Urban Farm DB
Research catalogue
Database research record2021·Global

Alliances and Exchanges

Caroline Goodson

Cambridge University Press eBooks

Urban Farm DB summary

This chapter examines the economic context of urban food production in the Middle Ages, focusing on household-scale cultivation. It explores the emergence of urban food markets and the absence of evidence for them before the eleventh century. In the absence of commercial farming, household-level cultivation was the primary food source for most city-dwellers, with food gardens and their exchange through family networks highlighting the role of family links in urban food production.