The nominal rise in the prices and that of the wages are sensitive starting from the medium of XIIe century; they testify one and the other to the expansion. In addition, the cash economy penetrates the campaigns, the trade of the money is spread. Not less significant, the tax pressure of the lords increases on a more population in search of new grounds to cultivate.  

The increase in population
Submitted to violent one demographic shocks (recurring plagues and famines) to Ve and VIIe centuries, the Western population increases significantly during the two following centuries. This phenomenon is characterized by a rebalancing of the occupation of the territories of Northern Europe. But the average life expectancy hardly exceeds 30 years and nearly 45 % of the children do not reach the 5 years age. The near total of this population, which should be imagined grouped in hamlets isolated the ones from the others by vast uncultivated extents, saw primarily richnesses resulting from the ground.  

To the XI E century, one can count in France 6 ' 200 ' 000 inhabitants. But a state of fires drawn up in 1328 allows to estimate the population of the beginning of XIVe century between 12 and 16 million. In same time, Italy gains nearly 5 million hearts (passing from 5 to 10 million). In England, Domesday Book of 1085 gives a population of 1 ' 300 ' 000 people. They will be 3 ' 700 ' 000 at the end of XIIIe century. Moreover, the Middle Age would have passed from 22 to 35 years between 1100 and 1275, the median number of children per increasing couple from 4 to 5. Admittedly comparatively high death rate - that of that and infants of the women in labor in particular -, the more dynamic growth in Northern Europe than in Europe of the South prove than many demographic imbalances remain. But, as a whole, the growth is indubitable, at the same time causes and consequence of the economic expansion.  

The search for new grounds
The push towards the east (Drang nach Osten) into Germanic is a triple movement of christianization, colonization and urbanization. He is largely impelled by the Church, the feudal ones and the Teutonic ones. Of Brandebourg in Poméranie, the progression is remarkable between 1130 and 1180. Leaving fields that too many divisions had made exiguous, attracted by the free ground promise, German, but also Flemish and Dutch from there will found themselves, inter alia, Lübeck, Berlin, Frankfurt-on-the Oder, cities which they equip with the Germanic urban rights.  

The expansion is also work of proximity, within the framework of the rural seigniory. Since the year thousand, indeed, the Occident clears feverishly. Forests and marshes move back everywhere between XIe and XIIIe century, while the polders gain on the North Sea. Started discreetly with the widening of the old soils, the clearings support the multiplication of the country freeholds initially. But the lords, being able to accept only men and new finings escape their control and with their impositions, take again the initiative of the movement; their material aid and technical is, moreover, sometimes essential, when the conquest of the medium appears difficult. In addition, the lords seek to attract the peasants in their promising grounds, freedom and other franknesses. For this purpose, they grant charters of foundation of new urban areas which establish the rights and the obligations of each one. Thus are born from many cities whose name kept the trace of this time: Villeneuve, Villefranche and other country houses.  

After having reached its phase culminating in XIIe century, in Ile-de-France for example, the movement is blown gradually. Only some individual initiatives prolong it. The need for new grounds completely is however not appeased. The rise in the prices of the ground and corn testifies some, very as much as the lawsuits which oppose the lords to the rural communities.  

The Western landscape changes. In the zones of the woodlands of Normandy, the habitat is dispersed, often along a road; a well delimited enclosure is next to the house. In the Brie or South-west, the village is grouped, girdled open fields. And everywhere the intercalated settlement, resulting from the last clearings, launches its tentacles.  
 

Iron tools
The iron tools being used for essartage (axes, forgery, etc), improve thanks to progress of the metallurgy. So in the dry grounds of the Mediterranean regions the peasant remains faithful to the swing-plow, the plow is spread as of XIe century on the heavy grounds of the Ile-de-France and the West. Provided with one coulter to front, it opens in-depth ground, the plowshare turns over then the ground. The mould board rejects the mounds on only one side; dissymmetrical, the work of the plow is from now on more effective. The technique of harrowing spreads around 1250 and comes to supplement the whole of the improvements.  

The traction of the plow
It is improved by progress of the attachment. Where one still resorts by the strength of oxen, the frontal yoke gradually replaces the yoke of tourniquet, which strangled the animal and decreased by as much its capacities. There the horses, shoed, harnessed slips by from there by the collar of shoulder, replace the bovines only where the owner is enough rich to offer these expensive animals.  

The amendment of the grounds
The amendment of the grounds is added to the improvement of the techniques. From 1200, the peasants multiply the ploughings (up to four in Ile-de-France) to loosen the ground. But manures miss: most of the time only rotted thatch or sheets are used. The livestock is rare, its stalling is too short - the animals are partly high in the forests (pigs and goats mainly) and do not remain long enough with the cattle shed - to produce manures in sufficient quantity (they are reserved most of the time for the gardens). Liming remains rare, one resorts periodically to marling where the marnes abound. In fact, it is the generalization of the fallow which ensures the ground the rest favourable with a better regeneration.  

The rotation of crops
It is practiced as of XIe century, but because it supposes strong Community constraints the three-year rotation is essential only on XIIe century. On the zone to be cultivated, divided into three plates, harvests of spring (barley, oats), harvests of winter alternate (rye, wheat) and fallow land. Thus the peasants make two harvests in the year. The increase in production is also related to that of the outputs, which reach on average 8 per 1 in Ile-de-France (but 15 per 1 in the north of France would have reached). In fact, they vary according to the cereals, which constitute, with the pig, the essence of the food. Rye and German wheat remain the popular cereals, whereas the wheat bread becomes frequent on the richer tables. The oats, of more poor yield (4 per 1), move back in front of the barley (8 per 1).  

The climatic conditions authorize the vine growing as far as septentrional France, and even in England. Clerks, princes and middle-class men are made proud their vines. The conservation if not farming technique, is controlled already perfectly. Formerly related to the eucharistie, the production of the wines owes its success with the evolution of the taste, and it is stimulated by export to England or the countries of the Baltic as by the advantageous beams proposed to the vine growers by the lords.