An aspect of the question of continuity between antiquity and middle ages:

• •

the origin of the • • •

Flemish clues between th,e North Sea and the Scheldt Adriaan Verhulst

Most historians of the Flemish cities have argued that there was no significant Roman habitation north of the civitates 0fBelgica secunde.. Urban development in Flanders was thus seen essentially

as a creation of the Carolingian period and aJqer. But recent archaeological excavations have .~hou, n a substantial Roman presence at ~ix ite.~ which later were towm O[ medium or c,,miderabh, in:° portance. Although the buildings were evidently abandoned in the fifth century, settlement and political and ecclesiastical organiz, u:ion developed around them in the Merovingian a,]e. The Ronmn background thu~ had a considerable, effect on the development of town life in medievcl Flander~.*

In a brief article entitled Les t,~!lesflamande~ avant & Xlle si~c&, Henri Pirenne in 1905 provided an exceptionally clei:~r exposition of his views on the origin and t ,tritest history of the Flemish title., (Piren,w 1905). H(" did not modi|y his theories signiticantly there- aftec (Pirenne 1910, i925, 1927). Subse- que:at Belgian historians who dealt with this protdem, particularly the l'fistolians ol the Ghent school - Van Werveke, Ganshol] Vet- taut "ren, Dhondt, and o t h e r s - remained taithful to the essential lines of Pirenm.'s concepts until the 1950s iVan Welweke I q 50).

In 1958 the German historian Petri tested the validity of Pirenne's theories critically in the light of the numerous studies o[ in- dividual towns of the I ",w Countries ar.,d the neighbouring regions o[ northern France

*" I am indebted to Mr M. Rvckaert, aspirant c,I the Nationaal Fonds Wetenschai~pelijk Ondertoek. who helped me particularly with the sketch-maps; uJ Mr H. Thoen and Mr F. Verhaeghe, assistants in the Department of Archaeolo~' ol Ghent thlivers|t~ (director Prot~'ssor Dr s.J. De Laeti ti,n intlotmation; to Professor Dr D. M. Nicholas ~Universitv ,,I Neb- lrask:-.) for the translation of the original Dthch tt.'xt ,,t ~this paper into English; to Protes,_,or Dr R. Vaughan for the final revision of the text; and tt, Mt W. Dc Schamphelaere |or his technical help in the exetuti,,tl of the sketch-maps. T,, all , t them ! express v:v, gratitude.

Journal of Medieval History 3 ( 19~ ?): 175-206. (¢) North-Holland Publishing C(~tnpan,,' 175

whkh had appeared during the previous two tier.aries (Petri 1958,,,). Among other things, his synthesis demonstrated that Pirenne's view ~ the origin of the medieval cities of

~ ~ t r i e s had to b e nuanced and corrected, ~ c u l a r l y for the towns of the somhern Low Co unmes, situated in mod- em northern France, and for the towns of the M~se region, and that Pirenne also had to be ~applemented with new information a ~ t earlv medieval commercial settle- ~ t s in the delta area of the great rivers. But Pearl basically confirmed Pirenne's theories for the great Flemish cities of the $cbeldt basin and aBong the North Sea coast, ~ e c i ~ i l y Ghent aed Bruges. Vercaut- er~n's bibliographir~ai werview of the dries d rrg.dieval Europe, published in 1967, re.ld~ed the ~ conclusion (Vercauteren I9~37L T ~ extremely detailed arm analyti- ca bibliographical survey which Nicholas published in 1969 on the origin of the medi- eval citi~ of northwestern Europe (Nicholas |959~ confumed Petri',, findings on a more ge~ ' a l European scale. But numerous &-~ai~d ~udies of the !qemish towns which ~ | appeared since Pe, ri wrote led Nicho- h~ m I ~ conclusion that the b} now classic th~.ories ~f Pirenne on ~ese dries could ne lolger be maintained without serious qt~ ,lift.cation.

Pirem'~e proceeded on the assumption that iil ~ d e r s proper, between the North Sea and che Scl~,eldt, ever)" form of urban life and orgat:ization had been annihilated dur- ing the third and fourth centuries. He thought that in contrast to a few dvitates in the southern part of thi~ region, which began to r e ~ e as urban centres from the ear~ Merovingian age, the great Flemish cilia, particularly Bruges and Ghent, were

completely free of Roman influences or antecedents, although :hey were in an area which had belonged to the Roman Empire for quite some time. Their origin as trading centers in the Carolingian period, according to Pirenne, was due entirely to long distance trade. Their continuation or revival after the Viking invasions of the second half of the ninth centu~ w~z made possible only by the protection afforded by the new railitary f)rt- resses which the counts of Fianders had erected in their immediate neighbourhood.

I imve noted that a number of recent individual studies, some by historians but most by archaeologists, have contradicted Pirenne's essentially simple views on several important points. Since most of them have appeared since Petri ,~a'ote in 1958, their results have not yet been incorporated into a synthesi.s. I wish to do this here, so that two important aspects of the new views can be tested against the theory considered valid since Pirenne: the extent and intensity of urban life between the North Sea and the Scheldt in the Roman period and its import- ance for early medieval urban development; and the traces and forms of urban life in this area during the early Middle Ages up to the time of the Viking invasions.

Urban life in the Roman Empire

Archaeological investigations over the past fifteen to twenty years have covsiderably broadened our understanding of urban life between the North Sea and the Scheldt during the Roman period. Not only Pirenne's ideas, but also the more recent expositions of Petri and even of De Laet (1960) on this point, must be thoroughly

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177

revised and st~pplemented. Together with m'~' studies ot" material which ha . lain umouched in museums and collections for many years, the most recent excavations have emphasized the persistence of comparatively numerous v/c/ from the. second half of the first century A.D. to the ~ o n d half of the third. If we confine ourselves strictly to file North Sca-Scheidt area, we find Roman ,vici at Courtvai, Harel- ~ e , Welrvik, Oudenburg, Wenduine, B~uges, ~ r d e n b u r g , Ghent and Antwerp. S~nrt. of the-~r survived the Germanic in- ~asion~ o| the third quarter of the third ¢entu~ ~, castella (Raepsaet 1975). What ~trik{~ us is the appearance in this list of pia¢¢~ alo:tg the North Sea coast and the ~he |d t wg~kh merit our special attention in a discussion 0:ff the tl~ices of urban life during the early middle ages (Figure !).

A ~till unpublished thesis of H. Thoen, directed by Professor s.J. De Laet at the Univca~sit~ of Ghent ~Thoen 1973), shows that one of three mercantile vTc/discovered to date a~ong the North Sea coast was at Bruge~. in the dock area just north of the m~cqrn city. The two others were at Ouden- burg and Wenduine. The v/cus of Bruges originated rather late, around 200 A.D., akmg an odd creek created by the Dunkirk-I transgression, where there had been settle- ment since the Iron Age. This favourable k~cation fi~r commerce probably demnnined its mercantile character. Th~ ce must also have been significant Roman habitation in ~he oM medieval centre of Bruges even from the ~g-gm~ing of the imperial age, but its ¢~xact |o~-ation and character ~ annot yet be &'wrmined. It was probabJy along the ~ t ~ n ~ a d leading fi'om Cas el to Aarden-

bl~rg over Poperinge and Bruges, which did nel bisect the vicm noted above, for it ran fardler south, passing through the territory r,f the medieval town from west to east. The settlement may have had the character of a statio along this route. Its relation to the vicus farther north is still uncertain (Figure 2).

Of cardinal importance is the fact that wh~ie the vicus north of the town was abandoned as a result of Germanic attacks from the sea between 268 and 210, and sh,::rtly thereafter destroyed and flooded by creeks during the Dunkirk-ll trant~gression, the settlement along the southern road was not flooded because it was located on higher sandy ground, so that although it too wa:, devastated in 268-70, subseque.,~t settle- ment there remained possible. Fiz::ds from the late third and fourth centuries [:.rove that this indeed happened. For this reason, Thoen thinks it not inconceivable that the fourth-century settlement in the city o;:" Bruges acquired a mi!itary character, just as happened with other places in Flanders which survived the invasions of the late third century. Its center may have been a castellum, as at Oudenburg, Aardcnburg, and perhaps also Ghent and Antwerp. Thoen thinks that this tbrtifica,ion should be sought on the site of the later medieval castle at Bruges, which was crossed by the Roman road between Cassel and Aardenburg. Systematic excava- tions have not yet been conducted along the southern side of this route, in the open ground in the middle of the castle in front of the modem city hall, but isolated Roman remains have been found there (De Vliegher 1965). The site, on the edge of the Pleistocene land mass along the then coast and not far from a creek made by the Dunkirk-ll transgression, which in its turn

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was connected to the open sea, was quite similar to that of the casteUum of Ouden- burg, which I shall discuss shortly.

