A MARGINAL ECONOMY

If the level of peasant incomes and the timing of regional development in the Middle Ages did depend upon inherent crop-growing capacity, then there is no doubting Breckland's marginal status. At Domesday the concentration of ploughteams–which roughly measures the area cultivated–was low, and in central districts rarely exceeded two ploughteams per square mile. Lackford and Grimshoe hundreds harboured the worst tracts of land and consequently returned the lowest figures in either Norfolk or Suffolk (table 3.2). Even the land which was cultivable was among the poorest in East Anglia. Pre-Black Death valuations of demesne arable land in eastern Norfolk were sometimes as high as 36d. per acre, yet at Sedgeford on the Goodsands it reached only 8d. Table 3.1 provides some Breckland valuations.

In 1302 only 40 per cent of Culford parish was given over to arable land, and at Elveden the proportion was substantially less, around 20 per cent. In peripheral parishes, this figure would have been progressively larger. But the heathland pasture which dominated Breckland parishes was also of poor quality. In 1086 the region had one of the lowest concentrations of meadowland in East Anglia, and late thirteenth-century valuations reflect its scarcity. The Coney Weston demesne had 335 acres 3 roods of arable and only 3 acres 1 rood of meadow at 48d. an acre; meadow in Culford was valued at 18d. and at 36d. in Fornham (A) with a range of 20d. to 60d.