Introduction

This chapter provides annual estimates of output in agriculture, which was the largest sector of the economy during the middle ages, and continued to play an important role throughout the period under consideration. The approach builds on the study of Overton and Campbell (1996), which tracked long-run trends in agricultural output and labour productivity, but was restricted to estimates for a small number of benchmark years. To provide annual estimates, heavy reliance has been made on three datasets assembled for the late-medieval, early modern and modern periods. For the period c.1250 to c.1500, a Medieval Accounts Database has been assembled by Campbell (2000, 2007), drawing upon the archival labours of a number of other historians, including David Farmer, John Langdon and Jan Titow. The information on arable yields and animal stocking densities is taken largely from manorial accounts, but is supplemented by information on the non-manorial sector from tithes. For the period c.1550 to c.1750, an Early Modern Probate Inventories Database has been assembled by Overton, which provides animal stocking densities and indirect estimates of arable yields from the valuation of the assets left by farmers (Overton and others, 2004). From the early eighteenth century, use is made of the Modern Farm Accounts Database assembled by Turner, Beckett and Afton (2001).

The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 3.2 provides a brief introduction to the main data sources for the three periods. Estimates of output for the arable sector are then given in Section 3.3, followed by estimates of livestock-sector output in Section 3.4. The arable and livestock outputs are combined in Section 3.5 to provide estimates of overall agricultural output, while Section 3.6 concludes.