Three-field crop rotation
Rotación trienal de cultivos
- Date
- c. 800 · confidence medium
- Place
- Rhine and Moselle valley, Carolingian Empire
- Credited to
- Great Carolingian abbeys
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A system dividing land into three fields (winter cereal, spring cereal or legume, fallow) instead of two. It increases the annually cultivated area by 50% and improves soil fertility thanks to legumes.
It appears documented in abbey polyptychs such as Saint-Germain-des-Prés; its spread was slow and regional.
What it led to
- agricultural surpluses that sustained the urban revival of the 11th-13th centuries
- abundant oats that made the horse viable as a draught animal
- a diet richer in plant protein and greater demographic resilience
Built on
- Pulse domestication (lentil, pea, chickpea)c. 8500 BCE
- Heavy mouldboard ploughc. 650
- Heavy mouldboard plough
- Roman biennial (two-field) crop rotation
Made possible
- Rigid horse collarc. 920
- Rigid horse collar