The Fascinating Faces of Flanders

THROUGH ART AND SOCIETY

LI SBON, C E N T R O C U L T U R A L DE B EL EM

20 JUNE 19 98 - 25 O CT O B E R I 998

A N TW E R P , HESS EN HU IS

21 N OV E M B E R I 998 - 21 FEBRUARI I 9 9 9

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt

Town and Country in the Mediaeval Economy o f the Southern

Netherlands from the 6th to the 12th century

H enri Pirenne, writing in the early 20th century in what was ultimately to become his monu­

mental Histoire de Belgique, sketched the basic outlines o f the development o f our part o f

Europe. Belgian history cannot be conceived o f and described as i f the world ends at its

boundaries. Belgium is a “microcosm o f Western Europe (...). T h e Scheldt and Meuse basins

have not only served as the cockpits o f Europe: they were also the place where ideas were

traded between the Latin and German world (...), it was their ports which for centuries were

the entrepots for merchandise from both N orth and South”.1 Opposed to geographical and

linguistic determinism, Pirenne was convinced that the “Belgian nation” (“a land o f contrasts,

a country lacking natural frontiers, where two languages are spoken”), was born o f a political,

economic, and cultural community, forged from the urban freedoms which had grown up on

the banks o f the Meuse and Scheldt. B y the end o f the M iddle Ages, the Burgundian “State”

was a step on the road which would inevitably lead to the establishment o f 19th century Bel­

gium. A lthough his finalistic vision o f the Belgian nation is now seen as belonging to another

age, Pirenne’s thesis continues to be the most imaginative and powerful to be developed in the

20th century about medieval European history and its Belgian microcosm.2

H o w can we explain the extraordinary blooming o f economy and urban society in the

Southern Netherlands during the M iddle A ges? W h a t was the basis o f this growth and how

quickly did it proceed? Could it have started in 7th century w ith the birth o f new flows o f trade

in Northwest Europe, or in the 9th century with the Carolingian renaissance, or perhaps in the

n th century with the rebirth o f the towns? D id this growth come from outside - a part o f the

reestablishment o f large-scale trading in the 10th and n th centuries — or was it internal, pushed

by the dynamism o f the countryside, the appearance, followed by control by the non-produc­

ing classes, o f the agricultural surpluses so essential to urban life? W h o helped to create this

growth: the great merchants - entrepreneurs and capitalists; the king or the Carolingian

monks who controlled the great estates; or the peasants who pioneered new lands? T he

answers suggested by Pirenne were inspired by the fact that he was a historian committed to a

particular vision, “a child o f his times, nationalist, liberal, bourgeois and optimistic (...), who

saw history as a record o f progress, driven by urban development, trade and capitalism”.3

However, modern research tends to put the accent on the dynamism o f the relationship

between town and countryside since the Early M iddle A ges and the patent role in economic

development played by figures from the religious and political worlds. T h e creation o f wealth

is essential for the production o f art and culture. T h e accumulation o f capital was made possi­

ble by the transfer o f economic surpluses from the base to the centres o f control, from the

country to the town, from the peasant, the subsistence producer, to the consumer, nobleman

or burgess. T h e countryside and its economy are the essential preconditions for the develop­

ment o f Europe.

M oham m ed and Charlemagne

T h e celebrated question o f Mohammed and Charlemagne stresses continuity between the

A ncient W orld and the M iddle A ges.4 Historians o f Church and State nowadays tend to speak

more o f a transition when referring to the passage from late Antiquity to the successor states

such as the Merovingian kingdoms o f our regions. For Pirenne the turning point in the devel­

opment o f the W est was not the Germanic invasions o f the 5th century, but came later, in the

early 7th century with the arrival o f Islam, which brought an end to the economy o f the

Mediterranean world. For Carlo Cipolla and Roberto Lopez, the W est went through a long

period o f depression, lasting almost a thousand years, between the crisis o f the Late Empire

