Land+Use

=Land Use =

In the Medieval Times, the people use land to grow food. The many farmers had two fields and they planted one during one season, and the other the next. The wild woods had food that farmers and their farms could not supply. The wild woods had foods like berries, fruits, nuts, and honey. The woods also had animals that they could hunt and fish. In 900 A.D. the farms became a three field rotation and they planted two of them a year. After 900 A.D. people started moving to the wild woods to clear them. They moved into swamps and forests, and they made the swamps dry fields and drained the ditches.

Peasants worked the land for the lords to make food. When the peasants worked on the land, they would have to give a portion of their harvest to their lords. They had to give the lords the food because the lords had the power to punish them if they didn't. Peasants were some of the people who got upset with the lords and went and cleared the forest to grow their own food and hunt and fish. After King William the first conquered England, the peasants were given more freedoms and the lords had to give up everything but rents to the peasants.

Works Cited
 * “Land Use.” The Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia for Students. Ed. William Chester Jordan. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996. 73-74. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.
 * “Property and Land.” The Medieval World. Ed. Sally MacEarchern. Vol. 8. Danbury, CT: Groller Educational, 2001. 47-50. Print.