- Real Title: Were Medieval Cities Greener? Urban Agriculture in the Middle Ages - [n] Used when I tweeted about [how the supply chain fragmentation leading to the Middle Ages connects with current events](https://twitter.com/EleanorKonik/status/1486359637456789508) ## Highlights ### id262973424 cities must important food > one of the key characteristics of any city is that the food it produces does not suffice to feed its population. Medieval cities thus had to import most of the foodstuff required to sustain their citizens, even if a portion of it was produced locally. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fqyt76mbhvz4vn5wcfc29qc3) ### id262973486 urban gardens were common in Medieval cities > Medieval cities were also full of gardens and vegetable beds that people cultivated for their own sustenance or for extra revenues. This preoccupation with urban agriculture is evident in [***Le Ménagier***](https://amzn.to/2R5gyez), a housekeeping guide written by a fourteenth-century gentleman from Paris for his young wife which included several sections about gardens. This was done in part so that his wife would “have some knowledge on horticulture and gardening, grafting in the proper season, and keeping roses in winter.” - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fqyt7wtfbms6szx180dvk08e) - [n] This is honestly really cute. I want to know more about her literacy and education and whether he was doing it out of love or out of a 'leave me alone I will write your instructions' sort of irritation. ### id263560063 Medieval urban peasants had multiple jobs > In the Montpellier sources, some self-identified urban peasants juggled different jobs, suggesting that agriculture was not, in fact, their full-time occupation. Some men described themselves as “agriculturalist and gardener”. Two men were “carpenter and ploughmen;” one taxpayer worked as “musician and ploughman and public crier;” one was a “glove maker and ploughman;” while another was listed as a “ploughman and fishmonger.” It is possible that agriculture was their primary occupation but that they had a side activity to make ends meet. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fr20g30fkvp2jcdffs9trtyy) ### id263560070 most Medieval taxpayers owned land > But it is also possible these workers took on agricultural work during harvest season as a way to supplement their earnings coming from their other activity. Medieval city dwellers often owned small pieces of land they rented out or cultivated in their free time. In the town of Castelnaudary, near Toulouse, 95% of the fourteenth-century taxpaying inhabitants owned at least some agricultural land. The rate was 91.5% in the fifteenth century. Most of these landowners held very small estates (less than 2 hectares), which would not have sufficed to sustain their families. Nonetheless, these lands did offer the guarantee of some sustenance to their owners. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fr20h064qtc0bz0hy325rpcz) ### id263560082 kitchen gardens are inversely correlated to population density > Cities were covered with backyard vegetable beds in which people planted cabbage, carrots, peas and other products they would eat. Historian Jerry Stannard dubbed such vegetable beds “kitchen gardens” and underlines that “the produce of the smallest, most crudely tilled plot was preferable to nothing at all,” in that they provided “free” food to their owners. Besides vegetables, artisans and workers also planted (grew) medicinal plants. > > the existence of kitchen gardens often depended on the population density of cities and on the demographic context. At times of demographic pressure, when cities were full, the spaces taken up by the gardens and vegetable patches of the poor were used for housing. The size and number of such gardens therefore decreased. But when the population declined, such as after the Black Death, unoccupied lots and abandoned houses were turned into vegetable beds to help sustain more modest households. Today still, depopulation in cities sometimes prompts the reconversion of available lands into gardens and parks. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fr20kkx6rnnvm4q10en43mjb) - - [n] I should do something with this related to [[The Gardener]]