But the square form and dimensions of the castellum at Oudenburg should not lead us to assume that the plan of a Roman castellum which may eventually be discovered

at Brugcs will correspond to the later square form of the medieval castle there. We L, ave no certain knowledge of the latter structure before the mid-eleventh centu~' (Dhondt 1957a; Verhuls[ 1960), and it is very ditficuh to reconstruct tht "opographical develop- ment of the castle before that time. We do

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the fburth century. This was the Roman ddtn l~ line of which the Notitia dignitatum

gi,,,es us information, and Mertens thinks that Oudenburg was the chief stronghold on t ~ Bdgian North Sea coast.

The construction technique of the north- ern wall, which faced the sea, also shows that the rising sea levd may have beer~ ~: ¢omideration in the replacement of tk~: ~iginai wooden ca~tellum at Oudenburtg with {nw o[ stone. The originally favour- M~le Jo~at~m o t a taJtellum on a Pleistocene pr{xnorJtory in the flooded coastal area, connecwCl to the open sea by a wide channel and to the interior by a Roman road, was ~, ,aK~h l~ A,r,~frt,vod h v tho ~ . ects v .......... y .. . . . . y.._ ~adua!!y ...j . . . . of the Dunkirk- I i transgression. The sudden abandonment ,)f the castdlum in the first y(~,u, of the fifth century can be explained by a ¢~mbination ,ff military factors connected ~ t h the di:,orders in northern Gaul between 4 ~ and 4 l0 and the Dunkirk-ll flooding of the area east of the caztellum. This inundation cut off the milita~" base fi ova its himerland and i~ consequently lost its importance, i This topographical isolation of Om!enburg Js in contrast to the late Roman settlement at Brags, where the Dun~rk- l l inundations probably did not reacl~ the Roman road along which the habitation was con- centrated. It will be an important element in any evaluation of my argument concerning the importance of the two places during the se~-er.~th and eighth centuries.

Aardenburg, seventeen kilometres east of Brages, is a ~ on a ridge of sandy P~is~ocene topsoil, on the edge of the coast- |me which bad been flooded since about $~L and on the Roman road leading from

De Vri~ 1968L Earlier scholars Brug~ ~ ,

presum, c~l that a Roman fortifi~tion had

existed here, on grounds of the burg suffix in the toponym and the later medieval plan of the city. 7"he excavations begun between 1961 and 1963 by Trimpe Burger have shown conclusively that Aardenburg was the most impcrtant settlement in the area of the great river mouths from about 100 A.D., and especially between 170 and 273 (Trimpe Burger 1971:51-2; 1973:141-4; Raepsaet 1975:130) (Figure 4). It included numerous large buildings of Tournai stone, and during its great, age between 170 and 273 had an essentially military character. The castellum,

whose existence has been demonstrated con- clusively by very recent and as yet unpub- lished work. seems to have been even larger • an thai ot Oudenburg. But although it was still inhabited during the fourth century, it seems to ha ve been comparatively unimpor- tant then; for the settlement had been destroyed in or about 273 by fire and shortly thereafter flooded in large part by the Dunkirk-ll transgression. In this, it forms a striking contrast to Oudenburg.

We must also note briefly ,hat both earlier and more rect ~ at investiga tic:~s have attested several Romm settlements i~ the delta area (Figure5). Th,~'y were com~llercial depots, military fortifi, ations, or c uh centres(Trimpe Burger 1971, 1973). One of the most im- portant was the emporium which has since been submerged by the sea on the coast at Domburg. In addition, a sanctuary of Nehallenia has recently been discovered on the coast of North Beveland northwest of Co!!jnsplaat. Farther north, on the islands of Schouwen, Goeree-Ovt rflakkee and Voorne around the mouth of the Meuse, archaeologists have identified a sanctuary, a v/cus, and perhaps a casMlum at Ouddorp, and a castellum which may have included a

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commercial settlement at Oostvoorne. This entire area must have been of considerzble commercial importance (it was on the route from England ~o the Rhineland) at least until about 270 A..D., when military evel~,ts (the naval invasions) and probably also the rising sea level resu!ting from the Dunkirk- II flooding ended its activity. The Romz~n prese,ace after that date, which had mainly a military character, can only be attested farther south, particularly at Bruges and Oudenburg, but also at Aardenburg.

The fituation at Antwerp must also be considered, particularly in view of the sig- nifica,~ce of the area of the mouth ot" the Scheldt and the Meuse in the R¢,,~',an period.

Roman remains were reveah'd by the :0x- cavations of Proti_'ssor A. Van de Wall,.' along the Scheldt at Antwerp ill tile vicinity of the so-called 'Steen' within tile later mediev, d semi-circular tbrtitication (Van de Walle 1960, 1961). Interpretation of these finds was hindered, however, by the tact that they were not found in direct connection with Roman settleme~t traces in situ, and by the lack o t ' a comprehensive report on the excavations. Only the finds themselves, dat- ing from about 140 A.D. until the second half of the third century, have been interpreted somewhat more thoroughly (Vandenborn 1965). Ahhough they did not directly prove the existence of a settlement,

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t ~ :fact that they include tiles, roofing ~ : ~ i a l , and the like alread)suggested it. Ge~.cne dirc~ traces of Roman settlement ~e 4 ;otmd for tt,e first time in 1975, just ~u ~d~ - the ~a|J of the |brtification beside

the butchers' hall (Oost 1976) (Figure 6). This suggests that the Roman settlement at Antwerp was comparatively large, but we still need further information concerning its essential character. There have been no finds

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185

to date from the fourth century. For this w ~so~ too it is impossiMe for the time being to u~, archaeological evidence to hypo- t t~ize a Roman fortification at An~'erp, although mveral pieces of written evidence frtHn the eighth and ninth centuries which I will di~scuss later might suggest this.

Such a h~pothesis may not, however, be ~ l u d e d [arlher upstream along the Scheldt at G h ~ t , where it has been shown that a R r ~ n ca~tellum almost certainly existed. "Ih~ ~t(~tat i ," (~cavations o l Professor S.J.

: . ,~ and his colleag~ues at the eastern end ¢~ a~" m o d ~ day area~ of Ghtmt, about two ktlomelres southeast of the medieval St Ba~o'~ Abbey on the border of the suburb of St A ~ ~ t l r g and the village of Destel- | ~ g e m ~xtween the road to Dende.rmon !e and t ~ course of the ~.'heldt, have revealed ~n i~ustri~! ~'ttlement, as well as one ot" the |~rge~ cerm~teries discovered to date in ~r thcqn Gaul ~De Laet 1969) Both were undoubtedly part of a widespread vicus which, iust as was the case with many other G~|k~-Rf~:mn vici in th~e regions, must ha~e had ,~ ve~. diffuse geographical struc- ,me. T|w ~ttlement and ceme~e~' formed ~hc t-~ste~n rim o | the v~cus at that point, so ~hat the v~cus most probably exzended from the site of the excavations westward along Lhe Dend~.~'nondse Steerm, eg t~ the site of ~he medk~,~al St Bavo's Abbey, at the con- tim'me o[ the Lvs and the Scheldt, where mm'ierous Roman finds have already been di~ove~ed. This vicus was reached by a R~man road ,~hic|., archaeological evidence ~ b l ~ us to locate for a considerable d~'aan,~e ~ r t h w a r d from its junction at ~ i , qu~ ~. it reached the south bank of the Sc~e|dg a~ Gend~rugge, just across from the t~ru~ on the north bank ~Figure 7). The vicu~,

which the name Gentbrugge and the designation Ganda tbr the site of the later St Bavo's Abbey both suggest was probably named Ganda, existed from the mid-first century A.D. into the fourth. But the in- vasions of the late third century cost the eastern elements of the vicus most of its industrial and commercial character, with the result that the core of the settlement, which was to be primarily military from that time on, was probably located thereatier in the westernmost nucleus on the location of the naedieval St Bavo's Abbey. We may safely assume that a late Roman castellum existed i,--re, in which the St Bavo's Abbey was built in ti~e second quarter of the seventh century. It was still being called castrum Gandavum in the first hall" of the ninth century (Verhulst 1972a, 1972b). But archaeological evidence canno~ yet prove directly that a castellum existed here in the fourth century, ahhough numerous random Roman finds have been found on the site. The deduction rests on historical arguments, a topon)anic con- sideration, and several eighth- and ninth- century narxative sources which suggest that the remains of the castellum were still visible in the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. But the eastern sections of the vicus had been abandoned and had disappeared as a real settlement. They had a purely agrarian character in the early middle ages.