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

and the beginnings of the trading revolution o f the 12th century.5 T h e first signs o f economic

recovery were not felt before the 10th century, which must be seen as the inflection point in a

long economic cycle starting in the 3rd century. W e now know that the decline o f M editer­

ranean commerce started in the middle o f the 4th century and reached an absolute low point

in about 700.6 However, this did not lead to a general contraction o f the economy, a return to

the countryside and the disappearance o f town life between the 7th century and the year one

thousand. W h at really happened was that the centre o f economic gravity gradually moved

away from the Mediterranean to the northwest o f Europe.7 T h e routes and circuits, venues,

materials, and people involved in trade changed profoundly. In the heart o f the Frankish

world, between the Loire and the Rhine, the independent merchant was squeezed out to make

way for agents o f the king and church. T h e abbeys o f Northern G aul slowly abandoned the

arduous transport ventures which took them south o f the Loire, where they could buy valuable

merchandise such as olive oil, wax, fish and spices. From then on their involvement in the trad­

ing economy seems to have been primarily motivated by the desire to sell the agricultural sur­

plus o f their estates to best advantage, be it at fairs (wine at the big fairs held at Saint-Denis

near Paris), town and country markets, in the ancient river ports o f Rouen or M aastricht and

at the new emporia, such as Quentovic, on the mouth o f the Canche, or Dorestad, on the con­

fluence o f the Rhine and the Lek.8 T h e bulk o f trade in northwest Europe did not consist o f

luxury goods, but rather o f food products (cereals, wine and salt), and other basic commodities

(textiles, wood and minerals) and the output o f craft workshops (millstones and grindstones

from the Eifel region, pottery from Badorf, Rhenish glassware, Frankish weapons, “Frisian”

and Frankish linen, etc.).

T his new start, sustained as it was by demographic and agricultural growth, coincided with

the military expansion o f the Frankish kingdom and the colonization o f land to the north and

east, including Frisia, Saxony, and Germany, an unprecedented campaign o f evangelization

and territorial organization, and the installation between the Rhine and the Loire o f the struc­

tures o f the great estate system. Starting in the 7th century, the W est appears to have entered

an extended cycle o f development, culminating in the 13th century, in which various factors

united to produce effects such as demographic growth, diffusion o f new technologies, changes

in the organization o f work, the rebirth o f trade, the flowering o f urban life. T h e role o f agri­

culture in this development cannot be denied!

T h e Countryside in the Early M iddle Ages

It is impossible to ignore the evidence - in the Middle Ages nine out of ten people were peasants.

T h e historian has every reason to be modest. Despite the advances in our knowledge con­

tributed by archaeologists, and the new disciplines devoted to the study o f ancient environ­

ments (palynology, paleopathology, paleoclimatology, etc.), we are still far from being able to

provide an explanation or even a general picture o f the development o f the natural environ­

ment between the 3rd and the n th centuries. Nonetheless it seems that we are now able to

speak o f two very different periods in the general environment in Western Europe, that are

characterized by a series o f natural and human factors: climate, health, nutrition and demo­

graphic change. Even so it is extremely difficult to measure their impact in regional terms.

Starting with the crisis in the Late Empire, the European climate became slowly worse, turn­

ing colder and moister. In all likelihood this trend bottomed out in the 6th century, with a fall

in mean temperatures o f i.5°C. W ritten sources (such as the Histoire des Francs o f Gregory o f

Tours) and archaeological findings suggest that there may have been a disastrous conjunction

o f ecological factors in the 6th century, marked by a series o f natural calamities including

famine, floods, epidemics (two pandemics: the Justinian plague, which started in 541 and a

plague of smallpox starting in 570) which hit a population already weakened by malnutrition.

It is Likely that the population fell and that certain regions were depopulated.

T h e transition from the Ancient W orld to the M iddle A ges left traces in both the natural

and human landscape the extent o f which historians have long wondered at. These include the

abandonment o f the large farm units o f the Romans, the movement o f populations and their

division into the romance and germanic groups. There was a generalized discontinuity in the

coastal region between the A a and the Scheldt-M aas-Rhine delta, caused by a large incursion

by the sea in the 3rd century. Furthermore forests grew larger and the acreage o f land under

cultivation fell between the 3rd and the 5th centuries, while herding developed at the expense

o f crop growing. T here were also considerable regional differences. T h e continuity o f occupa­

tion o f the most populous areas in Antiquity and the Early M iddle A ges, the region between

the Scheldt and the Dender and the Hesbaye/Haspengouw ar.d., was very great, ás can be seen

from the survival o f Roman names. T h e end o f Antiquity was in particular marked by a move­

ment from the plateaux to the valleys, a change in the appearance o f agricultural units, with

the abandonment o f the Roman “colonial” villae and a style o f agriculture formerly oriented

to supplying the towns and garrisons o f the Rhenish limes. O ther features were the appearance

o f smaller country farms, mainly run as family units, and a decline in the area o f land unde,

cultivation. These lands continued to be used for agriculture, although marginal land witl

heavier or poorer soils became derelict, often until the clearances o f the n th and 13th centuries.

