisis has been defined
as a significant interference in the maintenance of vital
resources due to natural factors and/or the manenvironment
interaction (Knopf in press). In addition,
crisis must be seen as a situation when decisions
have to be made because of high risks for the further
functions of the system. Resulting changes or innovations,
including ecological reactions as well as cultural
responses, lead to new stress and new risks. Sieferle
and Müller-Herold evolved the idea of the risk spiral
as a dynamic principle in the development of complex
societies (Sieferle – Müller-Herold 1997). The reduction
of a particular risk leads to new types of stress which
in turn require further, risky innovations. Cultural
response may be a rather short-term reaction trying
to deal with the immediate problems, or a strategy of
adaptation. Mental preferences are crucial for the decisions;
social structures and the political system deFig.
5. Stress factors and Cultural effects (graphics by R. Schreg).
309RURALIA VIII
Schreg, Feeding the village 301–320
termine how the interests of different groups will be
taken into account.
However, as the terms “stress”, “crisis” and “risk”
have a component of subjective recognition they have
a restricted explanatory value (compare Winiwarter in
press; Schreg in press a). In common speech stress is
an individual perception. The same is true for crisis.
Therefore there has been a discussion about its justification
as a useful technical term in history. The semantics
of risk have only developed in the modern period,
even if humans have always been subjected to a
level of risk either by non-human or by anthropogenic
forces. But usually the responsibility for risk has been
seen with non-human forces and it is only in modern
“risk society”, based on scientific research, that risk
has been developed towards the anticipation of crisis
or catastrophe and has become a central point of politics
(Beck 2007).
Within discussions of the middle ages, stress situations
have been identified in the contexts of resource
shortage and social conflicts (Arnold 1982; Rösener
1984). The Malthusian situation in particular could
be described in these terms. The stress of population
growth leads to the risk of food security. The recognition
of this risk, in terms of the presence of real starvation,
gives rise to a crisis which requires adaptation or
transformation.
Vulnerability and resilience
The concept of stress, crisis and risk (Fig. 5) is a
rather linear one. It provides a framework for discussion
and argumentation and helps to evaluate possible
interrelations. However, it does not explain why in
some situations hazards or stress may have remarkable
effects on the system – even its collapse – while in
other situations these effects do not occur. When are
changes part of a long-term process and when they are
revolutionary? To understand cultural and ecological
changes a more complex idea of an ecosystem is needed;
one “that views ecosystems as complex adaptive
systems that possess intriguing structural qualities,
such as resilience, hierarchy, scale, nesting, dissipative
structures, and autocatalytic design, and descriptors
of dynamics, such as nonlinearity, irreversibility,
self-organization, emergence, development, directionality,
history, co-evolution, surprise, indeterminism,
pulsing, and chaotic dynamics” (Abel 2003). To understand
past situations we have to deal with open and
complex systems (Bentley 2003).
Resilience theory is such a concept recently introduced
to archaeology (Redman 2005). As the theory
aims to understand changes within complex systems,
including all possible factors, the concept is also called
“panarchy” theory (Gunderson 2002; Holling 2001).
Panarchy describes the totality of non-hierarchical organized
systems which are determined by a constant
interaction within a regime of ecological, social, economic,
and cultural forces. It is based on the idea of
an open system changing through time.
Three dimensions have been determined to describe
changes within the system (Gunderson – Holling
2002):
• Potential: this dimension refers to the accumulated
“capital” of biomass, material, skills/knowledge, or
established relationships within a system.
• Connectedness refers to the complexity of the system.
The more elements and interrelationships,
the higher the connectedness within the network of
forces.
• Resilience refers to the ability of the system to absorb
stress caused by internal interaction as well
as by external factors. The lower the resilience the
higher the vulnerability of the system.
Panarchy theory describes changes within selforganizing
systems as an adaptive cycle characterized
by a succession of four stages which differ in
regard to the three dimensions (Fig. 6). The stages
are (re)organisation (-stage), exploitation (r-stage),
conservation (k-stage) and release (-stage). In a first
stage some fundamental decisions on the organisation
of the system are made. As there is few accumulated
capital and a very low connectedness there is a broad
variety of opportunities. Decisive factors on the direction
of the development are either external (the interFig.
