ASPNS Bibliography 6: Agriculture & Food History

6. Agricultural and Food History
(For types of plant, and specific plants, see Bibliography 5).

6.1 Journals

Agricultural History Review (1953-)
Rural History: Economy, Society, Culture (1990-)
Tools and Tillage: a Journal of the History of the Implements of Cultivation and Other Agricultural Processes (Copenhagen) (1968-)

---

6.2 Reference Sources

Edwards, Peter, Farming Sources for Local Historians (London, 1991)
Fisher, John L., A Medieval Farming Glossary of Latin and English Words Taken Mainly from Essex Records (London, 1968)
Morgan, R., Dissertations on British Agrarian History: A... List of Theses... in British and Foreign Universities, 1876-1978 (Reading, 1981)
Nicholson, B.E., et al., The Oxford Book of Food Plants (Oxford, 1969)

---

6.3 General Works

Gill, N.T. and K.C. Vear, Agricultural Botany, third edition revised by K.C. Vear and D.J. Barnard (London, 1980)
Partridge, Michael, Farm Tools Through the Ages (Reading, 1973)
Postan, M.M., Essays in Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (Cambridge, 1973)
Renfrew, Jane M., New Light on Early Farming: Recent Developments in Palaeoethnobotany (Edinburgh, 1991)

---

6.4 Specific Regions

6.4.1 Europe

Ambrosoli, Mauro, The Wild and the Sown: Botany and Agriculture in Western Europe, 1350-1850 (Cambridge, 1997)
Astill, Grenville and John Langdon, ed., Medieval Farming and Technology: the Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe (Leiden, 1997)
Garnsey, P., Food and Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999)
Postan, M.M., ed., The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 1: the Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages, second edition (Cambridge, 1966)

6.4.2 Britain

Finberg, H.P.R., ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol 1(2): A.D. 43-1042 (Cambridge, 1972) [check against more recent work]
Hallam, H.E., ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol 2: 1042-1350 (Cambridge, 1988)
Jones, M.J., 'Agriculture in Roman Britain: the Dynamics of Change', Research on Roman Britain 1960-89, edited by M. Todd (London, 1989), p. 127-34
Thirsk, Joan, gen. ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 8 vols (Cambridge, 1972-91)
Whitlock, R., A Short History of Farming in Britain (1964)

6.4.3 England

Clarke, Helen, 'Agriculture in Late Anglo-Saxon England', Domesday Book: Studies, edited by Ann Williams and R.W.H. Erskine (London, 1987), 43-7
Dyer, Christopher, 'The Retreat from Marginal Land: the Growth and Decline of Medieval Rural Settlements', The Rural Settlements of Medieval England: Studies Dedicated to Maurice Beresford and John Hurst, edited by Michael Aston, David Austin and Christopher Dyer (Oxford, 1989), 45-57
Fowler, P.J., 'Agriculture and Rural Settlement', The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, edited by David M. Wilson (London, 1976)
Fowler, P.J., 'Farming in the Anglo-Saxon Landscape: an Archaeologist's Review', Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1981), 263-80
Higham, Nick, 'Landscape and Land Use in Northern England: a Survey of Agricultural Potential, c. 500 B.C.-A.D. 1000', Landscape History 9 (1987), 35-44
Jones, Martin, 'The Development of Crop Husbandry', The Environment of Man: the Iron Age to the Anglo-Saxon Period, edited by Martin Jones and Geoffrey Dimbleby (Oxford, 1981), 95-127
Moffett, Lisa Claire, 'The Archaeobotanical Evidence for Saxon and Medieval Agriculture in Central England circa 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D.' (M.Phil thesis, University of Birmingham, 1988)
Monk, M.A., 'The Plant Economy and Agriculture of the Anglo-Saxons in Southern Britain, with Particular Reference to the 'Mart' Settlements of Southampton and Winchester' (M. Phil thesis, University of Southampton, 1978)
Murphy, Peter, 'Anglo-Saxon Arable Farming on the Silt Fens - Preliminary Results', Fenland Research 8 (1994), 35-9, 75-9
Renfrew, Jane M., 'Palaeoethnobotany and the Early Agriculture of Central Southern England', The Archaeology of Hampshire from the Palaeolithic to the Industrial Revolution, edited by S.J. Shennan and R.T. Schadla-Hall (Andover?, 1981), 104-5
Seebohm, M.L., The Evolution of the English Farm (1952)
Veen, Marijke van der, Crop Husbandry Regimes: an Archaeobotanical Study of Farming in Northern England 1000 B.C. - A.D. 500 (Sheffield?, 1992)

6.4.3.1 Counties

6.4.3.1.1 Kent

Everitt, A.M., 'The Making of the Agrarian Landscape of Kent', Archaeologia Cantiana 92 (1977 for 1976), 1-31