T h e typical Merovingian countryside was a habitat containing scattered hamlets, w ith numer­

ous isolated fields separated by uncultivated lands. Elsewhere, where stock breeding predom­

inated, the habitat, situated in clearings in the heart o f the forest, could have been semi-per­

manent. Germanic toponyms ending in -sali, -sele, - z elles, which were used for such places

mostly disappeared after the 10th century, with the clearance o f the forest in which this kind

o f settlement was situated.9

N ew archaeological techniques have now made it possible to demonstrate the existence o f

quantitative and qualitative variations in the plant environment (advance o f forests, clear­

ances). D uring the first thousand years o f the Christian era the geography o f cereal crops

underwent considerable changes, although it settled down after the year one thousand. These

changes were marked by the appearance in the 4th century o f cultivated cereal crops which

were new to Western Europe, such as rye and oats. T h e y spread slowly at first, a process which

speeded up in the 7th century and really took off in the 10th century. T h at there was a slow but

fundamental change in the geographical distribution o f cereal cropping in the M iddle A ges10

cannot be disputed. Prior to the 9th century the wheat variety commonly cultivated was a

“dressed” wheat, that is the kernel was attached to the husk. Known as spelt it was dominant

on the seigneurial estates o f the region as well as on the royal lands in the Lille area until about

800; while it was used on the Corbie abbey lands prior to 826 ; and on the lands o f the Abbey

o f Lobbes in 868-869, between the Sambre and the Meuse, the Bavay area, and Southwest

Brabant. Peasant farms often grew a wider variety o f crops, with cereals (wheat, rye, barley),

vegetables and fibrous plants (hops and flax), stock farming (poultry, pigs, and sheep), as well

as engaging in various craft activities such as the production o f items and objects in wood,

cloth and fabrics, and even semi-industrial activities such as iron ore extraction near St.

Hubert, pig-iron production and iron utensils. Textile production merits special considera­

tion. Flax and hemp are demanding and labour intensive crops, and were produced chiefly by

peasant farmers. Textile production was in part the work o f collective workshops,11 where

specialized workers or women from the estate gathered to spin, weave, and make clothes as

well as in the royal villae (for example around 800 in Annapes) or in monastic centres (Saint-

Bertin), by the domestics o f the great lay houses o f the 10th century, like the “.. .gynaeceum o f

Count H enry established in the portus o f Ename in 1014”.12 Nonetheless the bulk o f textile

production was the work o f the family, as can be seen from the distribution o f archaeological

finds relating to textile activities at Early M iddle A g e sites. Fabrics were woven on vertical

looms built in a “weaving shed” (a single excavated room o f 6 to 8 m2) located within the walls

o f the main residence.13 In the n th century, textile production was an entirely female activity,

and included washing and shearing the sheep before carding and spinning the wool; picking

and threshing the flax before rotting it and preparing it for spinning. Flax in the form o f seeds

or tow was the typical rent for free peasants, just as the production o f linen cloth or woollen

fabric was the rent for serfs.14 C lo th and fabric were an integral part o f the trade between

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

estates. T h e free and larger manses (holdings) had also to breed oxen as draft animals. T h e

dominant cereal on the demesne land (land farmed directly by the great landlord) was spelt,

together with barley and oats, whereas poorer soils would be sown with barley and oats. Oats

were the sole crop in the harsher conditions o f the Ardennes, where it was associated w ith rye

and barley. Polyptychs from the 9th century show three changes. A s o f the 10th century there

was a general decline in spelt in favour o f naked cereals such as wheat and rye. T h e rise of

wheat, which first came to demesne lands in the 10th century and prevailed in the n th bears

witness to a seigneurial choice for higher prices and yields. T h e homelier nature o f rye and oats

meant that they played a leading role in the cerealization15 o f Europe in the M iddle A ges, by

permitting the cultivation o f cereal crops on land which had hitherto been ignored.