6. The adaptive cycle within panarchy (redrawn after Gunderson
– Holling 2002 by R. Schreg).
Schreg, Feeding the village
310 RURALIA VIII
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action with neighbouring systems or systems at other
scales) or based on a kind of tradition from previous
cycles. Within the exploitation stage the system becomes
increasingly complex, that means, the degree of
connectedness between internal controlling variables
and processes becomes more numerous. In the next
stage, the conservation stage the system therefore has
a low flexibility and therefore is increasingly vulnerable
to stress. A crisis easily leads toward the -stage
which means that most of the potential or capital accumulated
in the system during the previous stages is
released. This release most often comprises a short period
of time and appears as a collapse. Afterwards the
system has to be reorganised; its starting conditions
have changed, but there may still be some elements
of the system left – or some cultural traditions vivid,
which influence the further development of the system
during the next cycle. The fact that the development of
the system is shown as a cycle just refers to the three
dimensions and not to real history. Panarchy theory
does not imply that the system comes back to a certain
point and history repeats. Every pass of the adaptive
cycle is historically unique and the specific outline of
the system depends on history. During earlier passes
of the adaptive cycle the environment has been transformed
and provides new preconditions. Reorganisation
therefore does not have the full range of possibilities
as it depends on material preconditions as well as
on cultural traditions which prefer specific forms of
organisation.
Systems cannot be considered as isolated. A panarchy
is a nested set of adaptive cycles. An open and complex
system is interacting with many other systems on
different scales. Systems reach from a micro scale to
global dimensions and their adaptive cycle may take a
very short or a very long time (Fig. 7). With respect to
the spatial scale, the village ecosystem is somewhere in
the middle. It is part of the landscape ecosystem and it
interacts with the geosystem, but it is also part of the
social system of a political district or even state, or indeed
the whole world. On the other hand, one village
system comprises several other systems, such as the
household or family level, the ecosystem of an agrarian
field or the ecosystem of rodents or worms. At the time
scale it is important to notice, that the adaptive cycle of
large systems may be rather slow, because changes in
their subsystems may or may not revolt the large system.
For example the collapse of a village ecosystem
has limited effects on the whole medieval state. We recognise
several periods of settlement abandonment in
the course of the middle ages, but it is only in the 14th
century that a general crisis comes into being.
There are several connections between the single
adaptive cycles. The collapse of a small and fast regime
can influence or “revolt” the adaptive cycle of a bigger
and slower regime if it meets the conservation-stage
with low resilience. The reorganisation of a regime can
be influenced by the “remember” connection, which
facilitates renewal by utilising potential from a higher
scale. In a human ecosystem “remembering” could
also refer to a more specific sense: the reorganisation
after a collapse will probably use traditional ways of
organisation. Human experiences, perception and values
are crucial for the outline of the new regime. For
example, settlement patterns of the migration period
in the former Roman territories still benefit from the
remains of Roman infrastructure – such as roads –,
and they also depend on the presence of former Roman
farmsteads (Schreg in prep a.).
Stress, crisis and risk may be integrated within this
concept. In principle stress may occur at every stage
of the adaptive cycle. External factors such as climatic
hazards or natural catastrophes like earthquakes and
volcanoes have a steady risk of occurrence. Internal
Fig. 7. Selected adaptive cycles within the panarchy
system (modified from Gunderson – Holling
2002).
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Schreg, Feeding the village 301–320
stress increases with the connectedness between internal
controlling variables and processes and reduced
potentials. The possibilities for responses reduce.
Within the k-stage of conservation there will be a high
level of stress and a high number of critical situations.
Because connectedness is quite high at this point, innovations
can easily cause stress and a very high risk,
because resilience is low at that point. Regarding medieval
settlements this was probably the case in the late
Middle Ages, when there was an increasingly complex
organisation of polities at the local as well as on the
statial level. Land-use was very intensive and organised
within a very rigid rotation system. Vulnerability
was high and when the climate changed in the 14thcentury
and land-use pressure came to its maximum,
there were few possibilities for response. As discussed
below in some more detail, the crisis of the 14th-century,
connected in many regions with a high quantity
of late deserted villages, can be understood as a consequent
collapse of many village ecosystems.
