If an occupation census had been taken in the eleventh century it would probably have reve
Any attempt to describe the countryside during those centuries is prevented by two difficulties. In the first place, we have to examine the greater part of Europe's 3,750,000 square miles, and not merely the Mediterranean lands. In the second place, the inhabitants of that wide expanse refuse to fit into our standard pattern or to stand still.
In 1450, most Europeans probably lived in villages, but some regions were so hilly, lacking in good soil, or heavily timbered that villages could not keep going, and settlement was that of solitary herdsmen or shepherds. Some areas had better access to market than others and were therefore more involved in commercial agriculture than in farming. Large landowners were more likely than small landlords to run their estates and especially their domains more systematically and also to keep those records from which we learn most of what we know about the subject. Some areas had never been quite feudalized; their farmers were more free from lordship and even from landlordship. Some regions had been recently settled, and their tenants had been offered liberal terms of tenure in order to lure them into the wilderness. Finally, there was a time element; the expansion and prosperity that characterized the period from the twelfth to the fifteenth century produced or maintained conditions which were unsuitable to the stormier days preceding or the lean ones following it.
By 1350, when compared with three hundred years earlier, Europeans had, according to the passage,______
A.made several geographical discoveries
B.cut down more trees and expanded the fanning
C.made their territory 'larger
D.dug more canals to water the land