Starting in the 8th century, the climate became steadily warmer, reaching a peak in the n th

century, with average temperatures o f between 1.5 and 2°C higher than the mean (4° higher in

sub-Arctic regions - leading the Scandinaviari navigators who first reached N orth Am erica to

call the new territories “Greenland” and “Vin(e)land”). O n the other hand the Merovingian

period seems to have been one o f widespread malnutrition, as the archaeological evidence

indicates a high incidence o f rickets and diseases due to dietary deficiencies. Studies o f human

bones seem to indicate that as the 7th century gave way to the 8th there was a general decline

in chronic malnutrition. Paradoxically, famine becomes more frequently reported (64 between

the 8th and n th centuries, or an average o f one famine every six or seven years). Nonetheless,

we must be careful how we interpret such data. O nce a distinction is made between the “major

famines” o f a cyclical nature, the shortages arising in transitional periods, and localized

famines, we see that the number o f large-scale famines dwindled in the 10th century and

started to rise again during the n th. Is the recurrence o f generalized famine proof that growth

had stopped? Should we not consider them more as “incidental occurrences, as the heavy price

the peasantry had to pay to guarantee expansion”.16 T h e picture we see is o f population growth

progressing in a saw tooth curve. W hereas malnutrition has disastrous effects on the general

health o f the population in the long term, famine, i f it eliminates the weak, spurs the survivors

to produce more. T h e study o f demographic data from Cairolingian polyptychs (for C ham ­

pagne and the Paris basin) reveals a pioneering population, relatively young and mobile, sen­

sitive to sudden peaks in the mortality rate, but capable o f responding quickly by pushing up

birth rates.17 Undoubtedly no rapid and generalized rise in the population occurred before the

“demographic boom” o f the n th century. O n the other hand there had already been demo­

graphic growth in the richest farming areas since the end o f the 8th century. It is quite likely

that the population doubled in the space o f a century.18 Population densities o f 20 to 30 per­

sons per km2 could well have been reached in' the Paris region or on the estates o f Saint-Bertin

abbey near Saint-O m er (Sint-Omaars)19 since the middle o f the 9th century. U ntil the year

one thousand the countryside in Northwest Europe therefore displayed a sharp contrast

between those regions which had been densely populated since ancient times, and large under­

populated areas which were exploited in semi-permanent fashion.

T his picture o f a natural environment o f marked contrasts applies particularly well to Flan­

ders. Picardy, its fertile neighbour, exported large quantities o f cereals to Flanders in the 13th

century, and 75 % o f its villages were recorded before the year one thousand. In Flanders, how­

ever, such population densities were not attained until the 3rd quarter of the 12th century.20

T h e progressive retreat o f the sea meant that salt tolerant vegetation could develop in the

coastal region, which had been virtually deserted since the 3rd century. In the 8th century com­

munities o f herders were already starting to make use o f it. B y the 9 th century, the crown and

various abbeys were operating large dairy farms and sheep ranches in the coastal strip. A w ay

from the coast the earliest land reclamation operations we know o f date from the 7th century.

T h e vitality o f the countryside is evident from the dense population o f some areas o f the Flem ­

ish countryside. Toponymie study in the G ent area reveals early evidence o f clearances taking

place in the late 7th century. W e see an increase in the germanic suffixes -rohda, -rodorn in the

9th century. It seems that this reclamation o f land for agriculture was launched from estab­

lished agricultural land in the most fertile areas. T h e large areas which began to be abandoned

in the 3rd century were unaffected by this phenomenon. In the 8th century, we see for the first

time the Frankish aristocracy and the major abbeys assembling large complexes o f arable lands

at the heart o f the most fertile estates, owned by the crown. These were known as coutures

(fir)/kouters (ni)/cultura (lat), and were undoubtedly the result o f the regrouping o f scattered

fields and collective clearances. In the G en t area, this micro-scale open-field system contrasts

with the mixed woods and pastures o f the moister lower lying land taken into cultivation in the