The usefulness of resilience theory for archaeology
is not in modelling past cultural processes using specific
quantitative data, since adequate data is missing
for most periods. Geo- and bioarchaeological research
is probably best suited to produce proxy data which
could be used to identify the single stages within the
adaptive cycle (Dearing 2008). Serial data are an important
precondition at a practical level; a more much
more general problem lies in the precondition that human
behaviour is difficult to reduce to calculable reactions.
“Stress” and “crisis” which could be understood
as a specific situation within an adaptive cycle, are in
reality determined by human recognition and mentality.
However, stress, risk, and crisis as well as vulnerability
and resilience may be important categories to
provide new questions and a possibility to see food
production in a broader context.
Food production, stress and resilience
in the medieval village ecosystem
The following case study will try to use these theoretical
concepts as a framework to look at changes in
medieval settlement pattern, economy, and food production
and to explore the dynamics underlying these
changes. Data used for this case study come mainly
from medieval rural settlements in South-western Ger-
many.
In recent decades, archaeological research in many
European landscapes has shown substantial changes
within the settlement system during the middle ages
and modern period, which clearly indicates that the
typical village is only the product of a long process
(Fabre 1996; Schreg 2006; Schreg 2009c). This is especially
true for South-western Germany.
We have to start with a characterisation of the early
medieval village ecosystem. Even if we do not have exact
data for numbers of inhabitants, yields and herd
sizes, it seems possible to refer to the ecosystem models
sketched previously.
Case studies at Schleitheim and Geislingen
At Schleitheim in Northern Switzerland models of
diet and demography have been calculated for the middle
of the 7th century, the middle of the 14th century
and the late 19th century (Hotz – Rehazek – Kühn
2002) (Tab. 1). It appeared that food supply in the
early Middle Ages and in the 14th century was better
safeguarded than in the 19th century. Based on
demographic data from the Merovingian cemetery, it
has been argued that there were 210 inhabitants of
Schleitheim in the 7th century.1
The land required for
this population can be calculated as 63 hectares for
grain and 5 hectares for legumes per year. Based on
the assumption of a closed village ecosystem with ley
farming (Feldgraswirtschaft), consisting of two years
of fallow to one year of cultivation, the early medieval
settlement would have needed about 205 hectares of
agrarian land. The modern village boundary of Schleitheim
covers 2154 hectares; about 1000 ha of which
are suitable for cultivation. There is enough tolerance
that the village ecosystem at Schleitheim in the early
Middle Ages could have been an open system with ley
farming. Outfields could have been located in the periphery
of the village territory as represented by late
medieval boundaries, or even at a greater distance in
the Southern Black Forest.
At Geislingen the situation seems to be quite different
(Tab. 2). Whereas in Schleitheim in the 14th century
the carrying capacity even of ley farming was not
yet reached, we can assume that at Geislingen the population
was probably already in the early middle ages
near the limit (Schreg 2009a). The population was too
large to be supplied from local resources by the time
the town was founded in the 13th century. Geislingen
is located within a small basin at the rim of the
Swabian Alb, a low mountain range in Southwestern
Germany. The surrounding slopes as well as the presence
of bogs in the valley itself have limited or constrained
the location of cultivable fields. If the village
was limited to the valley, its ecosystem could only have
worked as a closed, a maximum or an import-based
system.
Archaeological surveys on the surrounding Alb pla-
1
Estimates of livestock numbers based on minimum individual
counts (Hotz et al. 2002, 460f) are of limited value because of
fundamental methodological problems, especially taphonomic,
of this approach. The number of 0.1 cattle/person seems
far too low.
