Agricultural History Review, Volume 45 Part 1 (1997), pp. 18–33

This paper studies the evolution of the seignorial economy in forest of Arden during the fifteenth century. This was a wood pasture area, whose resident landlords were mainly lesser peers, gentry, and smaller religious houses. In contrast to other areas in the later Middle Ages, where direct demesne exploitation by the lord was abandoned in favour of the leasing out, the Arden demesnes and their management were adapted to the particular circumstances of the fifteenth century to create home farms, while other manors were involved in conmaercial cereal cultivation, livestock raising, and generating cash from the woodland and industrial resources of the estate. 

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