HIST-102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 67: Brown Bread
14 Oct 2020
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Wine was drunk everywhere after all, the liturgy demanded it and the further south one went, the more that wine replaced ale as the staple drink of the masses. The major shift that occurred was in the production of high quality wines and oils for the aristocracy. Producing fine wines required not only a higher degree of knowledge but a dramatically increased commitment of manpower. These refinements could only be made when farm labor became centralized and collectivized under the lords of the new manors. Crop yields for wheat improved to perhaps four times the quantity of grain sown that is, one bushel of seed produced four bushels of harvested grain. Of those four bushels, one had to be reserved for the next planting, one (and sometimes two) went to the lord of the manor as rent, and the remaining grain was either consumed, stored, or sold.
