The heavy plough and the three-field system
Better ploughs, horse collars and crop rotation feed a growing Europe.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 500 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
The mouldboard plough turns the heavy wet clay soils of northern Europe that a scratch plough cannot manage; the rigid horse collar lets horses pull without choking, and horses work faster than oxen; and three-field rotation leaves only a third of land fallow rather than half while adding nitrogen-fixing legumes. Together they raise output substantially between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, and Europe's population roughly triples.