The Fields our Fathers Plowed: Thwarted Change in the Development of a Professionalized Concept of Agriculture at the start of the Early Modern Period By Elisabeth Yazdzik Introduction: Agricultural Stereotypes and Agrarian Advice Manuals The history of agriculture is one of the least studied and most important fields of of history. Though the rising trend to social history has moved the historian away from dates and battles and into a more complex understanding of the daily lives of our ancestors, it has yet to stray very far into the fields, forests, streams and ponds which nourished them. As much myth as fact seems to lace our understanding of agrarian history. Economics mingles little with social science, archeology and engineering shy from old manuscripts, and linguistics weakly ties only disparate facts together. Yet despite this, the information is out there, vital, critical, especially now, as new interest in agriculture and a return to the land surfaces. Part of the issue with agrarian history is that events might have played out differently. Throughout history, many occupations eventually became professions. Farming never truly did. This paper seeks to examine the failed professionalization of agriculture, and to trace its roots to the drastic changes which were occurring in at the end of the Medieval era. At its core, the failure of agriculture toprofessionalize lay in the conflict between two forces: the conservative body of peasant farmers striving to maintain a livelihood from the soil, and the body of early agrarian theorists, gentleman farmers whose freedom to write and innovate was the fruit of peasant labor. The key to understanding this conflict lies in the examination early Modern agrarian advice manuals. Within the roots of Western European agrarian history, one sees the troubles and questions which even now dog the heels of modern society. Everyone eats, and historically, almost everyone has been somehow involved in the food production process. The transition to the modern era from the world of the ancients is a complex and fascinating one. Many modern attitudes towards agriculture, farmers, and the land date back centuries, to society's transition into modernity. As western society transitions into a post-industrial age, it is invaluable to look back before the Industrial Revolution, to that murky and indistinct time known for various reasons and in various locales as the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the beginning of the early modern period. During that span of several hundred years from the beginning of the fourteenth century and onwards into the beginnings of the sixteenth century, major societal changes occurred which led to the development of modern perceptions on agriculture. Economic realities meant occupation outside the ancestral village was becoming more common. Growing cities, increased Guild regulation and the new availability of printed media, and thus, trade manuals, led to an increasing importance of the professional. Agriculture remained fast in its perception as stodgy: the work of the uneducated, ignorant, even savage man.The reasons behind that negative perception of farmers and farming are many and complex. To fully understand both how and why such perceptions developed, one must understand the major transitions agriculture underwent through the late Middle Ages and into the early modern period. To understand that is to understand the history of that seldom understood ninety percent of humanity from whom we all descend; it is to understand the history of Western Europe at its most basic level. For the sake of records, time, and coherency, this paper will focus on England, but will occasionally draw on other European countries when necessary. It is important to remember that throughout Europe at this point in history, nobility had more in common with those of their own social status than with peasantry of their own nationality. The same can be said of the peasantry, with some reservation. However, it is equally critical to understand that the economies of varying European countries differed widely. Lastly, when considering agrarian history, one is inevitably studying the landscape itself, which differed not only nationally but from county to county, village to village, field to forest to meadow. Therefore, the label “English agrarian history” is unfortunately as incorrect as it is necessary. “Today, at the beginning of the third millennium, agriculture employs only 2 per cent of the United Kingdom's workforce and contributes less the .1 per cent to the national income....In the middle ages it was otherwise. Then, agriculture dominated the economy. At least three-quarters of England's national income came from agriculture.”1. Most of the English population was rural, and most of the rural population was engaged in agricultural labor. The history of agriculture is the history of technological innovation and its 1 Reginald Lennard, A Social History of England,1200‐1500 p.179 implementation which slowly, slowly expanded the number of individuals who did not produce food relative to those who did. The Green Revolution of the 1970s which led to fewer than five percent of the population being required to engage in food production was radical. Most agricultural changes have happened slowly, yielding minor but significant increases in productivity. The significant benefits brought about by technological advances from the development of the heavy plow to that of the three-field rotation system should not be underestimated by modern eyes accustomed to radical and extreme results. Even minor advances in how much of a population a given piece of land would sustain impacted greatly the culture and history of that land. For instance, the three field rotation system which developed in the 8th century saw an increase in agricultural productivity of one third. This new system was so significant Charlemagne actually rearranged the names of the months of the year in honor of when new harvests were now occurring. Further changes in the 12th century saw an increase in productivity of 50 percent over the old two field rotation system, resulting in yet denser populations and a greater ability to support urban centers. 2 Of great importance to technological and intellectual progress is whether, and how, that progress spreads. The fifteenth century saw