13th century. In these areas, Verhuist tells us, there were two contrasting “styles” o f organizing

the land. T h e leading characteristic o f the one was a collective approach to exploiting the soil,

typical o f the Early M iddle Ages, the other was typified by a sort o f agricultural “individual­

ism” unique to Flemish agriculture in the 13th century.21 A n open landscape was indicative o f

land exploited as part o f a large estate. Open-field farming, already subjected to regular three-

yearly rotation in the estates o f northern France in the 9th century and the performance of the

onerous services associated with the feudal tenure system led to the appearance o f communal

disciplines. T h e domination o f the lord over an area and its inhabitants, who became his “men”

and the formulation o f a collective system o f rights and obligations (ius villae) ended up by giv­

ing social and territorial cohesion to the land-holding estate. Clearances and the regrouping

o f land coincided with a profound transformation o f the human habitat, which locally was

characterized by the abandonment o f the hamlets which had appeared during the preceding

period and the regrouping o f the population in village communities, centred on a church (in

the G ent area, a “kouter” corresponded to a village).

T h e regrouping o f land thus went hand in hand with the birth o f the village, the Christian­

ization o f country populations and their embedment in new structures o f power and land use.

From Seine to Rhine these changes were accompanied by the advance o f the great estate. T h e

geographical extent o f the Merovingian villa was more restricted. It covered less arable land

and much less o f the land was in cultivation. Tenancies held by peasants who were dependent

on the lord o f the estate were less numerous and moreover their connections with the

demesne land was only weak. T h e main revenues were derived from working the land by

slaves and revenues paid by tributary peasants. It was during the 7th century that the main

elements o f what modern historians have called “the classic great estate”22 began to make

their appearance. Its leading characteristic was its bipartite aspect: the demesne land, now

larger and redistributed, was worked by services imposed on the “manses” (Germanic:

“hoba”), accurately defined by a contemporary text as the terra unius familiae, which meant a

farm consisting o f a house and sufficient land to provide for the needs o f a family o f peasants,

and perhaps also the draught animals they needed for working it. T h is therefore is the origin

o f a economic and social cell suited to the conjugal family, a ménage, as this word comes from

the mediaeval Latin word mansionaticum. T h e peasants, free or otherwise, who occupied

these manses had community rights to use the forest and uncultivated land, and could trans­

mit their tenancy to their children while in exchange they had to settle certain charges,

whether in money or in kind as well as services determined by the custom o f the estate. T h e

most onerous services included working in the fields o f the demesne and cartage, which was

made available to the lord for the collection, concentration, or transportation to places o f

trade o f the surpluses resulting from the operation o f the estate, and which might consist o f

cereals, wine, wood, textiles and so on.

T h e organization o f the villa reflected the demands o f cereal production. It implied the

installation or permanent settlement on the holdings o f a group o f specialized farmers, labour­

ers and herdsmen skilled in handling the plough. T h e ruling echelons o f the Frankish world,

the King, the aristocracy around him, and the Church played a vital role in the creation and

spread o f the classic great estate in the numerous lands they held in the heart o f the kingdom

between the Seine and the Rhine. T h e rural lords, whose activities were directed towards the

cultivation o f cereals on fight and fertile alluvial soils, had to meet the growing nutritional

needs o f the State and involve themselves in both regional and interregional trade. T h e cre­

ation o f the manse went hand in hand with the growing place o f the couple in the social and

religious thinking o f the Frankish world.

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devtoey

T h e Problem o f Rural Growth

M odern historians offer two models to explain the growth o f the Early M iddle Ages. Adriaan

Verhuist looks primarily at Northern Europe and the role o f seigneurial initiative and the

immense success o f the large estate. Since Verhuist the estate has been seen as a dynamic and

evolutionary structure that grew progressively from the 6th and 7th centuries. Whereas some

historians view it as an outmoded relic o f the Ancient world, or as ineffective economic insti­

tution and at the very least unrepresentative o f the rural world as a whole, the “evolutionary

model” o f the great estate is founded on the idea that the “classic” estate system was econom­

ically efficient, based on the integration and development o f peasant farms in the context o f a

system o f large holdings of land. T h e expansive model o f the estate stresses three determining

factors: a vigorous reawakening o f demand for consumer goods following the restoration o f

the State, the development o f the Church and the reconstitution o f the aristocracy; the grow­

ing predominance in the countryside o f the small dependent farm, suited to the needs o f the

nuclear family; and the ability of the nobility to manage the population, control their territory

and secure the extraction and centralization o f farm surpluses.23

Nonetheless, the classic large estate model is less applicable to many other areas o f the