Schreg, Feeding the village
312 RURALIA VIII
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teau showed a remarkable number of early medieval
settlements. The toponyms of these villages at the
plateau come from Merovingian or early Carolingian
times, and local historians have seen them as an expansion
of that time that is connected with clearance
and the founding of new villages. In some cases, however,
archaeological finds from the 5th century predate
the toponyms by at least several generations. This is
an indication that settlements on the Alb plateau developed
over a long period. The naming of the settlements
marks a later stage of this process, probably
when the settlement had become self-sufficient and
gained enough economic importance to be mentioned
by manorial institutions as a separate unit. At least at
an early stage, settlements on the plateau and in the
valley formed one community which could be understood
as an open system.
As the examples of Schleitheim and Geislingen show,
at some point the number of inhabitants exceeded the
carrying capacity of the landscape. This is a clear indi-
7th c. 14th c. Late 18th c. Late 19th c.
Estimated inhabitants and field sizes
Number
of inhabitants
210 inhabitants
(based on cemetery)
360–400 inhabitants
(based on written docu-
ments)
1438 inhabitants
(1790)
2450 inhabitants
(statistical data 1860)
Estimated land use Agrarian fields: 250 ha
meadows: 750 ha
(estimation)
Agrarian fields: 150 ha
fallow: 75 ha
meadows: 75 ha
? Agrarian fields:
1207.8 ha
meadows: 251.1 ha
forest: 642.4 ha
Assumed land use
management
Ley farming Regulated three-field
crop rotation
Regulated three-field
crop rotation with beginning
of the abandonment
of fallow
Regulated three-field
crop rotation with
permanent cultivation,
introduction of potato
Maximum Carrying capacity
Maximum number
of inhabitants
1040 individuals
(based on closed system
with ley farming)
1235–1380 individuals
(based on closed system
with regulated three-field
crop rotation)
Maximum possible
agrarian fields
1000 ha
(agrarian fields: 250 ha
fallow: 750 ha)
1000 ha
(agrarian fields: 500 ha
fallow: 250 ha
meadows: 250 ha)
Tab. 1. Schleitheim: calculation of population and field sizes (Hotz et al. 2002).
7th c. 15th c. mid 19th c.
Estimated inhabitants and field sizes
Number
of inhabitants
> 116 inhabitants
probably 200-400 inhabitants
(based on cemeteries)
1488 inhabitants
(written documents, 1544)
3120 inhabitants
(statistical data, 1842)
Estimated land use Agrarian fields: 200 ha
fallow: 100 ha
meadows: max. 670 ha
(extended swamps and lakes)
forest: 580 ha
Agrarian fields: 275 ha
fallow: 135 ha
meadows: max. 555 ha
forest: 580 ha
Agrarian fields: 416.14 ha
meadows: 247.01 ha
garden: 314.69
forest: 578.26 ha
Assumed land use
management
Closed system with unregulated
three-field crop rotation
Closed or even maximum system
irrigated meadows) with regulated
three-field crop rotation supply of
the town of Geislingen
Regulated three-field crop rotation
with reduced fallow
Maximum Carrying capacity
Maximum number
of inhabitants
<480 individuals
(based on regulated three-field
crop system)
≤670 individuals
(based on regulated three-field
crop system)
Maximum possible
agrarian fields
300 ha
(maximum of 415 ha minus
swamps and lakes, turn-around
area for ploughing teams and
hedges are not considered)
<415 ha 415 ha
Increased by drainage and terraces
at the slopes
Tab. 2. Geislingen: calculation of inhabitants and field sizes (Schreg 2009a).
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cation that the village ecosystem was in stress as food
production and consumption diverged. At Geislingen,
in its narrow valley, this occurred earlier than it did at
Schleitheim.
From open to closed settlement systems
– Expansion and intensification in the early
Middle Ages
Open settlements may have been characteristic for
the Migration period (4th/5th century) and possibly
even for the Merovingian period (late 5th–late 7th century)
in Central Europe, but the transition to a closed
system should have taken place soon thereafter – depending
on the site catchment and the specific landscape
potentials.
Growing population as well as the emergence of seigneurial
power and Christianisation may have been
stress factors which created the need for a surplus
production. Large quantities of grave goods in Merovingian
cemeteries, which probably were not only signs
of religion but also of social competition, caused an increasing
need for raw materials (Arnold 1982). Stress
is indicated not only by reaching carrying capacities,
but also by archaeozoological data showing that livestock
declined in body height (Stephan 2008).
