The study of a single region is not sufficient of itself to demand a complete reappraisal of what constituted a ‘marginal’ region in medieval England. In the orthodox model, Breckland is classified as marginal because of its poor soils and its peculiarly adverse climate. It was not, however, marginal in a locational sense, for medieval East Anglia was a prosperous and densely populated region. Infertile soils meant that large areas of Breckland were not cultivated in the Middle Ages, but this did not condemn the region to economic under-development. Indeed, in the two centuries after Domesday its development was integral, and not simply incremental, to developments in the wider economic nexus. The incidence and virulence of disease was severe in the century after 1349, but the subsequent depopulation and agrarian contraction was no worse in Breckland than in many other areas of lowland England. Breckland's economy certainly declined in absolute terms, but not as severely as historians had predicted, and there is no indication that peasants migrated from the region on any great scale.

As arable cultivation remained limited in Breckland, its economy responded in other ways to the growing pressure of population in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The resources of heath, river and fen presented opportunities in non-arable employment, and this diversification helped to raise peasant incomes. Another feature was the emergence of some specialised traits in agriculture, notably in sheep and rabbit rearing, and in the production of a fine malting barley.