SC - The horse in medieval agriculture (long)

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/19/99 2:25:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
stefan at texas.net writes:

<< (In the future, I will try to refrain from posting my hypothesises here 
 unless I have the references on hand to back them up) >>

I wasn't aware that you were specifically references horses as a plow animal.

I now see the reason that you maintain the hypothesis you do but am 
unconvinced that practical living supports them. Given the extant cookery 
manuals that we have and the fact that a large portion of the recipes seem to 
emphasize meat as the food of choice with a large portion of those meat 
animals basing their diet on grain or vegetable sources I am still having a 
hard time following your line of reasoning concerning the feeding of grain to 
animals. 

Certainly there were times of famine during which animal populations were 
reduced but those times were in isolated geographical areas and when added 
together they did not extend over any significant time frame when viewed from 
the perspective of total years covered by the SCA period.

Your hypothesis may very well fit into specific short term famine cycles and 
could possibly be applied to several different geographical locations where 
such famines were noted to have occurred. But it seems to me that these 
incidents would not be a sound basis for advancing a general theory of feed 
lot practices throughout the middle ages. 

OTOH, both experience and known feeding patterns for poultry seem to suggest 
an approach wherein a farmer would be willing to spend a minimal amount of 
income on feed grain if the financial returns from egg and meat production 
were high enough. A modern example of this would be the raising of beef 
cattle for market. The income obtained from the beef far outweighs the 
relative expense of supplemental feed.

Supplemental feed has always been grown for the express purpose of feeding 
animals that require it. This feed is not taken from crops meant for human 
consumption but is grown separately from it. If I am understanding your 
theory correctly, you are saying that the feed for animals was taken from 
that allotted for human consumption. SFAIK, this has never been the case at 
any point in history. Alternatively, in times of famine animal feed has often 
been consumed by humans.

I now understand your position on horses although I personally think that 
oxen (which BTW also required supplemental feed during cold months) were used 
in the fields because of a residual abhorrence to using horses in such a 
manner due to the fact that the horse was extremely sacred to most 
pre-Christian populations. Obviously, you have spent some time researching 
the horse question and I bow to your wisdom in that matter at this time. 

However, I fail to see how the adoption of horses as draft animals relates to 
the normal feeding of chickens which, IIRC, was what the original discussion 
was all about. The grain used to feed a horse in a single feeding could feed 
many chickens for several days. Grain which would have been raised for that 
specific purpose and not for human consumption.

So far as, providing references, I really don't think it is necessary to 
provide detailed references on this list serve. I have provided several 
references regarding my sources for agricultural information in the past and 
they apparently either were not read or were considered inferior. Either way, 
the futility of providing those sources was very apparent at the time and I 
haven't seen anything to change my perceptions.

I certainly hope you will rethink your decision about not posting your 
hypothesis to this list because they, along with my own and many other 
peoples opinions, provide very fertile ground for thought and potential areas 
of research that would otherwise be overlooked.

Ras
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