In examining the developments in the size of peasant holdings in the later middle ages historians have tended to concentrate on long-term structural changes in the social distribution of land. One school of thought argues that as a result of the drastic loss of population from the mid-fourteenth century ‘economic promotion’ took place, which meant that all groups within the peasantry increased the size of their holdings. Others see differentiation at work, by which peasant society became more polarized between tenants of large holdings and wage earners, and which foreshadows the dichotomy between capitalist farmers and labourers in modern times.

Neither explanation is fully satisfactory. The promotion theory is perhaps too simplistic, and fails to explain some very large holdings that developed, while the stagnant market for agricultural produce in much of the period would not have made an ideal environment for differentiation.

It is also necessary to take into account the small-scale and short-term changes in the size of peasant holdings, dependent on the circumstances of individual families. This factor has attracted more attention recently because of the translation into English of the writings of the Russian agricultural economist, A. V. Chayanov, who developed the concept of the peasant holding as a ‘family farm’, in which the consumption needs and labour contribution of the family helped to determine the size of the holding.