Producing pigs – what was it like in the Middle Ages?

A depiction of pigs in a medieval church in northern Italy made Pig Progress editor Vincent ter Beek wonder what pig production must have been like in Italy in the early 12th century. It’s a story of oak forests, sheep, guilds and indigenous breeds. If you didn’t know they were there, you may never have noticed them. The pigs on the picture below I photographed myself when being on holiday in Aosta, a city in the north of Italy, in a valley in the Alps. The pigs formed the top decoration o