Within an open system, yields had to increase by
intensification of land-use, causing the transition to
a closed system. In consequence outlying areas of the
village ecosystem became more self-contained and developed
into independent villages.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, lower numbers
of settlements are observed, and palynological data
also supports the view of quite low population numbers
and a reduction of land-use. Merovingian cemeteries
and early place names reveal an agrarian land
use orientated toward the fertile lowlands. Only in
some regions did settlement also include low mountain
ranges. In the following centuries, settlements expanded
in more marginal areas. When we have written
sources on colonisation processes they are often organized
by noblemen and typically included the foundation
of new settlements which were populated with
farmers from remote areas. As in many cases, observations
from later periods have been used to describe
earlier processes of colonisation. Consequently early
medieval colonisation in Southern Germany has been
seen as a similar process of clearance and subsequent
foundation of new villages, as a conquest of the wilderness
by adventurous pioneers. The process should
have been a multiplication of grain- and cattle-based
villages in a nearly wild environment – or we could
say: colonisation is understood as a process of growth
(compare Schreg 2008).
However, the idea of conquering the forests is probably
rather a modern one (Blackbourn 2007). Settlement
of marginal landscapes probably began in many
regions with seasonal outfield use (Schreg 2008). Subsequent
intensification of land use due to factors such
as population growth, increasing manorial needs and
strengthening of authorities brought an orientation
towards agrarian fields and grain production. Close
connections between villages in the core settlement
landscapes and the marginal landscapes became less
intensive and there was an increasing need for new
mechanisms of exchange.
Village formation and three-field crop rotation
Parallel to land-use intensification in marginal areas,
we can trace a process of village formation in many
core areas of Central Europe. In the beginning the landscape
was characterised by an increasing number of
small settlements, arranged around some larger ones,
but with slightly shifting locations over centuries. Later,
a concentration and local stability around the parish
church and the churchyard developed. In some regions
this concentration at the location of the early modern
villages began as early as 1000 AD, while in other regions
it belongs mainly to 12th/13th centuries, shortly
before the rise of towns. These changes in settlement
pattern surely were correlated with changes in land use
and food production. One important factor was probably
the introduction of the regulated three-field crop
rotation (“Dreizelgenwirtschaft”). This system of land
management was much more effective in the exploitation
of space. Coordination of working rhythms between
neighbours made it possible to relinquish enclosures
and turn-around areas of harnessed ploughing
teams. At the same time fallow periods were reduced.
The introduction of this new system also meant that
the village itself became concentrated and stationary.
This transformation brought new risks. The early
medieval settlement system was characterized by shifting
settlement locations. Proposed explanations for
these shifts include shifting cultivation as well as generational
changes. As farmsteads were typically shifted
only short distances it is not likely that each generation
relocated the settlement, and these ideas are not
convincing. It is more probable that the relocation of a
settlement was part of a traditional land-use management
where settlement areas shifted to avail of more
fertile lands as former areas became exhausted. There
are other arguments supporting this interpretation. In
several rural settlements there were relics of dark earth
similar to the dark earth of late antique towns. They
were preserved only in topographic depressions, but in
situ archaeological finds and structures indicate they
were not colluvial deposits. If this is true, the introduc-
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tion of the regulated three-field crop rotation was not a
total success, but had some major risks. The clearance
of hedges, the development of large fields ploughed at
one time, permanent cultivation with only short periods
of fallow, and manuring by livestock dung brought
about a decline in biodiversity, soil exhaustion, and
increasing erosion (Schreg in prep.). Geoarchaeological
studies in the last decades across several landscapes
have revealed a recurring pattern of erosion and stabilisation,
or in other words of dynamic and stable
periods of landscape change. The studies have shown
significant landscape changes during the Middle Ages,
such as over-exploitation, erosion, and degradation of
soils. These can be understood as consequences of the
expansion and intensification of food production (Bork
et al. 1998).