We conclude this summary with Courtrai. Located in the far interior, at the junction of the Roman roads Tongres--Boulogne and Tournai-Courtrai, this place is linked to the territory of the civit,,tes along the southern edge ot / the area between the North Sea and the Scheldt which we are presently consider- i ng. The name Cortorb~cum and the location on a Roman road have meant that scholars

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F~u~e ~ C~u~'w;~i: 1. Roman cemetery near the Molenstr,~zt; 2. Graves at the Zandbcrg~Harelbeke); 3. Roman finds H~e~:w~'~; ~. R ~ n a n finds at Harelbeke-St~tsegem; A. Presumed Roman road: B. Area with Roman many

haw- n~er seriously questioned the Re, nan charact~lr of Co~.,rtrai. Several excavations dur i~ the past twenty years have brought

much new archaeological evidence to light which emphasizes the considerable impor- tance of the place iin the Roman period,

although the diggings were unl'ortuna~ely unsystematic and disconnected (Raep.,,aet 1975"100, 164-5). Although they have not yet been formula'ted into a synthesis, we should note them briefly, for these Roman antecedents can explain the role which Courtrai played as an administrative centre in the Merovingian and Caroling|an periods, just as we shall see was the case [or Bruges, Antwerp and Ghent.

The site of CourtTai and neighbouring Harelbeke contained two iimportant vici or

two segments of a single wery extensive and loosely structured vicus. At least part of it, if not the entire agglomeration, had i~nportant industrial activity involving irm~working from the mid-first century A.D. 7antil the great invasions of the late third A sophis- ticated complex of trenches has also Leen excavated from the mid-first century, as well as remains of wooden and stone buildings. To date it is uncertain whether or not ti~ese should be interpreted as remains of a military encampment connected with the preparation of Claudius' invasion of Britain. Finally, a cemetery dating from the first and second centuries has also been investigated (Figure 8). No trace has yet been t ound at Courtrai of fourth-century remains., but the reference in the Notitia dignitatum ~o a

Roman garrison there suggests that it was still inhabited in the |ourth century and had a inilitary character (Dhondt 1948"133,). The er;tire Roman settlement at Courtrai is at least as important as those at the other places we have considered. The ti:agmentary yet unmistakable indications of li|e at Courtrai in the Merovingian and Carolin- g|an periods must be interpreted in the light of this.

These new data concerning Bruges,

Oudenburg, Aardenburg, Antwerp, Ghelll alld Counrai, practically all of which have ot.:ly co~ie to light during the ilm'llse acchaeo|ogical investigations of the past lit- teen or twenty years. They ha~e substantially supplemented and rood|tied our picture of urban life in the t~u northwest of Roman Gaul. Our previous knowledge was largely confined to the civitates of Cambrai, ~I'our- n;~i, Arras, Th6rouanm and Boulogww on the southern border of the region lwtweeli the North Sea and the Scheldt, ill the zCme between Bavai and the coast where Roman and Gen:nan had their points c~t" COllt,Wl (Vercaute~en 1934). Now we tilld that c¢~i1~ mercial industrial, and military settlements which were appreciably ditli.went [i'om civitates and yet had an urban character existed north of this, with a striking c¢)ll- centration along the coast, adioilling ¢~r ill the area of the mouth of the Scheldt, alld along the Scheldt into the iliteri¢)r. 1~ contrast to the walled civitate.~, these were open vici with ;t very dill'use get,graphical structure, consisti~g of several ~mch'i ~1 settlement at some distance ti~m ~¢. another, some of whi,.,h had a dec|dewily commercial ,)r industrial character, while others were rail t~ry or se~ni-agrarian. Frt~nl the mid-third ccntu~, one of the nuclei was frequently a ccstellum, whose tbrt i l icati~s made it increa,6ngly i~nportant because ¢~1 the invasions of ~1~-" second half ~t the third century.

In contrast t, the civitate:~, tlwsc vici owed their origin not lo a fimcti~m in the Ronlan administrative system, but to ~ommerce ~ the North Sea and the great rivers, par- ticularly betwee~ Britain and ~t::e Rhinelaml. and to certain tbrms of local industry such as iron extraction, potte~', a~ci salt produc-

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tion. In temps of these functions, practically a|t ot them, eased to, exist around 270. But whtmever ti~e settlenent had included a mili~a~ (,k,~nent, gt, nerally a ca~tellum, it ~way~ ~rw~ved the invasions ot about 270 anti c ~ t i n u e d to exisL in some cases until the ~ginning of the fiiih century. This of cour~ 6oes not exclude the possibility that random civilian ~ttlernents tied in some way ~o the ~aaella may have been rt-populated during the |ourth (e)~t tQ', t)|tt tht T cannot have be, m t)[ much practical :mportance in an~,' ~-n~'. and certaink, not for comm('rce.

lra,~e~ ,~n4/orm~ q early medieval urban hie °

~lhe prc,l)k-m o | cominui~y Irom late Roman l~O q'arl~: ~131~'dk%'ai urball lile between the N t ~ h Se~a atttl th( Schelet must be reviewed ~r) the light o| the nta,,' nnaerial presented abo+'e. In particular, we must consider the ~x~em to which the combination of the new at hae¢)lolgical data wil~h h~stt)rical material I~)i~ ,,race available n~av a~ter the the,!s dvziing with this pr()bkm which j . Dhond~ ~rmulawd in 1957 i195;b). Dhon(h tat)toil ~|w blo~)mml~ during the MerovinFian ~cr md o[ ~ ommercial ~-ttlements at Dinant, Namur, | !uv and Maa~,,tricht in the M~use ,~-a|k~ ~. Save Maastricht, which had been more ~mportant. all of ther:~ had been mcreb, small |Orts in the Roman p(a-iod. D~ondt dr~:~" a striking contrast bet,..een thrse pLa~es and the comnr,.ercial and in- du,mal dedir~ of the old R'~)man dvitateJ of f~mb~aL Tour~mi, Art.a, and Th6rouanne, chc ~a~-ot-wh~ '~ |:e attributed to the decline ~A ~he Lind rr,~utes, on which tlre~ avitates ~¢_~c ~,~atcd, in favour ot waterways. He

also contrasted suongly the rise of such new coastal harbours along the English Channel and the North Sea coast as Q uentovic and D,)mburg with the decline of such Roman centres as Boulogne and Oudenbu;~g.

As Petri noted (1958b), this viewpoint is perhaps too schematic and in,,dcquately nuanced, and leaves no role tor elements of continuity with the Roman period. On the contrary, lot Dhondt as for Pirenne, the determining tactor par excellence in establish- ing the first signs of urban liti~ ill the early middle ages was loog-distance trade over- seas and along waterways. But Dhondt ill my opinion paid too little attention to the bare and quile striking tact of topographical continuity with the Roman period, which 1 think is important for every place which he considered (Dhondt 1957b:60-1), with the provisional exception of Q uentovic (Dhondt 1962:196-7i. Dhondt turthermore (lid not deal with Flanders l)roper between the Scheidt and the Nortla Sea except !hi the civitates in the extreme south, 2 for he ti~'lt that no traces of urban lite couid t)e detected here in the Merovingian age in terms of trade o+;l indust~,, nor indeed by any other criterion. Since he knew ol no cvidcn(c ()I Roman urban liti." in this region save at Oudenburg and Courtrai, continuity as a problem no more occurred to hmi than it had to Pirenne. But now, in the light of the new archaeological data concerning the Roman past of Bruges, Oudenburg, Aardenburg, Antwerp, Ghent and Courtrai, the fiagmenta~, information concerning these places in the Merovingian and early Carolingian periods, to which Dhondt and others assigned no particular signilicance, must be re-examined. Indeed Petri noted i~l 1958 the possible importance of such a

study, on the basis of the tirst Roman finds at Antwerp as they were then becoming known (Petri 1958a:241).

We therefore return to our discussion of the places along the Flemish coast" Ouden- burg, Bruges and Aardenburg. Because of their location on the edge of the Dunkirk-ll transgression ti'om roughly 300 to 70(I A.D. (Verhulst 1959, 196.2-'~), any evaluation of the importance of each of these sites in the early middle ages nms~t take account of tile local consequences of these Ih,,-~ds fin habitation and general comnwrcial locati~m.

