Rekonstrukční mapy polních systémů

• Authors: Klir T.

Title variants

EN

RECONSTRUCTION MAPS OF FIELD SYSTEMS

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The purpose of the submitted paper was to contribute to better understanding of historical agricultural strategies on a specific example of villages established during the late-medieval colonisation. Based on an analysis of plans of agricultural land surrounding villages and on written materials from the 16th-18th centuries, the main features of field systems in selected villages were described and explained, including the extent of their stability and their ability to cope with harvest variances. Lots of attention was paid to the study of relations between the settlement form and the field system. On the other hand, the effort to reconstruct the formal arrangement of agricultural land around villages remained unnoticed since it reflected the property and legal relations and the economical and ecological situation at that time etc, which means changeable and oftentimes short-term factors. All the searched locations showed close relations between the settlement form and the method of using agricultural areas. This enabled us to word model assumptions about agricultural strategies and economic principles of villages in extremely bad nature conditions. As far as villages situated on infertile and hardly differentiated sandy soils are concerned, it was possible to document agricultural production based on undemanding 'three-sectional' field systems and in some areas also on 'alternate field systems'. Varied pressure on agricultural production was also reflected by the arrangement of agricultural land around villages whose main structure was maintained by a more stable settlement form. There was only one village where we could document a clear division of agricultural land into a portion with intensive agricultural production and a portion with extensive production; such situation resulted from the fact that the land owned by the village included also high quality soil. This division increased the efficiency of agricultural work significantly since it focused on suitable areas only. The risk of yield variations was fairly low. The development of the above described field systems during the early Middle Ages can be studied on the example of the village of Lhota na Kri. However, an analysis of this medieval village, which does not exist any more, will be dealt with in another essay.

Keywords

EN

ARCHAEOLOGY; DESERTED MEDIEVAL VILLAGES; LAND USE; RECONSTRUCTION MAPS; SETTLEMENT - MEDIEVAL

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Historická geografie (Historical Geography)
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 34
• Pages: 261-295
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Klir T.

• T. Klir, Ustav pro pravek a ranou dobu dejinnou, FF UK Praha, Czech Republic

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08CZAAAA04188154