Sheep Farming

Nicely in tune with my wool spinning blog post yesterday, there's a link to an article on medievalists.net today - about medieval sheep farming.

I've only taken a short look at it yet, but it promises to be a very interesting read - a report based on data from pipe rolls:

The Winchester pipe rolls provide sufficient data to allow an examination of five areas of policy associated with medieval sheep farming. These are the provision of sires; the construction and maintenance of sheepcotes; the supply of feed to the sheep; the supply of medicaments and veterinary expertise; and the supply of labour devoted to the care and well-being of the flock.

(p. 140).

If you're interested, here's the medievalists.net page with the link to the .pdf file. The article is by Mark Page, published in Agricultural History Review 51:2 (2003), and called The Technology of sheep farming: some evidence from Crawley, Hampshire, 1208-1349.