As we have seen, the ca.steh'um a~ Ouden- burg suffered directly at the end c,f the third centre), ti-om the rise of the sea level. Evcn the area east of the tortitication was flooded, and the castellum was consequently built higbez (see above, p. !82). The areas directly s~mlh of the ca, tellum, Groeninge and Riedinne, were I~hree metres below sea level and were still wet atld marshy in the law middle ages (Gysseling 1950:81) (Figure 3). The exposed position of the Pleistocene sand ridge atier the tloods practically iso- lated Oudenburg t iom its hinterland., a tact ,vhich would have had a deleterious ettbct on ts development as an evetnual celltre ot the area. Thus it is hardly surprising tllat tilt, ,ella which was erected at the bcgilnling of In: eighth century in the vicinity of Oudetl- burg and which was given in 74,3 to the ,.~bbey of St Bertin at Saint -Omer was built t ,uthcr inland at Roksem, a t~_~' kilomel:res :¢mth ot Oudenburg . The church of Rokscm x~as the mother parish tor the inore l eCe l l t

~arish of Oudenburg itsell~ of which o.dy tl'.e part iarthest south, in the vicinity of the castellum., ,,,,,as above sea-level, forming a small strip of sandy ground. Tile ,est of the parish of Oudenburg consisted of t looded

mai shlands which were only broul,lu intt~ use as pasture in the course ot the eighth atl(! ninth centuries (Gysseling 19,50; N()ter- daeme 19,58). When the name of Otnh'nl~urg appears tor the tirst time in a- medieval text, in 866, the place was a cattle pasture and had rto urban character at all. The name Aldmborg which was then used lot it means 'old tbrtificati,m (Gysseling 1950:48, t>+,.). Although the Roman castellum still existed and was vis ible- and would be until the et~d of the eleventh century (Gysseling 19`51}:,'53- 8 ) - this name shows furthen.n,>re that tilt, earlier name of tile Roman settlemezu had been lost. The place had been ,tepcqmlate¢! attd was considered an al~andoncd lilill llV the newly arrived German-speaking inhabi- tants.

The author of the Vita Eligii, wrilittg in the tirst quar ter of tile e.ghth century,, listed tilt' various urbes or munic@ia appertaitling t~ the diocese of Eligius, win> had I~ccn clu,,cli bishop of Nt)vt)n-l'otttnail ( Klusth 1902"695); but tilt; past~nai chat,~cler ~)l + Oudenburg at that time makes it highly unlikely that he nwant Oudelllt)urg I)v his vaguely described and l~n~selv ith'lltilied municipium b'iandreme. :~ This curic~v~siv iwl- direct description requires explanat io, . We get the clear impression, by tilt" autlnn"s mention of all these places with the adiec- tival use of a place nanu, beside t tw indepen- dent noun ur& or municipium, that tilt" adjective has principal relerencu t~ the circumscription ¢>1 which lilt" iitll]l<)l" (-{)li- sidered the municipium, which is not given its own proper name, the chief place. ~ l h r e e t~i the Flemish places with whicll wc ale con- cerned -Tc.,,urnai, Ghent and C<)urtrai- were capitals ~ffpagi whicta bore the t~,,vli's name" pagus l'ornacensis, : agus Gandenm, pagu.~ Cor-

tunatemt~ ~Ganshof 1949:268). But this is not true of the pagu, Fdland,emis, wihich was ~ rm, d fi'om ;,._n area and not from an administrati,¢c centre. The use o!f the; ex- pre~',on munidpium Flandreme -n the same cor~text can hardly be explained other than on the assumption that the author of the V/ta E//gii intended by analogue to indicate the chief place of the then existing pagus ~Tavdremis. Thi:i capital thus actualily existed at the beginning of the eighth century, but it certified, did ~ot give its name to the pagtts ):

HandroL~t:, as "rournai, Ghent and Courtrai did tt, tS¢~r respectiv,e pag/. We m.~ay deduce from tbi~ ia~t ~hat the capital in qu.~.stion was either s.~nn¢~'hat less imporr~ant than the o th~s f~r was of more recent date as a major ~ t r e , I~ tLis connection it is not without ~gn~ficnn~ to note that the author of the Vtta £1t~t n~gitxted to name two other pagi, the pagu~ Mempi~u~ and the Dagu~ Rodan- en~, which ~:ere constituent parts of Eiigius' di¢~¢:~ • and which are mentioned in other conwm~¢,rao, sot~rces ¢Ganshof 1949:268). Neither ¢~f [hese Oag~ had an identifiable ~ l e m e n ~ with a non-ag-'arian or only ~-mi-u~b~tn ¢;hara,:ter which could have ~on~m~ed a ~apitai a~ that 'Amc and might have give~ its name to thepagus. ~

The authe~ of the Vita Eligii thus seems to have b~,~ limiting his remarks to the most promir~r~ ~ ' , t r es of the bishopric of Tour- ~ i ~'hich h ~'i a somewhat t,rban character and ~'erc ~in~ultaneouslv capitals of a pagu~. The mumap~um Flandren~e is hard to identit}" ~:~-¢ause o, ~ ~he author 's obscure ter- mino|og3~, but it would fit ~his description ~,'¢-n i~ i~ were k~s maporta:at or of more re~er~ origin than Tournai. Ghent and ( ~ u a i . But d~e author was undoubtedly us, ing urb~ or m~¢niapium to mean a non-

agrarian agglomeration which was either fortified or contained a |brtification, or was ,of Roman origin - which at that time amour~ted to the same thing (Vercauteren 1934:350-1 ; Niermeyer 1960:710-1).

Only two places in the territory of the pagus Flandrensis, which extended from the Yser on the west to just east of Bruges and consisted, outside the flooded coastal area, only of a small strip of sandy ground to the south (Dhondt and Gysseling 1948), merited the term urbs or municipium at the beginning o t the eighth century: Oudenburg and Bruges. Most scholars have heretotore assumed that Oudenburg was meant by the phrase municipium Flandrense, since they knew that it was of Roman origin (Gysseling 1950:68--71), while nothing of the sort had been ascertained for Bruges. In view both ot what we have noted above about early medieval Oudenburg, and of my in- terpretation of the list of Flemish municipia in the Vita Eligii as capitals of pagi with a somewhat urban character and of Roman origin, we must identit), Brr~ges ;~s the muni. cipium Flandrense mentioned in fills source. Biuges was the capital of the paguJ Flandren- s/s t iom the second halt ot the ninth ccntur~ (Dhondt 1942:77-8), and 1 see no good reason why chis could not have been the case a century and a half earlier, for it is now absolutely certain that Bruges originated as a Roman se t tlement.

If this cot clusion is accurate, the problem of the origin of medieval Bruges must be posed in a :adkal ly different light. Bruges has always ~>een regarded up to now as a completely rea~" settlement owing its origin, which could be dated no earlier than the beginning of the ninth century, to overseas trade made possible by its thvc~urable

location. It was at the .junction of an

overiand route with a creek of the Dunkirk- II transgression which provided a link to the sea (Figure 2). A tbrtification provided the settlement with the necessary protection from the third quar ter of the ninth century (Ganshof 1938; Dhondt 1957a; Verhulst 1960; Koch 1962; Ryckaert 1972). It was uncertain whether the commercial settle- ment origina:ed during or before the tirst half of the ninth century, thereby predating the erecdon of the |brtress, or whether it developed only aliet" the castle had been built in its shadow in the second halt of the century. But our new insights suggest on the contrary that Etuges was a centre with some urban characteristics which func- tioned as the capital of a pagus by the beginning of the eighth centuw at the latest. It owed its position to its topographical continuity with an everttually fi)rtilied Roman settlement which had been able to suwive despite the ttoods of the Dunki tk- l l transgression. Various considerations, however, suggest that it can hardly have been very significant in the early eighth century, among them the t tot that it had still not given its name to the pagu., I:landren,~;i.~ of which it was the capilml.

We are no more certain than we were be|ore concerning the time when this centre, favoured by its location at the edge of a creek which crossed a road and led to the sea, became a centre lot commercial activity transcending mere regional importance. The first re|crence to Bruges as a :,icus dates only from about 900, (Koch 1949), Gut even this does not necessarily imply a mercantile settlement, for vicus can be interpret,':d to

mean this only when other contemporau, information confirms it (Petri 1958a; K/Sbler

1973). We have this inlbrnlatitm l i . Bruges only at tile beginning of ~he elev(,tuh ten- rut)', when the plat(, was litst calh'd portu,~ (Ganshof 1938 "''r°~ z.- U g . . / .

Our only piece of indirect evider~ce from an earlier period which suggests the role which Bruges would eventually play ill international commerce is the derivation of the name of the city from the Old Norse bryggla, which means landing bridge or quay. Since the nanle is tirst recorded shortly alter tile middle of the liitith ceI1Atlvy, it ILIUM ilave been borrowed during the tirst hall ()f that century at the latest. It nlay have occurre(t I)y conthsi(m with an ()riginal h)cal t|;lli|t '

derived from the little river Rcic wlait:ll llows &ore the hinterland of Bruges into the creek (Gysseling 1971). The meaning ()f the new name suggests that the place Ihllcti,)ne(I as a harbour , so that it may have i)een l ) ( ) r r ( )we( l

from Old Norse as a result of c o m m e , ' c i a l

contacts with Scandinavia. We hay(, n() i)ro()l ' of this, but Louis the Pious' grant to St Anskar o t a small abbty at Torhottt, twetttv kilometres southwest o~ Bruges, as a training school tot missionaries who were beitlg sent to Scandinavia, suggests s(mlcthing ()1 this kil.d (Verhulst 1960:60!.

