ABSTRACT
Ploughs are illustrated in a number of medieval manuscripts and mentioned in agricultural treatises and manorial accounts, but they are less well represented as archaeological finds. Illustrations, which show them in differing degrees of detail, include that in the 11th-century Caedmon manuscript (Higgs 1965, 7, pl 11a), and one in a mid 12th-century manuscript (Hartley and Elliott 1931, pl 7c). A late 13th-century diagram in the cartulary of the Cistercian nunnery of Nun Cotham in Humberside (Lincolnshire) has the individual parts named (Colvin 1953; original reproduced in Higgs 1965, 7, pl 11b). Two early 14th-century representations occur in the Holkham Bible (Hassall 1954, 68–69, f 6) and the Luttrell Psalter (Hartley and Elliott 1928, pl 24d).
