Who farmed during Anglo saxon?

Answer 1

In the countryside the vast majority of the people made their living by farming. At first most of the farms were owned outright. The churls worked co-operatively, sharing the expense of a team of oxen to plough the large common fields in narrow strips that were shared out alternately so that each farmer had an equal share of good and bad land. Up to 8 oxen pulled ploughs and fields were divided into 2 or sometimes 3 huge strips. One strip was ploughed and sown with crops while the other was left fallow. The crops most frequently grown were wheat, oats, rye, and barley (both as a cereal and as the base for beer). Peas, beans, cabbages, parsnips, carrots, celery and lentils were also common.

However farming in Saxon times was very primitive. Farmers could not grow enough food to keep many of their animals through the winter so as winter approached most of them had to be slaughtered and the meat salted. The Saxons were subsistence farmers. (Farmers grew enough to feed themselves and their families and very little else). At times during the Saxon era there were terrible famines in England when poor people starved to death. Horses and oxen were raised for heavy farm labour and transportation, though the stirrup had yet to make an appearance from the Far East.

Later much of this land was consolidated into the large estates of wealthy nobles. Churls might work the land in return for service or produce, or they might work the lord's land a given number of days per year. As time went on more and more of these large estates were established as integrated commercial enterprises, complete with water mill to grind the grain.