The carruca or caruca was a kind of heavy plow important to medieval agriculture in

Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other ge ...

. The carruca used a heavy

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

plowshare In agriculture, a plowshare (Differences between American and British spellings, US) or ploughshare (Differences between American and British spellings, UK; ) is a component of a plow (or plough). It is the cutting or leading edge, preceding t ...

to turn heavy

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...

and may have required a team of eight

oxen An ox (: oxen), also known as a bullock (in BrE, British, AusE, Australian, and IndE, Indian English), is a large bovine, trained and used as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castration, castrated adult male cattle, because castration i ...

. The carruca also bore a coulter and moldboard. It gave its name to the English

carucate The carucate or carrucate ( or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms of tax assessment. ...

. Based on linguistic evidence, the carruca may have been employed by some

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

by AD 568.White Jr., Lynn, The Life of the Silent Majority, pg. 88 of Life and Thought in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Robert S. Hoyt, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. 1967 It was present in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Po Valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (, , or ) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetian Plain, Venetic extension not actu ...

by 643 and—judging from the terminology in the '—in southwestern Germany by 720. The carruca may have been introduced to the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

by the

Viking invasions of England The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

in the late 9th century. The carruca was able to turn over a furrow and it gave an opportunity to utilize the heavier soils of Northern Europe, as well as providing greater drainage; overall an important technological advancement for the medieval agricultural economy. Its use required cooperation among peasants because few would own enough oxen to pull it. The scratch plow which preceded the wheeled plough had been ideal for the light sandy soils of

Southern Europe Southern Europe is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, C ...

, and continued in use in various places, in England, on the continent and also in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. The scratch plough tended to create square fields because the field was ploughed twice, the second time at right angles to the first. By contrast, the carruca was most efficient in oblong paddocks. Because this pattern conflicted with traditional ownership arrangements, the carruca was probably most often used when breaking uncultivated ground.

The wheeled plough in the Danish region

The well-known

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

settlement of Danelagen () testify to the enduring presence of Scandinavians on the British Isles from the 9th century onwards and the idea of Viking settlers introducing the wheeled plough may well be one of the ''possible congruencies'' of

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

. Hoffs evaluation of the Danish landscape laws take in many aspects. In the section "The cultivated land", subsection "Agricultural systems" () Hoff draw up lines of agricultural development stemming a period of circa 1000 years (2nd - 12th century)—regions mentioned include Denmark, the Netherlands, North-West Germany and England. The earliest reliable date for the wheeled plough in the Danish region is from the 11th century, at the location Sønder Vium. Hoff comment that "These sporadic ploughmarks give no information on the structure and function of the agricultural system." In the same section ("Agricultural systems") Hoff gathers textual evidence from the Danish '' landscape laws'' indicate usage of the wheeled plough, but also a terminological uncertainty that is later resolved - i.e. reflecting a time of transition. The period of transition is not exactly determined by Hoff, but the period 12th-14th century may be suggested.

Literature

* * Western Civilization Sixth Edition by Jackson J. Spielvogel * Fontana Economic History of Europe - The Middle Ages, ed C Cipolla, article by L White

References

{{Reflist, 2, refs= Ploughs Medieval agriculture

The wheeled plough in the Danish region

See also

Literature

References