The presence ot 'a mint at Brugcs, attested around or shortly after the middle of the ninth century (Verhulst 1960"59), says little of the commercial importance of the place. Tile area of circulation of tile Brttges coins, which could tell us something more, was wiot very. extensive until about 9(10. Bvuges coins of the Charles the Bald t~q3e have been recovered at Assebroek, Zclzate, Domburg, Glizy and Cuerdale (Morrison 1967" 188t. The Bruges mint was thus essentially regic)- nal. Numerous Brugcs coins ldund ill tile Baltic region suggest that it only assumed

14p :.',

mowv international overtones at the begin- ning ol the eh'venth ceniury (Gansh~.)f |q38:284}.

It i~ (mtl'emely dillituh to dra,~ a cou- f|usion from this sparse and indire:t {widem:e. Provisionally, it seems unlikt~y that Bruges owed its origin and earliest pr{~perity to international trade, although we canra)t exclude ~the possibility that it had ,ommerfial signifi(ance as early as the tirst halt ot '~ the ninth ~'enlury. The inliequent direct e~'idence trom written sources bel0re 9tr~j about the tmture or importance of the ~.ttk~nent at Bruges. all suggests that it was a political, milita~', administrative, avt,l also t~,,'entually ecclesiastical cenux." (Ganshof 1938 :281-2 ; Dhondt 1942:77--80; Noter- daeme 19.54; Dhondt 1957a:4, 15; Koch lqf2:;'~4--6L The role of Brt~gcs in politics aml g~.emment continued to be the prin- cipal ek, wat'nt in the importance of the city during the tenth century, {VeJhuist 1960:63). We still cannot prove t~'en for that time that Bruges owed its rise primarily to inter- national trade, and ! ihink that this con- c lusior~ is ever, mort, valid for the nintt. centu~ '. We must bcm' ire of forcing all large Hemish cities into t~e same pattern and deriving their origin t~'om a single theory, as ~holars since Pirenr~e have done. I do not think that Bruges originated as a Carolin- gian trading centre b~ide which a castle was subsequently erecied in the second halt of the ninth century whic~'~ would endow the place with its continuity and economic prosper/~" as a city. Bruges was much older ~hatJ this as a non-agrarian settlement, but ~m the othc.w hand it only became an important ceni;e of international commerce much later. Tl~e reasons for this slow a~d ~conda~- commercial development are not

completely clear. 6 On the coast of Wal- cheren at Domburg, not far north of Bruges, another commercial centre played a very important role in continental trade with England until roughly the mid-ninth century, when it disappeared (Janktthn 19.r.8:464-72). Coin hoaJds prove that it had ties with Bruges (De Man 1936:6; Jankuhn 1958:471), and it seems probable that Bruges gradually assumed the role of this place (Koch 1970:317-18, 321-2). On the other hand, a number of urban centres, particularly Ghent and Tournai, became important for trade in the interior along the Scheldt during the second quarter of the ninth century, as did one palatium, Valen- ciennes (Petri 1958a:239, 248-9; Koch 1970:319). Their commercial activity during the second and third quarters of the ninth century was, I think, also a factor in the evolution of Bruges into a trading centre.

Just as was the case with Oudenburg and Bruges, the history of Aardenburg (Figure 4) after the Roman period shows the impor- tance for the eventual survival or disap- pearance of a place of the local conse- quences of the floods of the Dunkirk-II transgression from the end of the third century. When the sea burst across the Pleistocene sand ridge on which Roman Aardenburg was situated, the maior part of the setdement was flooded. Only the highest point, the site of the casteUum, was spared. The ruins of this fortress remained isolated in a landscape which was uninhabitable until the beginning of the eighth century. From that time until well into the ninth century, we have reference only to sheep meadows in this vicinity which were ex- ploited from artificially constructed mounds {De Vries 1968:2334, 244). The area was

known as pagus Rodanensis from that time on. The name was derived frown the Rudann~, the little stream on which Roma; Aarden- burg was located and which had probably been widened into a creek by the floods. As I emphasized above, this pagus had no population centre of an urban C, "racier, so that neither such a place nor the p,::gus itself was includec! in the early eighth-century summary of 0ae Vita Eligii, discussed above (De Vries 19#:;8:233-4).

The earliest surviving use of the name Aardenburg may be in a barely legible inventory o~ the properties of St Baw)'s Abbey at Ghent, dating from 810-11 : apud

Rudburg . . . bercarias . . . (Verhuist 1971:226). This form is related to the old versions of the toponym which are known from 966: Roden-

burg (De Vries 1968:234). It is a Germanic word meaning fortification or burg on the Rudann;i. It is striking that the inventory does not call it a villa. Several archaeological finds confirm tee fact that it was inhabited in the ninth centur)(De Vries 1968:233), but it could have been only minimally important. It was probably limited to the ruins of the Roman castellum, which may have been rebuilt during the ninth century as a delim- sive outpost against the Viking danger (De Vries 1968:235-6). Maurice Prou thougl~l that a coin of Charles the Bald (840-75)with the inscription Rotaz~;is civitas was minted at Aardenburg rather than Rouen (Prou 1892:28). This identification is by no means certain (Dhondt 1948:137; De Vries 1968:234), but the term civitas does merit attention, for it then meant a fortification, generally of Roman origin. Other places which had been Reman and probably also contained ruins of a fortification, such as Antwerp and Court:rat, were called civitates

ill tile ninth centul~', the ibnner in a writwni source, the latter ¢)n a coin, as we shall sec. Civita.~ was Ille translation ¢)1 Ihe ( ;emla~ic burg (K6blcr 1973), and this qualif ication certainly fits Aardenburg.

Ninth-century Aardenburg was thus in all probability a tbrtification raflwr than an agrarian settlemenl, but 1 hesitate to attr i - bute any urban lunct ion to it, and certainly none o f a commercial nalure. 11 (Itl]'~' became a seconda O' I~)w,i with t rai l ing importance nnuch later. Its existelwe as a n()n-agrarian centre l i o m the ninth ceniurv is due entirely It:, iis t~q)¢~graFl~ic;,l c¢nltiw~u- itv with the Roman perle)if. Tlu~I iI cli¢l ~i~I become a nucleus for urban dirveh~pnwiit in the ninth centuiv, like Otlih,nlmrg but ill (oritrast It) Brvges. can certainly l~e cx- plained largely lye the t,lcI th,tt it was unill- habitat)le Iioin tile late R¢~xluln lwnio¢l "Inliii the t)eginnixig ot ' ihe eighth ce~lturv. Aarth'il- burg and Oudei~liur I lhtis C.ili ¢tli isli lUlt' ;i deinonslraiic)i l a contrario i l l Ihe atcur; i lv ~ll nil ' tiypcilhesis c<)iitC'l'ililig Ihe ( l l ig i l l i l l nledit, val B ltlge.%.

The history ot ea'rl.v illedieval Ai l iwer l l ienlaillS tor various re,lSliliS ii di l t icul l i l l id complex problel l i which cannllI be il..slilv,L'd satislactorily wit l l in the l imits o i this s!lidy.

. . . . i lh Although written evidence I i t l in Ihe s i l l I through the ninth cenitlrit 's i:i SOllleWlli;ll more pleni i fu l I| lali t(ir Ilie three places considered thus [~u, its aulhl ' i l l ic i ly alid i i t ierpretal io i l pose such tir(itih'i!l~i Ihai earl ier scholars have i iol lil't, li able Icl ie i i l / i definitive conc'hlsions ( i l l t i l e basis o t iI. 1 No l has any scholarly al lempl been li l i i(i l, l i l investigate crit ically the appreciati le [:)tll i ' ragmenia~' i l l tOrl l lal i ( in i lbi i t l l Ihe i.arlit'st history of Antwerp and w~.)ik it iiil~t ii coherent synthesis since prol!essor Vail i!e

/ / 7 %, "'"'--.. ~ M ,,~ ~ ,,

3 _ ,~'

!I

~ ' ~ " "J ,,~di~'~'a| Att~'(-rp: l. Ca~trum area" 2. Fir:.t ~uburbtum, er~dosed bv the ruien (eleventh centurT); 3. New ~ ~v ~,r the" O.L. t'rouw Churth, endorsed about |200 bv the ve~ten; A. Former St Walburga Church; B. Steen ~ z , ~ . ~'~i t~'~euw |'gee~ai~ Bui~ her,," Hall~; D. Town hall. E. O.L. Vrouw Church; F. St Michael's Abbey.