6.4.3.1.2 Norfolk

Murphy, Peter, 'Iron Age to Late Saxon Land Use in the Breckland', Integrating the Subsistence Economy, edited by Martin Jones (Oxford, 1983), 177-209

6.4.3.2 Settlements

6.4.3.2.1 Latimer

Branigan, K., Latimer: Belgic, Roman, Dark Age and Early Modern Farm (Bristol, 1971)

6.4.3.2.2 Orton Hall

Mackreth, D.F., Orton Hall Farm: a Roman and Early Anglo-Saxon Farmstead (Manchester, 1996)

6.4.3.2.3 Southampton

Monk, M.A., 'The Plant Economy and Agriculture of the Anglo-Saxons in Southern Britain, with Particular Reference to the 'Mart' Settlements of Southampton and Winchester' (M. Phil thesis, University of Southampton, 1978)

6.4.3.2.4 Whithorn

Hill, Peter H. and Karina Kucharski, 'Early Medieval Ploughing at Whithorn and the Chronology of Plough Pebbles', Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natrual History and Antiquarian Society 65 (1990), 73-83

6.4.3.2.5 Winchester

Monk, M.A., 'The Plant Economy and Agriculture of the Anglo-Saxons in Southern Britain, with Particular Reference to the 'Mart' Settlements of Southampton and Winchester' (M. Phil thesis, University of Southampton, 1978)

---

6.5 Fields and Meadows

Weeds of cultivation: a good source is Simpson, N. Douglas, A Bibliographical Index of the British Flora Including Floras, Herbals, Periodicals, Societies and References Relating to the Identification, Distribution and Occurrence of Phanerogams, Vascular Cryptogams and Charophytes in the British Isles (Simpson, 1960), p. 4-6

Aston, Michael, 'Land Use and Field Systems', Aspects of the Mediaeval Landscape of Somerset, edited by Michael Aston (1988), 83-97
Baker, Alan R.H., 'Discourses on British Field Systems', Agricultural History Review 31 (1983), 149-55
Baker, Alan R.H. and Robin A. Butlin, ed., Studies of Field Systems in the British Isles (Cambridge, 1973)
Cook, Hadrian and Tom Williamson, Water Management in the English Landscape: Field, Marsh and Meadow (Edinburgh, 1999)
Dodgshon, Robert A., 'Observations on the Open Fields: a Reply', Journal of Historical Geography 5 (1979), 423-6
Dodgshon, Robert A., The Origin of the British Field Systems: an Interpretation (London, 1980)
Foster, S. and T.C. Smout, The History of Soils and Field Systems (Aberdeen, 1995)
Greig, James, 'The Palaeoecology of Some British Hay Meadow Types', Plants and Ancient Man: Studies in Palaeoethnobotany, edited by W. Van Zeist and W.A. Casparie (Rotterdam, 1984), p. 213-26
Hall, David N., 'Little Houghton 1972: a Parish Field Survey', Northamptonshire Past and Present 5 (1977), 295-304
Hall, David N., Medieval Fields (Aylesbury, 1984)
Hall, David N., The Open Fields of Northamptonshire (Northampton, 1995)
Harvey, Mary, 'Planned Field Systems in Eastern Yorkshire: Some Thoughts on their Origin', Agricultural History Review 31 (1983), 91-103
Hooke, Della, 'Open-Field Agriculture - the Evidence from the Pre-Conquest Charters of the West Midlands', The Origins of Open-Field Agriculture, edited by Trevor Rowley (London, 1981), 39-63
McCloskey, Donald N., 'Another Way of Observing the Open Fields: a Reply to A.R.H. Baker', Journal of Historical Geography 5 (1979), 426-9
Nash, Alan, 'The Size of Open Field Strips: a Reinterpretation', Agricultural History Review 33 (1985), 32-40
Rowley, Trevor, The Origins of Open Field Agriculture (London, 1981)
Taylor, Christopher, Fields in the English Landscape (London, 1975)
Unwin, Tim, 'Townships and Early Fields in North Nottinghamshire', Journal of Historical Geography 9 (1983), 341-6
Upex, Stephen, 'Leicestershire Headlands (or 'Leicestershire Wiggles' Identified)', Current Archaeology 149 (1996), 191-3

---

6.6 Horticulture

6.6.1 Journals

Garden History

6.6.2 Reference Sources

Henrey, Blanche, British Botanical and Horticultural Literature Before 1800: Comprising a History and Bibliography of Botanical and Horticultural Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the Earliest Times Until 1800, 3 vols (London, 1975)

6.6.3 General Works

Amherst, A., A History of Gardening in England (London, 1895)
Harvey, John, Mediaeval Gardens (London, 1981)
Landsberg, S., The Medieval Garden (London, n.d.)
Taylor, C.C., 'Garden Archaeology: an Introduction', Garden Archaeology, edited by A.E. Brown (York, 1991)
Thacker, C., The Genius of Gardening: the History of Gardens in Britain and Ireland (London, 1994)

