St Cross Fellows contribute to major new open-access study of medieval English agriculture

St Cross College celebrates the publication of Feeding Medieval England: A Long ‘Agricultural Revolution’, 700–1300, a major new open-access volume co-authored by Fellow Professor Helena Hamerow. The book examines how farming practices supported population growth in medieval England during a period of profound social and economic change. 

Feeding Medieval England brings together the results of an ERC-funded interdisciplinary research project that sheds new light on how medieval farmers produced the large harvests needed to sustain rapidly expanding towns, markets, and rural communities. Using a wide range of archaeological evidence, the study reconstructs early farming regimes and traces how these practices shaped the English landscape in ways that remain visible today. 

Alongside Professor Hamerow, the author team includes two further St Cross Fellows: Professor Michael Charles and Emeritus Fellow Professor Amy Bogaard. The volume also features contributions from Emily Forster, Matilda Holmes, Mark McKerracher, Professor Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Dr Elizabeth Stroud, and Professor Richard Thomas. 

The study applies a distinctive combination of scientific analyses to bioarchaeological remains, offering new perspectives on long-term agricultural change between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. The book is complemented by a freely accessible digital archive of bioarchaeological data hosted by the Archaeology Data Service, enabling further research and reuse. 

Published by Oxford University Press, Feeding Medieval England is available to read online as an open-access title.