Walle's excavations, in the medieval castle along the Scheldt revealed extremely in- ~telesting addit ional archacologicai data from t~e Gal lo-Roman, Carolingian and post-Carolingian periods (Van de Walle 1960, 1961). This archaeological infor- mation indeed is in some respects ditficuh to reconcile with the written sources, s

Despite a hiatus in the archaeological evidence within and in the immediate neighbom hood of the tenth- and eleventh- century castle between tht; end of the third century and ~the ninth (Van de Walle 1960:13; 19¢/1:136), '~' it is still possible to assume on the basis of the evidence of the written sources tl,at ~he nucleus of the early me3ieval settlement at Antwerp, was in this are,~ rather than around the twelfth-century abl:~ey of ~t Michael, nearly a kilometre south of the later castle, a solution suggested by several ,',uthors including P. Bonen|iant (19,i3:421-,~ :) (s.,~e Figures 6 and 9). We proceed on the basis of a charter of 726, whose authentiicity was demonstrated by Ganshof (1'~62:314) and Bonenthn~ (1953: 420-1), in wli~ich a certain Rauchi~gus and his w, fe Bebelina gave to St Willi- brord the ,:hurch of SS Peter and Paul, which acco;dh~g to the charter had been built by St A~nand infra castrum Antwerpi~ (Wampach i,930:78-80). Al though the Vita Arnandi does not ment ion the foundat ion of this church ¢Krusch 1910), this omission can be explained, by analogy with other foun- dations of this missionary which his bio- graphy d~_ es not enumerate (Verhulst 1953:~t2---4). We may there;fore assume that after ~ he fir, t unsuccessful missionary eflbrts of Eli~us (~:e Moreau 1947:92; Noterdaeme and Dekke:s 1955:141-9) and Amand (de Moreau ]: 942 :26-7, 1947:88-9; Noter-

daeme and Dekkers 1955:146.-7), a thurch dedicated to SS Peter and P;attl was ill latt establishc~:l at Atitwet't) aft~', tlw 111id-,,~'v~'lltll century.

Solving the problem of the ~'xact locatiotl of the fortification within which the charter of 726 places the church would require a lengthy digression which we shall omit here. Its existence however is contirmed l~y the reference Normanni Andwerpam ci~ptta;em incendunt in the Annale.s Fulden.se.~ tot the year 836 (Kurze 18~1:27). This source uses dt, ita.~ to mean a tortiiication of Roman origili constituting the adntinislrativt, a n d / ~ ecclesiastical centre of a wider area (B~l~.~'ti- tlant 1953:422; Schlesinger 1;t54; K~ibler 1973). Since it seems improbable on tlw other hand that the civi:as of 836 was a recent fortilicalion ( V e r c a u t e r t , ti 1936), w~.

~nay identit~¢ it with the ca~trum ~)f 726, w~licll in its turn must be considered o t older origin. No doubt it originawd i~l a iatt" Roman fortress, just as did practically all Merovingian ca~tra (Vercauteren ! 936).

Although archaeologists have not pr~'.'t,'tl that a late Roman ca~tellum existed at Ant~,erp, the topographical c~)nncction and even the continuity of the Merovingian castrurn with the now definitely attes.ted Gal lo-Roman agglomeration near the area of the later [brtification seems very prob- able. A possible Merovingian settlement at Antwerp was thus probably concentrar 'd ill the nei/.~hbourhood of a Roman tbrtilica- tion in which a church was buih in the seventh century. Both church and tbrtiti~a- tion were probabl ) burne,t by the North- men in 836. A new castle was built along tlw Scheldt at the end of the ninth or begitmi,lg of the tenth century, and a church was constructed within it shortly afterward

i~P7

++'hie h w.~s dedi(ated t() St W r,!tlburga ',Van de WalJe ! ~ 60, 1961; Van Werveke 1965:46--- 7i. B°

~ a t ,It (Io we '. +~' kn(r~' o l the nature and importa~ ~re of this place bet~veen the seventh and tentlJ (enturies ? Coins w,ere stru(k there :n the ~ ' e n t h and eighth centuri(.'s, ~ nd this happvn(',! more olien than n~)t in ()t beside ,, Mvt~' ingian li~rtiticatioJz (Bo~ (,~dant lq153:,l 'p~,+:, i. But mintit;g does ~lot he( ,;,..arily illdi(ale ((~wmn(:'r(ia+l "" ,, afl lVll :, ( : ( )n(e~ning

wi-Ji~h ,+'." have no (lJlhcr r('lerenc(-s, ii:rr the mv+~ti~t, ~)t a toll in the charter ot 726 is pw(Jbabi,, at, ('l(~'('nru:h-(entulw interp(,lati()n :,(;aI~.'~h(;;t 1962 "314). N()((.) i i l5 a r e k n o w n to

have been struck at Antwerp d ' l nng the (Mtr(4ingian period. But the ;irea otth+: later ,a,+tle ,++':~ still inl+abited wit:hour marked ~i~tu~ in the ninth (:entury, (l:spite the anni- |~i[ation of the earlier ti)rtilication by the N~nthmen. ~ The structure of the ninth- century houses whi(h have been (-xcavated, p+ttti~ularly ,heir arrangerrent in a row M~mg a single street and tLe correspond- i~gI~ a(Ivan(ed stage (,f divi,, on of the land i ~ I ( ~ . ~ugg(,sts that this sc,~tlement had an utbat~ (hara(t(+r ~Van de Wa~le 1960, 1961), which tt~ay be ;~ tributed to a commercial |un+tion oJ the town, ~2 but it can be ex- plained equally well by its administrative anti milita~- role. The importance of this urban agglomerat ion in me or other of the~" aspe(ts must have been affected by the invasion of the N. *orthmen in 836. Antwerp ,+haled thi', late with the Carolingian em- p<ma at Domburg. Witla and Dorestad, the pr++sp<+tit v o! + which also declined tot the %+mr, reamJn around ~,40, in contrast to the p|a~,s ups t teaw along the 5s :he ld t - GheH, "Ir(ru~.r~a.~ and Valenc iennes - which were just assuming a ~ommercial character dur ing tire

second and third quarters of the ninth century (Koch 1970).

The expansion of Antwerp only re- commenced abou t 990. A hint of this is the use o f the term vicus in reference to it at that time (Bonent~mt 1953:423), the construction o f a new fortification and of a new civilian quar ter within the walls (Van de Walle, 1960, 1961), as well as the roappearame of coins under King .Henry I the Fowler (!1119- 36) and the use of the term civitas (Bon- entant 1£53:424). We still cannot say whether this expansion was co mected with international trade, or that it resulted trom tile essentially ad~ninisuative and miliitary role still played by the castle of Antwerp, which was on the border of the Empire in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries (Dhondt 1952:8, 14; Van Werveke 1965:46; Van Acker 1975:35-8 ~. Of course, such an administrative and military fimction is very probable for the seventh, eighth dnd early ninth centuries, but its precise content is still a mystery. Thus for example the bishopric to which Antwerp apper ta ined and the secular circumscription of which it was a part are still uncertain well into the eleventh century (Dhondt 1952:8, 13-15). Further investi- gat ion must be made of the functions of Rauchingus, who was obviously a very dis- tinguished Frankish potens vir with power over the castrum at the beginning of the eighth centu:y (Ganshof 1958:22), as well as of the role of the unknown monastery ot which the church o f SS Peter and Paul was a dependency before Rauchingus gave it to St Willibrord (Van Acker 1975:15).

Although many aspects of the earliest history of Antwerp thus remain unclear, thi: prel iminary investigation has in any case once again confirmed, as it did for Bruges

the significance of Roman and Merovingian antecedents tor the establishment o1 the settlement and later development of an important medieval city. We see again, too, that the role of such a nolo-agrarian popu- lation centre in military, monetar3,, eccle- siastical and perhaps also administrative affairs was primarily in the pre-Carolingian period and preceded the eventual commer- cial importance of the place.

A re-examination of the written evictence for the history of early medieval Ghent which I undertook in 1972 in the light of the excavations of Professor De Laet in and near Roman Ganda and of the attractive hypo- thesis which the toponymist Gy:~seling had elaborated from toponymic and topo- graphical elements (Verhulst 1972a, 1972b), has thoroughly altered our knowledge of the history of Merovingian and Caro~ingian Ghent. My new concepts can be summar- ized as follows.

