What does subsistence farming mean middle ages?

Answer 1

Subsistence farming is a style of farming where instead of growing one or a small number of crops, primarily for sale in the market, as in modern farming, the farmer produces a wide range of food and fiber crops, as well as tending animals, with the intention to provide for the food and other material need of their family. Any surplus, which is usually small, is sold or traded for the few items that can not be made by the farmer himself.

Most medieval farmers were subsistence farmers, raising a combinations of grains, legumes, garden produce, and animals (for meat, dairy, wool, and leather), with the intention of providing for as many of their own needs as possible. Things produced beyond the families' basic needs could then be sold for cash or traded.

Not all medieval farming was subsistence farming. The farmland held by nobles, as well as a small number of commoners who had managed to acquire significant land, was oriented more toward a cash crop system. In fact, agriculture was the primary income of nobility in the middle ages.