HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Social Alienation, High Standard Manufacturing Company, Barter
27 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Europe in the middle ages was overwhelmingly agricultural; because they did not have efficient farming techniques or advanced farming technology, producing crops required a great deal of backbreaking labour. Because it took so much work to create enough food to be fed, the vast majority of people worked as farmers. Land in this era was the source of all wealth; in an economy without currency or a great deal of trade, crop production was the primary economic activity. Crop production, of course, requires land upon which to grow crops. In the early middle ages, the population of europe shrank due to a number of factors. Firstly, there was widespread famine, as a lack of infrastructure meant that regions with crop failure could not import food from regions with food surpluses. Secondly, there were mass migrations of semi-nomadic peoples across the continent, such as the. This meant that wars and skirmishes were quite frequent and there was little political stability.
