Editing Open-field system (section)

==Crops and production==
[[File:Medievalplowingwoodcut.jpg|thumb|400px|left|alt=A monochrome, profile illustration of four oxen dragging a plough through a field. The ploughman walks behind, controlling the plough, while his colleague stands to his side, holding a long whip in the air.|A four-ox-team plough, ''circa'' 1330. The ploughman is using a [[Plough#Mould-board ploughing|mouldboard plough]] to cut through the heavy soils. A team could plough about one acre (0.4 ha) per day.]]
The typical planting scheme in a three-field system was that [[barley]], [[oats]], or [[legume]]s would be planted in one field in spring, wheat or [[rye]] in the second field in the fall and the third field would be left fallow. The following year, the planting in the fields would be rotated. Pasturage was held in common. The tenants pastured their livestock on the fallow field and on the planted fields after harvest. An elaborate set of laws and controls, partly set by the Lord of the Manor and partly by the tenants themselves regulated planting, harvest, and pasturing.<ref>Hopcroft, Rosemary L. ''Regions, Institutions, and Agrarian Change in European History'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 17–20; Astill and Grant, p. 27</ref>

Wheat and barley were the most important crops with roughly equal amounts planted on the average in England. Annual wheat production at [[Battle Abbey]] in Sussex in the late 14th century ranged from 2.26 to 5.22 seeds harvested for every seed planted, averaging 4.34 seeds harvested for every seed planted. Barley production averaged 4.01 and oats 2.87 seeds harvested for seeds planted. This translates into yields of 7 to 17 [[bushel]]s per acre harvested. Battle Abbey may have been atypical, with better management and soils than typical of demesnes in open-field areas.<ref>Brandon, P. F. "Cereal Yields on the Sussex Estates of Battle Abby during the Later Middle Ages," ''The Economic History Review'', New Series, Vol. 25, No. 8 (Aug 1972), pp. 405, 412, 417, 419–420</ref> Barley was used in making beer – consumed in large quantities – and mixed with other grains to produce bread that was a dietary staple for the poorer farmers. Wheat was often sold as a [[cash crop]]. Richer people ate bread made of wheat. At [[Elton, Cambridgeshire|Elton]] in Cambridgeshire in 1286, perhaps typical of that time in England, the tenants harvested about twice as much barley as wheat with lesser amounts of oats, peas, beans, rye, flax, apples, and vegetables.<ref>Gies, pp. 60–62</ref>

The land-holding tenants also had livestock, including sheep, pigs, cattle, horses, [[ox]]en, and poultry. Pork was the principal meat eaten; sheep were primarily raised for their wool, a cash crop. Only a few rich landholders had enough horses and oxen to make up a ploughing-team of six to eight oxen or horses, so sharing among neighbours was essential.<ref>Gies, pp. 82, 145–149</ref>