Meat consumption and production in town and country

The animal bone evidence for meat production and consumption in English medieval rural and urban sites is compared. The results, deriving from a survey of sites mainly located in the central part of the country, indicate a picture of great complexity. Differences between rural and urban sites do emerge, but these are rarely clear-cut. Beef represented a greater element of meat consumption in towns than it did in villages, and the urban population probably ate more meat, though this is difficult to detect archaeologically. For most of the medieval period there is no clear archaeological evidence that meat of younger animals was predominantly consumed in towns, but veal consumption did take off from the 15th century onwards in several urban centres. Rural sites produced most of the meat they were consuming. Conversely, towns mainly relied on the market, though there is evidence that some livestock was bred in situ, to supply the urban population with a source of local protein. The provision of meat to urban areas relied both on the town hinterland and on more distant trade, with major centres likely to exploit a larger catchment area. Craft activities linked with the meat trade, such as tanning, horning and specialized butchery, were located in towns and only rarely in the countryside.