Why did four-field crop rotation take so long to implement?

Three-field systems came into existence in Europe around the turn of the millennium, and coincided with the widespread use of horse collars and heavy plows. Its understandable, then, that it took some time for that system of agriculture to be developed. And, its also understandable that it would take awhile to spread.

However, what intrigues me is that four-field systems seem to date from the 16th century. Why so much later? All the crops were old world crops, and it seems to me that it would be just as much of a jump for someone to try switching to four fields as three. What was the stumbling block there, the missing piece?
 
I suspect it was due in part to farm size. Between the 16 and 18th c., especially in England there was an increase in farm size. Since landowners were no longer subsistence farming they could afford to experiment. The farmer who's feeding their family can't necessarily afford to take risks.
 
Great question. Georges Duby, in Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, argues that numerous rotations were practiced throughout medieval and early modern Europe. Variations were due to the climate, the types of soils and fertility, but especially due to markets.

I'm not sure which four-crop rotation you're referring to, but the one introduced by Townsend included clover; a fodder crop, or sometimes a green manure. But it's best used as a fodder crop, and the demand for livestock, while usually high, was not universal throughout Europe.

Or rather, the demand for livestock could typically be met by conventional transhumance or free-grazing herds. If your landlord is raising a few hundred sheep and cattle in the surrounding waste, there is less incentive for you to plow and plant your field in a fodder crop.

For rotations less dependent of fodder, market demand still applies. Despite our impression that most pre-modern farmers grew crops for their own food, from the Carolingian period, most farmers were dependent on local markets; either the lord's manor/household, the local town, or even more distant cities.

A fair comparison can be made to the corn (maize)/soybean so common in the modern United States. Many farmers do grow more complex rotations (peas, canola, lentils, wheat, alfalfa (lucerne)). BUT, the market demand and price may not be there. The same limitations may have discouraged many farmers, especially when extended fallows would be just as effective in restoring fertility for subsequent crops.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
comparative price of land and labour ?

like TaronQuinn mentioned gained more land for fallow field might be more cost-effective. four-field also developed in densely populated low countries, so there might show that incentive of four-field rotation need easy availability of labour while land is expensive.
 
I have to agree with everything that is said, plus this is the beginning of specialty farming in the West, you see farms begin to move away eventually from needing to raise many types of crops and livestock to make money and survive.
 
Enclosure and the end of the Commons as a major part of agriculture had its part in enabling four-field crop rotation. Fodder crops like turnips and clovers are used in the system to reintroduce nutrients to the soil, and there was no sense in planting these crops for yourself if a cow belonging to someone else came in and started treating itself.
 
Maybe it was the massive demographic changes wrought by the Black Death, freeing up land and making change possible, I think there might have been changes like the use of Commons for example.

IIUC the 4th crop was a nitrogen fixing one like peas or beans or clover, which used fallow land, restored fertility, used labour at slack times and provided green feed for livestock. People couldn't plant this sort of thing on the Common.
 
Maybe it was the massive demographic changes wrought by the Black Death, freeing up land and making change possible, I think there might have been changes like the use of Commons for example.

IIUC the 4th crop was a nitrogen fixing one like peas or beans or clover, which used fallow land, restored fertility, used labour at slack times and provided green feed for livestock. People couldn't plant this sort of thing on the Common.

Except that there's still several centuries between 4-field systems and the plague.
 
Except that there's still several centuries between 4-field systems and the plague.

Let's not forget market access. The laws, roads, canals, international trading companies, trade treaties, credit, customs, and more need to be developed before specialized farming is feasible to feed into specific niches. Its not just demand, but the ability to actually get the goods there at a reasonable cost.

Take for example grain, a good which when in shortage has its value skyrockets due to the minimum demand needed to feed people, but drops dramatically in price as soon as people have enough to feed themselves, demand falls, & the extra money is spent on luxuries or other living goods. To sustain a specialized mass farm like OTL 16th century Poland you'd need an extensive system to gather, export, and sell the grain to Western Europe market which till the mid 16th century was in perpetual shortage.
 
Except that there's still several centuries between 4-field systems and the plague.

True, but the plague broke the back of the Feudal system in England in particular, with all its customary rights of land tenure and all that. Nor did it happen overnight, there were major outbreaks every decade or so that took over 10% of the population up until the great plague of 1665 and serfdom changed to copyhold during the 1400s.
 
Probably a combination of the difficulty to experiment to get a fourth crop rotation right (which crops, and in which order), legal difficulties in getting large property together for a single farmstead, and having a large enough internal market so that you can always sell the crops you grow that season. Local market may not be large enough because of the various medieval tolls, taxes, etc. Once you have large national markets, it's far easier to dispose of surplus crops the local village area can't eat itself.
 
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