Chapter 16: Through the Middle Ages 016

Chapter 16: Through the Middle Ages 016

"It looks quite good, the estate is better than I expected," Louisa said sincerely.

Perhaps due to too many negative stereotypes about the Middle Ages, people often assume that nobles of that era had a hard time, and commoners even more so. Either they were adrift in troubled times, as during the period of the Five Barbarians in Huaxia, where everyone lived in constant fear, or in slightly more stable times, serfs on the estates were ruthlessly exploited.

These stereotypes are partially true and partially false.

They are true because the early Middle Ages were indeed like that. After the fall of the Roman Empire, barbarian invasions occurred—yet this was clearly not the darkest moment for the inhabitants of this land, as there was a second wave of barbarian invasions!

Compared to the previous barbarian invasions, the second wave was far more chaotic and darker. Because strictly speaking, many of the first wave of barbarians who grew powerful on the "corpse" of Rome were not truly barbarians. They were either already heavily influenced by Rome or were frontier peoples under Roman rule, with significant Romanization...

In such circumstances, the transfer of power could still be somewhat smooth (though not much), and the original local order did not completely collapse.

The second wave was the so-called more "barbaric" peoples, who invaded the former barbarians who had already "taken the central plains," attempting to establish order and engage in sustainable exploitation. This was truly about burning, killing, and looting, only considering "exploiting resources to the fullest," without thinking about construction, the "sustainable" part.

They are wrong because after this period passed, by the so-called "High Medieval Period," around the 10th century, life on this land became more manageable—the barbarians were either "pacified" or largely kept at bay, making it hard for them to sweep in and plunder.

As for the exploitation of serfs, calling them serfs, from what Louisa sees now, their status as serfs is not as severe, feeling more like tenant farmers. The degree of personal dependency is very low—this is quite different from the rigid serfdom of Russian history.

Perhaps due to religious reasons, enslaving one's own people was forbidden, and bishop-led cities were competing with estates centered around lords for population.

Or perhaps due to the divergent interests of various lords and kings... in any case, the laws governing serfs' rights and duties were not overly harsh. Moreover, the law stipulated that once they escaped the estate for three days, the lord had no right to reclaim them. Then, generally, they only needed to live in a city for a year to become freemen.

Or it could simply be due to population reasons, by this time there was already a problem of overpopulation. After centuries of land reclamation, the easily arable land had been depleted, and per capita arable land had been decreasing in recent years. At this point, some estates truly could not support so many mouths!

Thus, the ties binding serfs to the land loosened significantly.

"The lands of Brudo are always fertile, and the Count treats the farmers who work for him very well," Madam Hugo aptly remarked.

What she said was true, Brudo is a bountiful plain, and as for the Count treating his tenants well—it's not that he has "a philosophy centered on the people." It should be said that in most large noble estates, farmers live better than in the estates of small nobles, squires, or monasteries. After all, this is just a trivial part of the large nobles' many industries, and with the emperor far away, management couldn't be overly strict.

Moreover, Count Balzac is wealthy, with a significant portion of his income coming from commerce, so naturally, he doesn't need to go out of his way to exploit the farmers.

After chatting with Madam Hugo for a while, Louisa went with the estate steward who arrived to "inspect," mainly to see the actual planting of sugar beets. Although the castle's orders should be treated as top priority by the estate steward and others, there are always those who only pretend to comply. This matter is of great importance, so coming to check is never wrong.

The planting of sugar beets in the demesne of Swan Estate has been completed. As for the farmers who voluntarily planted some sugar beets, they are also planting one after another. Louisa compared the actual planting situation with the estate steward's work records, with the estate steward explained beside her.

"...Yes, miss, we prepared the fertilizer as instructed. However, this type of fertilizer is unfamiliar, so its effectiveness is uncertain..."

The "fertilizer" mentioned by the estate steward was actually something Louisa had someone come to guide them to make, but the estate steward was unaware of this. After all, it's hard for him to imagine that a noble lady like Louisa would know about agricultural matters and be involved with "fertilizer."

Contrary to the later domestic internet rumors that medieval Westerners did not use manure, so human and animal waste was not utilized, leading to dirty cities, flowing excrement, and extremely low agricultural output (low agricultural output did exist, but it was not necessarily due to not using manure).

Medieval farmers certainly used manure—experienced farmers knew that planting certain crops could help restore soil fertility, and ash, marl, and old straw were good fertilizers. Medieval people also used manure.

However, the composting techniques were certainly not as refined as those in contemporary China with intensive farming.

At this time, the composting methods were quite crude, and the manure that ordinary farmers on the estate could obtain was limited—transporting feces from the city, considering the transportation costs and the price farmers were willing to pay for manure, unless they lived on the outskirts of the city, it was simply impossible!

So in the end, everyone on the estate could only use what they produced themselves, and even that might not entirely belong to them.

Because at this time, estate lords had the so-called "enclosure rights," meaning that throughout the year, farmers had to occasionally enclose their livestock on the lord's fallow demesne... This was obviously not a benefit for the farmers, giving them a place to graze. The common lands on the estate were mostly grasslands, for the convenience of grazing, and grazing is obviously not the same as enclosure.

The goal here was still to use livestock manure to fertilize the land.

Considering the actual situation of Swan Estate, Louisa sent someone to guide the use of river mud and peat soil for composite fermentation, which is the unfamiliar fertilizer mentioned by the estate steward. Besides this, the composting techniques were also improved—Louisa's knowledge of these (though only a general understanding, purely theoretical) was thanks to later online novels.

As an online novel enthusiast, it's truly "broad knowledge"... In the time-travel genre, protagonists always manage to come up with various tricks, letting one learn all sorts of obscure knowledge. However, within them, there are both feasible and unfeasible things.

"...Beetroots are vegetables that require more land than grains, so farmers are very concerned about the issue of fertilizer, especially manure..."

The manor manager did not shy away from mentioning excrement in front of Louisa, the noble young lady, mainly because such things were ubiquitous at the time—toilets were limited, and people lacked corresponding hygiene awareness, leading to a sense of indifference towards things like excrement.

Although human instinct deems these things dirty and disgusting, and religion labels phlegm, urine, and feces as 'the filth and baseness of human flesh,' it is similar to how people in some countries in later times, such as India, knew that excrement was dirty, but it did not prevent them from living alongside it.

"It looks good, you've done a great job," Louisa praised the manor manager, then pointed to a spot near the woodland on the map of Swan Estate: "This place looks good, convenient for collecting fuel and not far from the river. The new workshop can be built here."

Swan Estate was chosen for the sugar workshop mainly because it was close to the Brudo palace but far from Troyes, making it easier to keep sugar production a secret.

For example, White Lake Estate was not considered because it was too close to the palace and the city, making it too crowded and exposed (of course, there was also the reason that White Lake Estate's output had to meet the palace's consumption needs, and most of those agricultural products had low unit value and were not suitable for transportation from elsewhere).

The manor manager truly did not know that the workshop to be built was for sugar production. At most, he thought that the big figures in the castle were particularly concerned about this matter, and perhaps the products of this workshop would be extraordinary—without relevant knowledge, how could one immediately think of 'sugar'? In the Middle Ages, few people knew how sugar was produced, and even those who did, seeing that beets were being planted, would not think of sugar production.

Knowing that beets could produce sugar was something that developed in the modern era.

Thus, under Louisa's direct order, the location for the sugar workshop was determined. However, with the busy farming season underway, labor was unavailable until the period between spring planting and the summer harvest—the summer farming rush was for harvesting the crops planted in the previous autumn, followed by the autumn farming rush, which was a continuous cycle, so only this quieter farming period could be utilized.