John Percival Building, Cardiff University on Saturday July 16th 2016.

Agriculture lay at the heart of medieval society, yet our understanding of some fundamental aspects of Welsh agricultural systems is limited. Key questions include: how did the agricultural systems of Wales operate between c. 400 and 1600 AD? What light do they cast on the material evidence for life in the contemporary landscape? How similar or different was Wales to other areas or Britain and Ireland? Can we identify change over time? How do we go about researching early Welsh agriculture? This study-day will explore these questions by offering expert overviews of the understanding of medieval agricultural systems, and will present some recent Welsh case studies. Among the themes that it hopes to cover will be the use of infield-outfield systems; seasonal land use and its impact on territorial and estate structures; and how these can be investigated using a wide array of complementary approaches that include maps, place-names, documentary records, archaeological field survey and environmental analyses.