Léxico agrícolala configuración del paisaje rural en la Edad Media

Abstract

This study analyses the way agriculture contributed to shape the rural landscape in the early Middle Ages, using the period's extensive collection of notarial records from the Kingdom of León. It is particularly focused on the lexicon concerning sales, renting and leasing contracts, wills, endowments, etc., appearing in these records - which has allowed us to reconstruct the influence of agricultural activities in the medieval landscape. We will study the lexicon of farming (cultivation and products), which directly or indirectly is often present in the notarial records, whether identifying the different kinds of cultivations themselves (grain, vineyard, grass) or referring to those harvested products which are occasionally mentioned as a way of kind payment for rents and taxes (wine, linen, pulses, wheat, barley, millet). Another significant aspect about the relation between agriculture and landscape during the Middle Ages is the continous process of ploughing to enlarge cultivated areas, an activity copiously reflected in documents. It includes enlarging works on hills and ploughed-up pastures, but also the opposite process, represented by those plantations which are abandoned and become wastelands. Likewise, those references to the types of land (more documented in minor toponymy than in appellative uses) are also interesting because they provide information about its geological characteristics (sandy area, rocky ground), as well as water references: there are several terms that can be applied to wet lands (lama, barrera, friera) in order to identify them precisely. We also study the lexicon concerning the ways of demarcating properties, buildings or plots. Finally, the vocabulary of inclement weather and its consequences on crops, that appears in the clauses of leasing contracts, is briefly analysed. As our corpus comprises documentary sources from the beginnings of the kingdom of Asturias and Leon to 1300, it includes texts in medieval Latin as well as in Romance, mostly in Leonese, given their area of provenance: the well-known collections from the cathedral of León and the monastery of Sahagún, plus those from the many monasteries and churches in the region, which have been recently edited: Otero, Carbajal, Carrizo, Escalada, Eslonza, Sandoval, Gradefes, Nogales, Vega, San Román de Entrepeñas, Trianos, San Pedro de las Dueñas, etc.