In addition, there was a series of inventions that some historians like
to call the second agricultural revolution. The Mouldboard plow
gradually replaced the wheeled aratus used in southern Europe,
and because of the expense of owning and feeding a plow team,
usually a whole village will farm cooperatively—called open-fi eld
farming. Another crucial invention is the horse collar, which rests
on the shoulder blades of the horse and allows it to be used as a
plow animal.
There were also all kinds of land reclamation projects, including
building dikes in the Netherlands and moving up mountainsides to
plant vineyards. The use of the waterwheel to grind grain allows
milling to become a very profi table business. Risen and baked
bread become far more widely used as opposed to gruel. The diet
once again becomes more sedentary and grain based.
Increasingly, wild animals are enclosed in parks and become the
private reserves of nobles and kings. Stealing wild animals, or
poaching, becomes a serious crime. As a result, game like venison,
wild boar, and even large ocean animals (such as dolphin, whale,
and sturgeon) become fi rmly associated with nobility.
Though not exactly the crude meat feasts of the early Middle Ages,
the noble banquet was still a visual expression of the inequality and
interdependency of the feudal nobility. For the most part, nobles
have lost their military function once relative peace has returned to
Europe. Hunting and hawking replicate warfare, and there are a few
nice wars to keep people busy.
Nobles have a lot of wealth, but there’s really not much to spend
it on. Europe does not manufacture luxury goods, but the Muslim
world and Asia do. It occurs to these nobles that all the raping
and pillaging they’re used to doing is impossible now that kings
are making laws against that sort of thing, so they extend their
energies outward.