1st Edition

A History of British Livestock Husbandry, to 1700

By Robert Trow-Smith Copyright 2006
    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    First Published in 2005. This book is a history of the techniques of livestock husbandry in Britain and of the evolution of British breeds of domesticated animals of the farm. Adequate background on the business of buying and selling stock and of the influence of the market upon pastoral policy has been included throughout. As such, this title will be of use to new students and those with an existing background in the history British livestock husbandry.

    CONTENTS

    PREFACE ix

    1. PREHISTORIC AND ROMAN BRITAIN 1

    Neolithic pastoralists and their stock; origins of the first domesticated oxen; neolithic pastoral methods, the Bronze Age and the rise of sheep; origins of British prehistoric sheep; the Celtic shorthorn; the Bronze Age ranches, the domesticated horse; the pre-Roman and Romano-British Iron Age; the Roman sheep farms, the Ramano-British horse; facts and guesses

    2. SAXON SETTLEMENT AND DOMESDAY SURVEY 43

    The pre-Conquest evidence; Saxon literary and legal sources; pig husbandry; Saxon cattle and their uses; sheep and milk production; the problem of the Saxon horse; Domesday and other surveys; the plow team and the cow; the eleventh century sheep population; the pig and woodland pannage; wild and tame horses in Domesday; eleventh century livestock breeds

    3. LIVESTOCK FARMING IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 87

    Method of treatment; the twelfth century; the livestock of the peasantry; growth of markets and of production for sale; mobility of mediaeval livestock; the housing of stock; mediaeval livestock feeding; milk yields of cows and ewes; the economy of the demesne farm; mediaeval stock mortality rates

    4. MEDIAEVAL SHEEP HUSBANDRY 131

    Importance of the sheep industry; growth of the European mediaeval wool trade; sheep population of Britain; economic organization upon the great estates; Welsh and Scottish sheep farming; peasant and yeoman flocks; policy of flock management; flock fecundity and culling; infections and infestations of the sheep; feeding the mediaeval sheep; breeds and wool types; the yield of wool; shearing and wool storage; the profits from sheep

    5. THE LIVESTOCK TOPOGRAPHY OF TUDOR AND STUART BRITAIN 172

    Topographical sources; southwest England; the South Country; Berkshire; Sussex and Kent; Essex; Norfolk and Suffolk; pig husbandry; the Fens and Lincolnshire; Dutch cattle imports; the Midland Counties; the West Midlands; Cheshire; the North Midlands; Wales and the rise of droving; Lancashire and the North; Scottish droving; types of Scottish livestock; Irish imports; regional livestock types; the livestock population of Britain

    6. THE TECHNIQUES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 234

    Cattle; milk yields; beef production; sheep; the wool clip; policy of flock management; sheep diseases and pests; pig husbandry; agricultural and other horses; the new forage crops

    LIST OF PRINCIPAL SOURCES 259

    LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 272

    INDEX 273

    Biography

    Trow-Smith, Robert