One can therefore conclude that the processes of
village formation and three-field crop rotation, which
are commonly seen as representing moments of major
progress in medieval history, probably brought
new risks. In a long-term perspective, the change from
shifting settlements with soil amelioration by longterm
manuring towards permanent villages and threefield
crop rotation did not reduce stress, but produced
new risks and caused a higher social complexity. Within
the village communities, which went through a period
of institutional structuring during the high Middle
Ages, the peasants had a limited range of options.
The economic change from subsistence farming with
its associated strategies of risk minimisation (see Thomas
Meier, this volume) towards a market orientation
leads to dependencies outside the village. The development
of the feudal system and later of towns brought
a permanent need for increasing surplus production,
which meant higher yields per labourer.
The late medieval “crisis” – a system collapse?
There has been a long debate about the 14th-century
crisis (Harvey 1991). Historians pointed to quite different
phenomena to understand the late middle ages
as a kind of crisis (Seibt 1984). There are also many
contemporary statements indicating that people even
felt a crisis of morality and faith (Bergdolt 2003). It is a
challenging question whether we can understand the
situation as a system collapse or, in contrast, as an example
of a successful reorganisation.
There is yet to be any consensus on whether the
term “crisis” is adequate to characterize the 14th century.
The main critique is related to the term “crisis”
itself, which is thought to lack explanatory value (Winiwarter
in press). It has been pointed out that the crisis
of the 14th century may be primarily a re-projection
of our own present and current problems (Schuster
1999). Certainly, the concept of crisis is a modern one,
as ecological thinking is a modern development. Investigating
past ecosystems therefore requires a terminological
framework independent of written documents
and of the perceptions of past humans, who used other
categories to understand their environments. In light
of the concepts outlined above, we need to ask whether
the late middle ages could be understood as a crisis, as
a release within the adaptive cycle, or as a collapse of
the medieval village ecosystem.
A number of observations point to a late medieval
landscape degradation that had significant impact on
villages. Archaeobotanical and geoarchaeological research
document the formation of heath, and the expansion
of dunes (Kirleis 2003, 97; Groenewoudt 2009;
Hirsekorn 2003) as well as the formation of erosion
gullies (Bork – Beyer – Kranz in press; Bork et al. 1998).
Currently, most indications come from central Germany,
while in Southern Germany there are relatively few
reports of late medieval land degradation. This is probably
due to the state of research rather than to lower
stress.
Some of these processes are man-made and are directly
linked with less sustainable land-use strategies.
However others are due to climatic changes (Behringer
et al. 2005). In the 14th century, cooling brought extreme
weather events. Usually such climatic change
may have little effect, but in the cleared landscape of
the late Middle Ages vulnerability was high. The stress
of demographic and climatic factors brought the risk
of declined food security by degradation and erosion.
At the same time, the social organisation of the village
with the regulated three-field crop rotation, and the increased
power of sovereigns created a situation of high
connectedness which made adaptation quite difficult.
In contrast to the settlements of early and high Middle
Ages, which shifted their position probably as part of a
sustainable land-use strategy, the permanent villages
lost an important opportunity for soil regeneration in
favour of a complicated social organisation that included
rigid rules on land-use. Some villages collapsed,
others succeeded. The abandonment of many villages
can be understood as the collapse of the specific village
ecosystem – at least in some more vulnerable environments.
On a higher spatial scale, however, villages
were just reorganised in a process of concentration,
and early modern agriculture followed strategies that
existed before. However, the late medieval crisis altered
labour-land ratios in favour of the peasantry (Moore
2003). In some cases villages of the closed system may
have transformed for a time to an open system, because
they gained land which has been used mainly
for extensive herding (compare Schreg 2009b).
Only later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, when
there were again situations of stress, risk and crisis
were there major reorganisations in the whole village
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Fig. 8. Duration of medieval settlements in Southwestern Germany indicating some periods with higher risk of abandonment (Schreg 2006).
