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During the medieval age, one of the main reasons that pushed besieged cities to capitulate was the exhaustion of provisions (foods,water,drugs...) that maintain the every-day life of the city population.

I wonder to what extent could a city generate its own resources by harnessing the little bit of available room and creating farms, small factories and recycling, thus avoiding famine, plague and acquiring what could spare souls...

I konow that someones may argue that there is not enough space to create farms or factories but cities like Byzantium or Cairo were huge and have enough room for that.

Are there any known cities that have been through such an experience, enduring sieges, or was the only hope to smuggle provisions through the enemy lines?

MCW
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jihed gasmi
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    depends on the city, but take Antioch for example, its size is approximately 1100 acres. Its population was anywhere between 100k and 400k. Assuming the entire city was nothing but fields for planting, you would have .01 acres per person. A person needs at min .5 acres of prime agriculture land to survive. So no, even if they turned over the entire city into a farm it would not supply enough food. – ed.hank Feb 13 '20 at 23:03
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    This question would benefit from preliminary research. Few cities could feed themselves in normal circumstances. When the farming population of the surrounding countryside flees within the walls it further strains supplies. – MCW Feb 14 '20 at 00:24
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    @Mark C. Wallace: I'd change "few" to "no". It's an inescapable part of being a city, rather than a fairly dense rural area. Even as late as WWII, Britain imported a large part of its food, and the Germans hoped to starve the British into surrendering with its naval attacks on merchant ships. – jamesqf Feb 14 '20 at 02:40
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    I think you're right that no cities could feed themselves, but I didn't want to argue the point. – MCW Feb 14 '20 at 08:12
  • @MarkC.Wallace That would depend on the diet, on a vegan diet Britain could feed a lot more than on the current diet. – gerrit Feb 14 '20 at 10:53
  • I've deleted my comment that is not germane to the historical question. Although the question is far from settled, my understanding is that most of the population would have been on an effectively vegetarian diet to begin with, and switching to vegan would have severely restricted their caloric intake (eggs). The question introduces a hypothesis; the burden of proof is to demonstrate the plausibility of that hypothesis. Consensus is that the hypothesis is implausible. – MCW Feb 14 '20 at 10:58
  • I thought there were some fairly standard references on the number of calories that could be produced by a unit of land under different economic/technological constraints. If anyone could find that, it would help to authoritatively answer this question. (The reason I commented rather than answering is that I can't recall where I read those things). – MCW Feb 14 '20 at 11:32
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    @gerrit: No, that's false. On a vegan diet the people would rapidly develop sever health problems from the absence of the supplements needed to remain healthy on a vegan diet. There's a reason the full cost of eating vegan is greater than eating a normal healthy diet including meat. Britain also has a large area of pasture land unsuitable for any agriculture besides livestock and dairy. Same reason why no third world countries eat vegan - far more expensive than otherwise. – Pieter Geerkens Feb 14 '20 at 11:36
  • @PieterGeerkens Why would there be an absence of supplements? The overconsumption of meat already currently leads to serious health problems. And don't forget that Britain has a large area of sea, which could be used for novel crops, either for direct consumption or a source for extracting supplements. I agree though, that a single city could never be self-sustainable, certainly not with medieval technology (perhaps with lab-grown food / space station technology). – gerrit Feb 14 '20 at 12:22
  • For context, my point was that Britain as a whole could perhaps feed itself on a vegan diet (maybe vegetarian would be good enough), with todays technology. Not a city with medieval technology. – gerrit Feb 14 '20 at 12:27
  • @jihedgasmi - please don't take anything I said above as critical; I'm struggling to understand the question and fit my thoughts in the space of a comment (because I don't have an answer). 2) let's halt discussion of modern day diets - I was in error to introduce the topic. Let's keep the focus on the original historical question.
    • – MCW Feb 14 '20 at 13:14
  • don't think on walled cities as modern cities, large avenues and parks. Walls were expensive => inside-wall space was limited => inside was crowded, high pop density => no enough space to feed everybody. BUT, every time a city/castle took care to have wells, or was built in a place that kept a water source/river/spring/underground river accessible from inside the walls, they at least would be self-sufficient on water – Luiz Feb 14 '20 at 13:48
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    Would a "micro-economy" not just be called "the economy"? – user253751 Feb 14 '20 at 14:55
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    Before the black death, England was right at the carrying capacity of the land using medieval methods. Peasant diets were low-meat due to this. Eggs and diary were common because those were good ways to convert non-edible plant material into food, while pigs were used because they also were good at converting food waste and non-edible material found in forests into calories. @Pieter Geerken's point about land unsuitable for food production is important, and it's the reason why there have been vegetarian societies, but not vegan ones. – Gort the Robot Feb 14 '20 at 17:42
  • @GorttheRobot: It is well noted that in both WW1 and WW2 the Canucks, Yanks, Kiwis and Aussies arriving in Britain were 3" - 4" taller on average than their British age peers. This is largely due to the increased availability of meat in their diets, particularly when young.. – Pieter Geerkens Feb 14 '20 at 17:46
  • Maybe meat, maybe just better diet in general. (My boy is has been vegetarian since birth and at 17, has never failed to be tallest in his class.) – Gort the Robot Feb 14 '20 at 17:51
  • @Gort the Robot: Part of the reason medieval British peasants didn't eat much meat is that the aristocracy largely reserved hunting for themselves, with potentially quite severe punishments for those caught poaching. – jamesqf Feb 14 '20 at 18:04
  • What was the surface of cereal crop needed per head per year during-the Dark Ages – MCW Feb 14 '20 at 19:40
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    This question would have benefited some research of at least basics medieval lifestyle and economy. Drugs? There were no drugs at that time. Recycling? Everything was recycled anyways, with or without a siege. Factories? Factories did not exist at that time either. On the other hand, manufactures were exclusive to cities, so again, with or without siege... – Greg Feb 14 '20 at 19:44
  • @jamesqf Hunting was not the major source of meat in Europe in the middle ages. – Greg Feb 14 '20 at 19:49