On a slight elevation along the left bank of the Scheldt at its confluence with the Lys, the rains of a Roman castellum still existed at the beginning of the seventh century. The castellum and its immediate environs were uninhabited. The Roman vicus east of it had disappeared and been replaced by several small agrarian settlements of Frankish origin farther north. An overwhelmingly or even exclusively ag~rarian settlemem must have been located in the seventh century a few hundred metres upstream along the left bank of the Scheldt before it joined the Lys, at the crest of a hill on which the modern St Bavo's Cathedral is located; part of this elevation is still called the Zandberg (Figure 7). St Amand tried in vain around 630 to convert the inhabitants of this settlement to Christianity. Their hostility toward him

caused him to with(haw illt(~ tlw mills <~1 tlw Romall c~.,,tellum a iew ilulidr,"~t llWtl~", down~trcana, where a low }'CIIIS l ; t tcl , l.~, 115!1 at the latest, he tbtutded a c h u r c h with a cloister. It was originally dedicated tt~ St Peter, but it was calh+'d St Bavo's Abbey litnn the beginning of the ninth cent tu~ ' . Sonic decades later, between abt~ut 650 and 67.5, several ot Amand's disciples t0unded a iitth" celia dedicated to SS Peter and Paul oil the hill called Bhmdinium considerably larther south along the Scheldt. Its cxtclit t i t location was to prevellt it ti'onl t~¢'t~nllilig important in the hi:t~rv ~t (;l~t'tit tttltil tlw beginning of tile tcluil Ct, l l tury , at t t ' l St

Bavo's Abbey had been destrc>yed t>y the Northmen. But tire late ot the abbey o l Ganda, the htter St B'av~'s, was quite dil- ferent. It was at the c~iltluence ~d l.vs alld Scheldt and was being called castrum Gaml- avum by the beginning t~t tlw ninth I.'elllltlrv.

because of the tbrtitied ca~tellum wir, llilt which it had been built. The abbe)evidel l t . ly developed close ecclesiastical ties with tl~ settlement upstream on the Zandbt, rg i~i tlv,- course of the seventh ,~tnd eighth centuries.. since it was functioning as the c u h cet~t~c ~1 the Zandberg settlement in the ninth. At the begimfing of the eighth centmy the Vtta Eligii noted a municipium as the chief place ~' a pagus Gandensis, as did the roughly con t c t l t

porary Vita Amandi, As we have seen, sttcl language meant a settlement with ttri~att character, tbrtified and as such c ~ ' n s i d e l e d at

the time to be of Roman ~n'igin. The a u t h ~ very probably meant by this the cotnplcx tbnned by the Roman castellum and St Bavt~'s

Abbey which had been built witb, itt it, wl~icl~ was the part best knov, n to him. But tl~is does not necessarily mean that the ad-

. /

ministvative centre of the pagus was also

l~xateC there. An examination from later sources of the.juridical situation in the ninth century of the settlement (~n the Zandberg, ~'vcral hundred metres upstream on the $~eldt , has shown that it probably still did not belong to the.jurisdiction of e~ther of the two abbeys of Ghent. It is thus not incon- ce.vable that it may have been under the jurisdiction of the king or his represents- five, the count of the distri~ct of Ghent, i~ the ninth centu~,, and tha~ the administrztive ¢c~mre of the pagu~ was s~tuated there as early as the beginning of ~:he eighth century.

Be ~hat as it may, the vicus which tl~e Vita Bavom~ situates along the Szheidt ~,l the ~cond quarter of the ninth century, not tar from S~ Bavo's Abbey, and the portus of Ganda that is mentioned around 865 in the Martyrologi~ Usuardi, both refer not to the location of St Bavo's Abbey, but to the ~t t lc~ent several hundred metre;~ up- stream from the confluence of Lys and Sfheldt, on the Zandberg in the vicinity, of the latex St Bavo's Cathedral. Thus this settle- ment must have developed a commercial |un~ion along the Scheldt during the ~ o n d ~nd third quarters of the ninlth ~:entury in addition to its eventual ad- minisl~ative function as capital of the dis- trier, which may be older but cannot be prove, ha so. The proximity of the rich St Bavo's Abbey. was not unconnected with this, as is shown by the fact that the fair which was still being held around 1000 in the ~,-tu~ at the festival of St Bavo had probably originated in the ninth centu~ in the settlement on the Zandberg.

• his connection wi~h the abbey of St Bavo ~he term "dep,:nden6e upon" would surely

|~- ~ strong in the case of G h e n t - is tur- ther confirme~,l by the following c~)nsidera-

tions. St Bavo's Abbey was burned by the Northmen in 851, but this occasioned only a brief caesura in the life of the; abbey. However, in 879 the foundation w~s chosen and organized by the Vikings as a winter encampment, z, nd this time it meant the end of the monastic: colamunity, which was only reinstalled several decades later, dunng the second quarter of the tenth century. The nearby portus probably suffered as little per- manent damage ti-om the first Viking rai~-t in 85t as the abbey, since the Martyrologium Usuardi mentions the portus around 865. Shortly after the second Viking occupation, however, a completely new commercial settlement originated along the Lys, tar to the west, in the immediate neighbourhood of a tort;fication constructed during the last quarter .)f the nin~.h century by the count or the lay abbot of St Bavo's to detend tile region against the Northmen. This develop- ment is characteristic in two respects: the new con..mercial settlement originated when St Bavo~s Abbey no longer existed, and it developed at some distance from it, this time in the shadow of a new tortress and clearly connected to it.

The earliest Carolingian mercantile settle- ment on the Zandberg, however, was prob- ably abandoned during the Viking invasion of 879, and only revived in tile first halt of the tenth century. This time it was tiee c)tanv connection with the earlier but not yet rebuilt St Bavo's Abbey but was probably in- ttuenced by the second nucleus of the portus which had developed in the interim along the Lys. The two would grow toward each other during the tenth century. Thu,.~, although the first commercial settlement at Ghent clearly originated in connection with the increase of trade along the Scheldt in the

ninth century, it cannot be considered apart from the adminiswative or ecclesi~,stical centre, in this case an important abbey, whose location was ultimately determined by topographical continuity with the Roman period, just as was true of Bruges and Antwerp

The considerable importance of Roman Courtrai seems to have continued into the early nAdo~e ages. Just like Ghent, Tournai, and (as I think I have demonstrated) Bruges, Courtrai was called municipium b,: tl~e Vita Eligii at the beginning of the eighti~ centre3'. We may theretbre asst, me that it was an agglomera:.ion of urba~ type, in which tbr- tifications, walls, or buildings were still present, wltich had originated in the R.o~t~an period. Perhaps tor this reason tot) the p!;tce was the centre of the pagus Corturiacen~is, whose existence may be assumed on grounds of my interpretation of this wxt given above. A mint still functioned at Courtrai during the Carolingian period, although this is less certain tot the Mero- vingian age (Dhopdt 1948:136). -l-he coins struck there bear the relerence civita.~, a qualification whict., says less of tlw impor- tance of the place than of its tbrtitied character and its Roman origin. Finally, the choice of Couvtrai as a winter encampment bv the Northmen in 880 (D'Hae~.ens 1967:48) sho:~ld be considered in connec- tion with these tacts; it may also help to explain why we hear nothing else about Courtrai tor roughly a century.

Yet Courtrai, just like Aardenburg, would nonetheles,- achieve a certain importance as a city of essentially secondary rank much later, in the twell:~th centm3. [wen more striking is the role which it, :rod nearly all the other places we have studicd, a.,:.sumed as

an administrative centre in ~:he Carolingial, period. The case of Courtrai reinforces nr ' thesis t~,Lat the administrative tactot was pro eminent in the continuaiion of an urba~ centre of Roman origin into the tarly middle ages.