Schreg, Feeding the village
316 RURALIA VIII
301–320
ecosystem. The reduction of fallow, the introduction
of the potato and increasing efforts in manuring introduced
a new ecosystem – probably on the verge a
maximum system, which was the basis for modern
industrialized agriculture. There are several examples
of starvation periods, or famine, in the early modern
period, and these may be indications of further passes
through adaptive cycles.
Reorganisation of the village ecosystem after a crisis
does not mean that there is always a complete
system restructuring after a collapse, because not all
the potential has been lost. The mechanism of the ‘remembering
connection’ results in a reorganisation
depending on earlier system organisations. Nevertheless,
settlement abandonment could be an indication
for reorganisation and could be used to determine
single passes of adaptive cycles. The abandonment of
settlements need not be connected with single events,
such as the thunderstorms of 1342 or the pestilence
of 1347/48. In reality there may have been longer periods
with high stress and low resilience.
As there were several other periods of settlement
abandonment in central Europe and especially in
South-western Germany (Fig. 8), the late medieval crisis
is probably not the only period of reorganization,
but is just the best documented one. It could be worth
asking if the discontinuities of settlements around
700, in the 9th and 10th centuries and in the 12th/
13th century represent passes of the adaptive cycle.
Abandonments around 700 could be in relation to the
transition from an open to a closed village ecosystem;
9th/10th-century abandonments may reflect a reorganisation
of the feudal system at beginning market
economy; while12th/13th-century changes could represent
the introduction of three-field crop rotation and
the formation of permanent villages. At present, these
are only hypotheses, which must be checked by specific
case studies in different landscapes.
Conclusions and prospects
The panarchy model allows understanding the interaction
of different subsystems and offers a more
complex explanation for failure and success. Today it
meets increasing interest in past crises and collapses.
The work of Jared Diamond in particular looked at
the circumstances of the rise and fall of societies, and
tried to link past and present (Diamond 2006). His examples
of collapsed past and present societies spread
around the world, from the Easter Island, over the
Mesoamerican Maya, the Anasazi in the US-Southwest,
and Greenland as examples for failed past societies.2
2
See for a critique of Diamonds case studies: McAnany – Yoffee
2010.
He used a framework of five factors to analyse failure
and success of societies:
• damages that people inadvertently inflict on their
environment
• climate change
• hostile neighbours
• support by friendly neighbours
• society’s responses to its problems.
Food and food production as a factor of change have
to be seen in a broader context of rural economy and
village ecosystem. Food and food production are in
close interaction with state and polity, with values and
mentality as well as with landscape and environment.
It indicates that the model of a Malthusian crisis does
not explain the changes adequately, as it is does not
embrace sufficiently the complexity of change. The late
medieval crisis is more than just a Malthusian situation;
the idea of a crisis within an adaptive cycle of the
village ecosystem seems to be more adequate. Settlement
history from the Migration period to the beginning
of the late Middle Ages could be understood as
an intensification of land use, transforming villages
probably from an open system towards a closed and
an export orientated system.
Abstract
Archaeological research on food production and
consumption is mainly concerned with their material
remains. This article calls attention to the ecological
dimensions of food production, storage, and consumption.
They are a fundamental element of the village ecosystem
and an important driving factor for changes
within the settlement system.
Models reflecting on the ecology and resilience of
the medieval rural economy provide important possibilities
to explain these changes. The concept of
the village ecosystem enables us to distinguish several
models, how pre-industrial villages balanced their
agrarian yields, the number of cattle and the disposable
manpower. If this balance is disturbed the whole
system comes under stress and needs some kind of
reorganisation. However, the concept of stress does not
suffice to understand the complex dynamics of change
which can be recognized in many medieval settlement
landscapes. Therefore we need a much more complexe
concept dealing with non-linear, adaptive and self-organized
socio-cultural systems. Panarchy theory provides
a theoretical framework which has recently been
introduced to archaeology.
In this article I want to evaluate the usefulness of
these archaeological approaches based on systems
theory. Medieval village ecosystems mainly in western
central Europe are reconsidered in the light of these
317RURALIA VIII
Schreg, Feeding the village 301–320
concepts, in an attempt to understand their changes
and to evaluate food production as well as the risk of
starvation as a factor of the continuous adaptation of
medieval rural communities.
