At the heart of New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’ lies the question of when and how cerealization occurred in medieval Europe, a development involving extensivication; that is, “increasing the area of land under cultivation while decreasing the amount of ‘input’—manure and human labour—per land unit” (4). The laboratory for investigation is medieval England. Within this context, attention has often focused on a series of interrelated phenomena associated with a characteristic landscape, the “Champion belt” or “Central Province” stretching from south-west England, through the Midlands, to the north east. These phenomena are nucleated settlements; open fields of arable strips shared between households and worked cooperatively; use of the heavy mould-board plough and three-field crop rotation; and low-input cultivation, with limited weeding or manuring. Multiple factors have been posited to account for the development of these phenomena, from population growth to technological innovation to intensification of lordship to environmental adaptation. Periods of “revolution” have sometimes been identified, whether in a long eighth century, a long tenth century, or a long twelfth century. A key reason for continuing debate is that the evidence is often indirect and late. To confront this problem, the European Research Council funded project FeedSax (2017–2022), set out to explore bioarchaeological data. This fascinating volume presents significant results achieved by 2020, with new conceptual and methodological approaches as well as analysis of new datasets.

A linchpin is provided by Helena Hamerow’s historiographical review and explanation of the FeedSax approach. The project identified a “mouldboard plough package” with three elements on which bioarchaeological data could throw light: systematic crop rotation; low-input, “extensive” cultivation regimes; and widespread use of the heavy mouldboard plough. In part one, the studies explain the methods by which bioarchaeological data were brought to bear on these elements and the results, whereas in part two they seek to develop new perspectives. Pollen remains may be used to consider the dominant vegetation, the relative importance of pastoral or arable agriculture, the intensity of land use, and the range of cereals and weeds present. Using a large dataset from central, east, and south-east England and a calibrated Agricultural Land Use Signal Strength (ALUSS), Emily Forster and Michael Charles identify the key period of change as the eighth century, with a shift towards arable, evidence for clearance of trees, an increase in ALUSS, and a greater range of crops and weeds; but they observe further change in the tenth century with a move towards pastoral farming and another increase in ALUSS. Building models from contemporary farming regimes and from experimental archaeology for the relationship between arable cultivation and weed species—such as those at the Lauresham Laboratory in Germany discussed by Claus Kropp—pollen remains may also reveal whether there were high-input or low-input arable regimes. Based on contemporary farming in Haute Provence and Asturias as well as experimental farming at Laxton and Highgrove, Amy Bogaard, John Hodgson, Claus Kropp, Mark McKerracher, and Elizabeth Stroud show that at Lyminge a low-input, extensive regime, probably with the mouldboard plough, was operating from the sixth century onwards, but with further extensification over time, whereas at Stafford the signature for that kind of regime belongs to the tenth century. Osteoarchaeological evidence for cattle may reveal the proportion of older males more likely kept for draught work and pathological changes resulting from their work with the heavy mouldboard plough. The patterns identified by Matilda Holmes from nineteen sites ranging across space and time confirm the likelihood that draft cattle pulling mouldboard ploughs were in use from the seventh century at some sites, at more from the mid ninth century onwards, but were only widespread by the eleventh century. Stable isotopes reflecting soil conditions where crops were grown present potential to identify whether crops were grown in the same locations over time, and Elizabeth Stroud’s analysis of crop remains from Lyminge suggests that there was not systematic crop rotation even if there may have been non-systematic rotation by individual farmers. Together with Helena Hamerow’s helpful summary of the wider findings from the project, these investigations suggest that cerealization was “a regionally variegated process lasting several centuries, punctuated by periods of innovation and rapid change” (24). This is compatible with the nuanced model Tom Williamson has developed for the emergence of the Champion Belt or Central Province and the variable relationships between environment, agricultural regime, and settlement nucleation or planning, revisited at the end of this volume.

Given these conclusions, we may need new ways of thinking about cerealization, and the studies in part two offer fruitful suggestions. Reviewing the evidence from Roman Britain, Lisa Lodwick notes that many elements which contributed to the cerealization process existed in Roman Britain but did not endure, and invokes their connection to tax-state extraction regimes, which failed in the fifth century, as one possible reason. Drawing on recent work on cerealization elsewhere in north-west Europe, Nicolas Schroeder argues persuasively that we should look beyond our previous preoccupations to consider cerealization as a non-linear, variable, and contingent process, in which “Cereals such as hulled barley and spelt, forms of temporary cultivation that alternate between pasture and arable, two-course rotations, and flexible and complex field systems that integrate ley farming, all deserve as much attention…as the spread of bread wheat or three-field systems” (210). To assist us in challenging our existing frameworks, Mark McKerracher advocates for a focus on syntironomy, or how people went about sustaining or conserving resources over time, through provision, protection, propagation, and prospection, and shows how we might apply this to the settlement and bioarchaeology of cereals. Neil Faulkner and Hannah Caroe similarly challenge us to think about the different ways in which the extraordinary evidence for large-scale brewing at Sedgeford can be interpreted in terms of lordship, controlled economies, or trade and exchange.

Altogether, these excellent studies provide new scientific approaches to “cearealization,” new scientific confirmation of some chronological trends including intensification in the eighth and tenth centuries, but also reveal geographical variations, which should prompt us to consider the alternative ways of thinking and other processes also presented here.