In conclusion, we see that Oudenburg and Aardenburg, which were rendered unin- habi~.ab!e by floods until the ninth cemury and which were conspicuous for centuries as abandoned Roman cas~ella towering over an inho~;pitable region, were exceptional cascs. Brugcs, Antwerp, Ghent and Couvtrai, tlw other places which we have ctmsi,tere~l Iwrc, had aitso preserved their irnportalwe into the late Roman period, tot the most part as Ior- tilied centres. But s o u r c e s t r o m the seventll or earl,,, eighth centuries show tllat tiwse tour were 1a~t merely mole d,'llsely settled than the parely r t i r a t places in tlwir ell. virons, but also had an imp,,rtalwe wllic]~ n'anscended the imn'ediate locality, nulildv as tbrti|ied admini':trative c c n t l c s liar a larger area. This lact as well as tlwir geographical hwation can only be cxplaiir',! by their Roman origin. Continuity with tlw Roman period must be viewed primarily ,n exclusively as topographical, btlt in s,,lne cases it probably involved the continuath,Jl of the subdivision of a Roman civilas witl!lin ~:he circumscription ot the pagus C Gallsla, d 1949:268). We thus lind that tlwse places had a distinctly urban character in the Merovingian and early Carolingian petiods, just as did the larger civitates tarther soutll: Cambrai, Tournai, Arras and l 'h6rt,uanlw. 'Fhere are no more indicati~,ns than l,,r Ihc ,?ivitates of the eventual c,,lnmercial inq:,,,I +- ~ance of a~y of these centres on a m e , r e t h a l i

Ilocal scale betore the second or third ¢,]tti~t ~-

2~i

wr of the ninth century. Only Ihen did emporia develop, at least at Ghent and pt-[haps also at Bruges and Antwerp, beside or within what we may consider ere-urban nuclei o f Merovingian and Roman origin, iust as happened at Cambrai , Tournai , and Arras at about the .,same time. These Carol- raglan tr:lding setdements in Flanders no ~ r c de~ eloped ex nthilo, on virgin terrain and with~ut histori(:al antecedents or ties to ~ c~,!!rcs ot adnlinistration than those in other ~,reas. O~, the contrary, they were bound to prc~unJsi, ex;sting e re -u rban nuciei whose io(atiow had been determined primarily histtni(al'iy, ~letmiteiy not t0r com,nercial r ~ n s . The role of these pre-urban nuclei in t ~ ritz o / t h e mercant i le settlements was |OF that rea~m perhaps more important than tlhe revival of international ~rade, which ! ~hink exerted an influence o /on ly second- at,,' importance. This role was moreover probabl,~' not ~he mere passive protection afforded by. the mil i ta~ character of the prc- u~ban nutlei. A!though ~his rnilitm 3" eleme~t wa,~ p~cscnt tr~m their Ronntan past, it was no~ p r ima l ' .

~l~'t~ tk-vd ~pmet~ belore the Viking in'~'asi~s is t h t t s similar in many respects to the picture which Pir~'nne sketched for the t~dlcm'ing period. Evt-ta tor the post-Viking age. we may questi(m whether the prior preer r te o / a p r e - u b a n nucleus, a com- plewly new tantrum o~ t: ~e tortification of an earlier ¢emre, must r,~)t be interpreted as an indt ta6on of its m o r : a,. d:'e role in relation t(, the commercial ,ettl, ment than Pirenne v,-a,, inclined to ~hink, d~spite its now more o ~ t ~ k mil i tan role. R -cent studies of the ~ | ~ a ~ t - r and topography of irMividual pre- urban nuclei frc,m the late ninth and early t~n~th cen~:tri~ show that they, again con-

teary to Pirenne's assu.,nption, played an active economic role in themselves and in their relations whh their neighbourhoods. They can no longer be considered mere passive "onsumers (Van Werveke and Ver- hulst 1~)60; Joris 1972). If the role of inter- national trade was less dominant than the active role of the p re -u rban nuclei in the rise and development of the mercantile settle- ments during the period atier the Viking invasions, it was almost certainly less a tactor in the age preceding them.

Notes

i The ao~rographical isolation ot the ca.stellum al Oudenburg as a ~esuit of the th,ods of tile Dunkirk-l l transgression east of it is not mentione, l in the studies of Mertem. (1962) and Creus (1975). H. Thoen has informed me that there is conclusive arthae,,h,gicai evidence to prove this. 2 It is striking ~hat Petri (19581,) d,,es the sanle thing.

Vita Higii, 2, c. 2: Ho~: ergo auriiicem invitum (lelollSUlll constituerunt : t i s l o d e l l i tul)ium seu muni( ip iorum his vo(abul;s, Vennan(lensi s~ilicet, quae est metropolis urbs, Tornacensi veto, quae q u o n d a m 1cgalis extitit civitzs, Noviomagensi quo(lue et Flandrcnsi, Gandensi etiam e, Corturiacensi. + Reasoning further along these lines, Van Wcr- • ,'eke (1933:151~ consictered thr~,e municip.ia simply as pagi and not as populat ion cent :es. s 1 shall deal latel with the ~Jature ot Aardenburg, located in the pagu~ Rodanens,~ Both the pagu~ and Aardenburg itself we,e named L~,r the river Rudann~i. On thepagus Mempiscu~ see Koc. ! (1950). 6 I attempted in an eallie~, s.tudv to derive these reasons from Bruges' problenmticai water link with the sea (luring the late nint!i and tenth centuries (Verhulst 1960:59~, but this hypothesis was called into serious question by Koch (1962:6--~, 48-9). r Bonenlant (1"953:420--t.) ~)ro'vides a summatw ot the problems and the literature, as well as an o~/erlv brief sketch of the earliest hist~rv of Antwerp. I must d i~g ree with several of his v e~,s, and of course he

cou ld i:ake liO il( '(OLllll o l Ihc' ( 'xt; iVi l l i t l l iS, l l i l ' l l l iOl ; ( ' l l hert 'at i t ' r , o f Van d( Wal le. s "l'|l(' IlltiSl l"('():'lll i t l l ( ' l l l l l l in this ( l i r i ' t l i ( i n {Vi l l i J ckc r 1975:9-67) ~s in.~ul i ic icnl ly cr i l ica] , ind lcavcs l l l a l l y prob lems un<,ok'ed. 'J The gap in archa.'. 'ological tinds c()rr(:sponds essentially io ihe Merov ing ian per iod, and as such is nol iceable ai m a n y o lher places, such as G h c m . l0 1 do not agree wiih Van Werveke (196.'5:4 7) lhai ihe church of St W,t lburga was c(msirucled on ly ai ihc l>eginnhig o( the iwc l l i h c i 'n lU l ) , ii>r hc i n i i ' i p r c i ed V a n dl ' Wal le 's ( ,xc l iv i i l ions lo( i ] i l ( ' r i l l ]y . K o d i ' s i i lg i l l l i l ' l l l ,S (1962:44- -8) t(il" B l t i l t ' s , i l ld CI)( ' l lS' ( ] .~16:2J i i l t ( ) rn la l ion on l i l t ' CUll ~)t SI t4]alburga ,ll Ai l lW't 'rp sugl~t'sl I(i in(' |ha! Ihis (t) l t i ich cou ld have t)('('ll l )u i l i li() ]aier ihan Ihc l f ' i l lh (( ' l i l l l iW. iI I r l view ( i t lilt" ctit|icuh~es i l l di l l | I l l4 precisely t lw p()i l( 'r), t i 'al l l l ( ' l l l :s t l i iCo l l ' l t ' d iil An lwc rp , Vi i i | (ic Wal le 's clal ing (1060, 1.961)(~t |he (J i l r ( ) l ingi i l l i i l l ld pos t -Caro l i ng |an ||aces ()t s/ , i ik . lneni w i i h i n th(, castle is not eni irc ' lv cxa¢l, as indeed Van Wclvt 'k( ' ll()l('([ (!.96,5:4t~). V a n t ic Wali(" dales Ihe COlistr t ic l i t ) l i o [ l|i(" earliest wall a r o u n d ltl~:' l ' .os l -V ik ing (||sl i t ' id ler |hi ' l n i d -n i l l l h century, o i l g rounds o [ pOl l ( ' iv l i l idS which cou ld also IJl,l()iig io the l t ' l i l t l ( ' l ' l i lury. Bi l l l iT|i l l |st lhis view w(" IliUSt coil.sial( r Itlal: ih(" i l i i i l ( ' r ia l w h i d l ba l i dr' Wal le d id liOl liOl(' in his pub i i c i i l i o i i s i l ichit l t 's I l i i t l l ' r i i i l wh ich dales ti(~lti l h r o u l i i ( l U l ~tl(" n i i l l h ('('llllJia/. I OWl' l l i is i l i t { l i i l l . l l i ( )n I() !;. Vt ' rh i i t 'g l l ( ' , wti~ ~tuc|iet't t i l t ' A l l l w l ' f p po t l( ' lV th ids ( ~l'('lhil('l~ti(' 1975: ! G~$-.l). ~ 7"his is i t t )p l i r l ' l l l t i ( ) l i i l i l t ' silxnilic;il:ict' whi(-tt iliLiSl t)(' a l i l i chcd i l l a i l i i i l l h tT ~)[ ld;iccs, sti('tl |is tlu$',. l ) i i l an l a l id T( ) t i r l l ; i i , I() lh t • (,xi.sl('iic(' l i t si' l l i i l l l~h~l~ wi ih houses called .,edile (}~,()t|i 197(1:319-2(1). Su( i l sedilia al(~ / i lso tOl l l ld i l i l i l t ' (:OUllll'VSid(" (Oi l l lS] l l l t 197:~:73, 96), s(! i ha i lhe i r ( i t ( l l l i ( ' l i ( c dot's l l l ) l ~ltil(i- mat{cal ly per ln i i Ih( > dir( 'c l COli(hisi i)n i l ia| ihe pl~, c t iad a conliil iClci~il charJ(; icr.

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