The role of demesnes in the trade of agricultural horses in late medieval England

Jordan Claridge

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: This paper examines the role of demesnes – the farms of lords, as opposed to the lands of their peasant tenants – in the trade of agricultural horses in medieval England. The introduction of horse power is recognised to have been a major factor in the development of the medieval English economy, increasing labour productivity in farming and the efficiency of overland transport, but the infrastructures through which these animals were produced and distributed has remained poorly understood. This paper uses a national sample of over 300 manorial accounts from c.1300 to assess the role of demesnes in the production and distribution of working horses. It finds that demesnes were significant net consumers of horses, primarily relying upon the market for their supply. This illustrates that there was a well established market for these animals by c.1300, but also that these large institutional farms did not breed enough horses to sustain their own demand, let alone a surplus that could have supplied the market. Demesnes (and their managers) did, however, fill an important distributive role in the trade of agricultural horses by acting, perhaps inadvertently, as ‘middle men’ in marshaling the various channels of work horse acquisition and dispersion.

Keywords: Trade; Commercialization; Market Integration; Horses; Medieval England; Medieval Economy; Economic History; Social History (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N53 N73 O31 O32 O33 Q12 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2016-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:68377

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