Agricultural Statistics

The survival of thousands of medieval manuscripts provide scholars with a particularly rich source base with detailed information of many aspects of English agriculture in the later Middle Ages. This chapter will outline a range of extant medieval sources, such as manorial accounts, tax registers and tithe records, each of which provide statistical evidence of the both the inputs to and outputs of, medieval agriculture. The chapter describes the nature of the data contained in these sources and both the possibilities and potential pitfalls for working with it. Finally, the chapter will discuss how such evidence has shaped scholarship in medieval economic history.