Résumé
Les études archéologiques sur la production et la
consommation des aliments s’attachent principalement
à la reconstitution de l’alimentation et des pratiques
culturelles qui lui sont liées. Production, stockage
et consommation sont toutefois aussi un élément essentiel
de l’écosystème villageois et le principal facteur
de sa transformation. La présente contribution voudrait
attirer l’attention sur ces aspects écologiques.
Pour expliquer la transformation, il faut recourir à
des concepts abstraits qui, d’une part, comprennent
le village médiéval comme un écosystème complexe et
d’autre part, définissent la transformation et la résilience
des systèmes. La conception de l’écosystème villageois
permet de faire la distinction avec les modèles
de villages préindustriels sur base de l’équilibre des récoltes,
de la taille du cheptel et de la charge de travail.
Les perturbations de ces équilibres créent une situation
de stress qui aboutit à un changement du système.
Le stress ne suffit pas à expliquer les dynamiques
complexes du changement observable dans plusieurs
paysages. Il faut utiliser un concept qui tienne compte
de la complexité et des qualités non-linéaires adaptatives
et autorégulées des écosystèmes socioculturels. Le
concept de la panarchie depuis peu, aussi discuté en
archéologie, développe une théorie pareille.
L’objectif de la présente contribution est d’ouvrir des
perspectives et de montrer l’avantage de ces concepts
en archéologie. Des écosystèmes de villages médiévaux
sont analysés selon ces concepts pour comprendre la
dynamique de leurs changements et pour mettre en
exergue le rôle de la production alimentaire et ses risques
de famine dans le changement à long terme du
paysage rural.
Traduction: H. Pantermehl
Zusammenfassung
Archäologische Forschungen zu Produktion und Konsum
von Nahrungsmitteln fokussieren hauptsächlich
auf die Rekonstruktion der Ernährung und der damit
verbundenen kulturellen Techniken. Produktion, Bevorratung
und Konsum sind jedoch auch wesentlicher
Bestandteil des Dorfökosystems und ein wesentlicher
Faktor für dessen Wandel. Vorliegender Beitrag möchte
das Augenmerk auf diese ökologischen Aspekte des
Themas lenken.
Um den Wandel zu erklären, sind abstrakte Konzepte
erforderlich, die einerseits das mittelalterliche
Dorf als komplexes Human-Ökosystem begreifen und
anderseits den Wandel und die Resilienz von Systemen
beschreiben. Das Konzept des Dorfökosystems erlaubt
es, anhand der Ausbalancierung von Flächenerträgen,
Viehbestand und Arbeitsbelastung verschiedene Modelle
vorindustrieller Dörfer zu unterscheiden. Störungen
dieser Balancierungen führen zu einer Stresssituation,
die zu einer Änderung des Systems führen muss.
Das Konzept der Stresssituationen reicht allerdings
nicht aus, um die sehr komplexen Dynamiken des Wandels,
wie sie in vielen Siedlungslandschaften beobachtet
werden können, ausreichend zu erklären. Dazu bedarf
es eines Konzeptes, das gerade die Komplexität und
die nicht-linearen, adaptiven und selbst-organisierten
Eigenschaften sozio-kultureller Ökosysteme abbildet.
Das neuerdings auch in der Archäologie diskutierte
Konzept der Panarchie ist solche eine Theorie.
Das Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrages ist es, Perspektiven
und Nutzen dieser Konzepte in der Archäologie zu
reflektieren. Mittelalterliche Dorfökosysteme werden
im Licht dieser Konzepte betrachtet, um die Dynamik
ihres Wandels zu verstehen – und um die Rolle der
Nahrungsmittelproduktion und des Hungerrisikos für
den langfristigen Wandel des ländlichen Raumes her-
auszustellen.
Acknowledgments
The ideas presented in this paper benefited from the
work on cultural changes in Southern Germany and
beyond. I am grateful for discussions with several colleagues
inside and outside RGZM. I thank especially
Lynn Fisher (University of Illinois, Springfield) who
read an earlier draft, made helpful observations and
corrected my English.
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