---

6.7 Food

6.7.1 Reference Sources

Mason, L. and C. Brown, Traditional Foods of Britain: an Inventory (Totnes, 1998)

6.7.2 General Works

Brothwell, Don and Patricia Brothwell, Food in Antiquity: a Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples (Baltimore, 1998)
Evershed, R.P. et al., 'The Survival of Food Residues: New Methods of Analysis, Interpretation and Application', Proceedings of the British Academy 77 (1992), 187-208
Green, Francis J., 'Cereals and Plant Food: a Reassessment of the Saxon Economic Evidence from Wessex', Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England: a Review of Recent Work on the Environmental Archaeology of Rural and Urban Anglo-Saxon Settlements in England, edited by James Rackham (London, 1994), 83-8
Grube, F.W., 'Old English Food and Food Names', Northwest Missouri State College Studies 27 (February 1963), 3-28
Hagen, Ann, Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and Consumption (Pinner, 1992)
Hagen, Ann, A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production and Distribution (Hockwold-cum-Wilton, 1995)
Hammond, P.W., Food and Feast in Medieval England (Stroud, 1993)
Henisch, Bridget Anne, Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society (London, 1976)
Magennis, Hugh, Anglo-Saxon Appetites: Food and Drink and their Consumption in Old English and Related Literature (Dublin, 1998)
O'Connor, Terry P., 'Archaeogastronomy', Interim 10.1 (1984), 26-7
O'Connor, Terry P., 'What Shall We Have for Dinner?: Food Remains from Urban Sites', Diet and Crafts in Towns, edited by D. Serjeantson and T. Waldron (Oxford?, 1989), 13-24
Pearson, Kathy L., 'Nutrition and the Early Medieval Diet', Speculum 72.1 (1997), 1-32
Tomlinson, Philippa and Allan R. Hall, 'A Review of the Archaeological Evidence for Food Plants from the British Isles: an Example of the Use of the Archaeobotanical Computer Database (ABCD)', Internet Archaeology 1 (1996)

6.7.3 Fodder

Charles, Michael, 'Fodder from Dung: the Recognition and Interpretation of Dung-Derived Plant Material from
Archaeological Sites', Environmental Archaeology 1 (1998), 111-22
Jones, Glynis, ed., The Archaeology of Fodder (Oxford, 1998) [First issue of the journal Environmental Archaeology]

6.7.4 Food Plants (General)

Banham, D.A.R., 'The Knowledge and Use of Food Plants in Anglo-Saxon England' (Ph.D thesis, University of Cambridge, 1990)
Cameron, L., The Wild Foods of Great Britain (1917)
Field, John, 'Crops for Man and Beast', Leeds Studies in English n.s. 18 (1987), 111-23
Green, Francis J., 'Cereals and Plant Food: a Reassessment of the Saxon Economic Evidence from Wessex', Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England: a Review of Recent Work on the Environmental Archaeology of Rural and Urban Anglo-Saxon Settlements in England, edited by James Rackham (London, 1994), 83-8
Green, Francis J., 'Iron Age, Roman and Saxon Crops: the Archaeological Evidence from Wessex', The Environment of Man: the Iron Age to the Anglo-Saxon Period, edited by Martin Jones and Geoffrey Dimbleby (Oxford, 1981), p. 129-53
Hansson, Ann-Marie, On Plant Food in the Scandinavian Peninsula in Early Medieval Times, Theses and Papers in Archaeology B5 (Stockholm: Laborativ Arkeologi, University of Stockholm)
Mabey, Richard, Food for Free: a Guide to the Edible Wild Plants of Britain (London, 1972)
Masefield, G.B., et al., The Oxford Book of Food Plants (Oxford, 1969)

