Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), p. 208

Bob Hardstaff spent a lifetime in farming before bringing his practical knowledge to bear on issues which desk-bound historians take for granted. ‘As a farmer’, he writes, ‘I have always wondered what had happened in the past to the land that I relied on for my living ...’ (p.1). What, in particular, he asked, was going on around Southwell at the time of Domesday Book? Taking the relevant data, and in defiance of ‘some established academic circles’ from whom ‘I did not receive much encouragement’ (p.3), Hardstaff set about asking how efficient, effective and productive – even sustainable – farming was in this central Nottinghamshire parish at the time of Domesday Book. As he freely admits he simply did not believe some of the comments he read about inaccurate data and poverty-stricken farmers.

The result of Mr Hardstaff’s scepticism is a provocative account of Southwell around the time of Domesday based on the 1086 data and his use of modern derived estimates for the human and animal populations of the area, and the cultivated land. Using modern data to calculate food production, including the results of experiments undertaken at Rothamsted, he comes to the conclusion that we underestimate eleventh-century farmers at our peril, and that they did a more than passable job of providing an adequate diet for the local population. Inevitably much of his work involves speculation, and some nifty footwork with the data. Academic historians will find gaps in his bibliography – notably the work of Bruce Campbell – and will doubtless raise questions about his methodology and his statistics, but the book is still well worth pondering because here is someone who knows farms, farmers and particularly the area he is studying. He is not prepared to accept bland platitudes about the past, and he has raised some interesting questions to which he has offered tentative answers. ‘Many of the problems’, he history review concludes, ‘that faced the farmers and workers of the Domesday period are familiar ones today although there are solutions available now which were not dreamed of in 1086’ (p.55). It is a lesson well worth remembering.