6.7.5 Cereals

6.7.5.1 Cereal Foods

[Anon.], 'A Corn Dryer at Foxholes [Herts.]', Current Archaeology 52 (1976 for 1975), 152-3
Biggam, C.P., 'Old English þeru and Modern English tharf-cakes', SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature 5 (1997 for 1995), 109-15
Breeze, Andrew, 'Old English þeru 'loaves' in a Westbury Charter of 793-796', Notes and Queries 42 (1995), 13-14
Denison, Simon, 'Anglo-Saxon Watermill Found in Tyne', British Archaeology 11 (1996), 5
Green, Francis J., 'Cereals and Plant Food: a Reassessment of the Saxon Economic Evidence from Wessex', Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England: a Review of Recent Work on the Environmental Archaeology of Rural and Urban Anglo-Saxon Settlements in England, edited by James Rackham (London, 1994), 83-8
Grube, F.W., 'Cereal Foods of the Anglo-Saxons', Philological Quarterly 13 (1934), 140-58
Heaton, Michael J., 'Two Mid-Saxon Grain-Driers and Later Medieval Features at Chantry Fields, Gillingham, Dorset', Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeology Society 114 (1992), 97-126
Jessen, Knud and Hans Helbaek, Cereals in Great Britain and Ireland in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times (Copenhagen, 1944)
Lendinara, P., 'Ags. fahame', Annali: Istituto Universitario Orientale (Naples), Sezione Germanica, Filologia Germanica 23 (1980), 191-6
Monk, M.A., 'Post-Roman Drying Kilns and the Problem of Function: Preliminary Statement', Irish Antiquity: Essays and Studies Presented to Professor M.J. O'Kelly, edited by Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Cork, 1981), 216-30 [references to Poundbury, Dorset]
Moritz, L.A., Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 1958)
Rahtz, Philip A., 'Medieval Milling', Medieval Industry, edited by D.W. Crossley (London, 1981), 1-15
Rahtz, Philip A. and Robert Meeson, An Anglo-Saxon Watermill at Tamworth (London, 1992)
Walker, S., 'The Watermill at Mount Bures in 1086', Colchester Archaeology Group Annual Bulletin 35 (1992), 23-34

6.7.5.2 Cereal Plants

Alvey, C.R., 'Carbonised Grain from Feature 5, Area 3', in 'Old Penrith: Excavations 1977 and 1979' by Andrew Poulter, p. 61-4, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 82 (1982), 51-66
Alvey, C.R., 'Identification of Grain Impressions on the Anglo-Saxon Pottery', An Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Baston, Lincolnshire, by P. Mayes and M.J. Dean (Sleaford, 1976), p. 61
Anttila, Raimo, 'An Etymology for the Aquatic acker/aiker in English, and Other Grains of Truth?', Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries, in Honour of Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of his Fiftieth Birthday, edited by Dieter Kastovsky and Aleksander Szwedek, 2 vols (Berlin, 1986) [æcer 'crop/crops']
Green, Francis J., 'Cereals and Plant Food: a Reassessment of the Saxon Economic Evidence from Wessex', Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England: a Review of Recent Work on the Environmental Archaeology of Rural and Urban Anglo-Saxon Settlements in England, edited by James Rackham (London, 1994), 83-8
Grube, F.W., 'Cereal Foods of the Anglo-Saxons', Philological Quarterly 13 (1934), 140-58
Hall, Allan R., 'Identification of Charred Cereals', in 'Excavation of a Saxon Site at Riby Cross Roads, Lincolnshire', Archaeological Journal 151 (1994), 293-4 Moffett, Lisa, 'Charred Cereals from Some Ovens/Kilns in Late Saxon Stafford and the Botanical Evidence for the Pre-burh Economy', Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England: a Review of Recent Work on the Environmental Archaeology of Rural and Urban Anglo-Saxon Settlements in England, edited by James Rackham (London, 1994), 55-64
Murphy, Peter, 'The Cereals and Crop Weeds', West Stow, the Anglo-Saxon Village, I, by Stanley West (Ipswich, 1985), 100-8
Musty, John, 'Science Diary', Current Archaeology 99 (1986), 120-2 [cereals from Mucking]

6.7.6 Vegetables

Grube, F.W., 'Old English Vegetable Terms', Northwest Missouri State College Studies 27 (May 1963), 3-30
Hall, A.R., 'In Pursuit of the Uneatable', Interim 12.2 (1987), 1-7 [vegetables]

6.7.7 Fruits

Overing, Gillian R., 'Of Apples, Eve, and Genesis B: Contemporary Theory and Old English Practice', ANQ, new series 3 (1990), 87-90
Roach, F.A., 'Apple Production in England, its History from Roman Times Until the Present Day', Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 125 (1964), 48-72

6.7.8 Edible Fungi

Ministry of Agriculture, Edible and Poisonous Fungi (London, 1947)
Ramsbottom, J., Edible Fungi (1943)

6.7.9 Herbs and Spices
(Herbs include medicinal plants. For general works on medicinal plants, see Bibliography 10, and for specific medicinal plants, see Section 5.10).

6.7.9.1 Reference Sources

Grieve, Mrs, A Modern Herbal.
Stuart, Malcolm, ed., The Colour Dictionary of Herbs and Herbalism (London, 1979)

6.7.9.2 General Works

Hall, A.R., 'The Spice of Life?', Circaea 5.1 (1987), 19-20.
Hemingway, J., 'The Flora of Early Medieval Worcestershire as Recorded in Contemporary Documents: Shrubs and Herbs, Worcestershire Archaeology and Local History Newsletter 33 (1984), 4-10
Le Strange, Richard, A History of Herbal Plants (London, 1977)

ASPNS Bibliography contents