Christian W est. Although it was imposed in Northern Italy after the Carolingian appropria­

tion o f the Kingdom o f the Lombards, and in Saxony after Charlemagne’s military conquest,

it occurred only sporadically in Southern Gaul, where structures o f the “Merovingian” type

(large farms dependent on slave labour and small farms belonging to free peasants) persisted

until the 10th century.24

Chris W ickham ’s comparative approach culminates in the demonstration o f the existence o f

autonomous peasant societies governed mainly by the exigencies o f the subsistence economy

in regions such as Britanny, Iceland, Catalonia and Central Germany in the Early M iddle

Agés.25 These social groups do not exclude either slavery nor the existence o f a certain social

stratification, however, they are fundamentally rooted in the dominance o f a peasant popula­

tion which controls its own lands, is more or less autonomous, and where the hierarchies o f

dependence are fairly lax. T h e dominant class here consists o f village chiefs and notables. T h e

state and the society o f the great are distant and have relatively little bearing on the rural

world. In certain cases, the military aristocracy dominates from outside, and surpluses have be

to exacted from the peasants by force. T h e existence between the Seine and the Rhine o f peas­

ant communities firmly embedded in the structures o f the great estate or more autonomous

micro-societies o f peasants, is revealed solely by the exceptional richness of the historical

record: detailed polyptychs here; exceptional series o f charters and records o f land transactions

there. W h at do these sources still conceal? In the Southern Netherlands the new estate system

established itself in the most fertile areas. Elsewhere, particularly in the north o f inland Flan­

ders and in the Campine (a large tract o f sandy heathland to the north and east o f modern

Antwerp), “the small peasant properties, more numerous here, also put up greater resis­

tance”.26 Land ownership in such areas remained more often in the hands o f the minor nobil­

ity or the most prosperous ranks o f the peasantry. Even in areas held by the great landowners,

for example around G ent on the land o f the Saint Bavo monastery, or in the possessions o f the

abbey o f Saint Bertin near Saint-Omer, other structures existed side by side the classic estate.

H ow far were these peasant micro-societies removed from the apparently rigid structures o f

the bipartite villa? Was the great estate a fixed element o f the physical landscape since the 9 th

century, as we might assume from the polyptychs, or was it merely a matter o f boundaries and

lines, set out at the dictate o f the great hereditary fortunes across a totally different peasant

landscape? M ig h t areas o f peasant autonomy, areas where the people were closely supervised

by the aristocracy, and yet other areas where the estate originally only came into contact with

other peasant structures not have existed simultaneously from region to region? Essentially

this is the hypothesis lying at the heart o f the models developed by Verhuist, Bonnassie and

W ickham . T h e social and political structures organizing the countryside vary in form and

intensity. Nonetheless it is the dynamism o f the peasantry which is the driving force behind

growth. T h e Early M iddle A ges thus appear to have laid the foundations in the W est for a

form o f social organization based on the family farming unit which persisted until the indus­

trial revolution. This development affected the non-free, although their economic and social

status had irrevocably evolved beyond slavery when their masters gave them tenancy rights

which could be passed on to their children and allowed them to establish a true family house­

hold centred around man and wife. T h e clearances could have allowed freemen to create

manses, whereas what happened was that independent peasants elected to contribute their

lands to a great landowner in return for tenancy, in order to escape the responsibilities o f the

freemen (compulsory military service and taxation) and to benefit from the privileges and pro­

tection o f the new master. A ll these changes meant that the peasant and his family, w ith his

know-how, his animals and agricultural tools, was the essential figure in rural life. Seen in this

way, the demographic and economic “growth” is undoubtedly a reflection o f a certain improve­

ment in family welfare.27 T h e emergence o f the couple as the basic unit o f social life in the

countryside had a considerable impact on the condition o f men and women and their mutual

relations. Life as a couple implies a mutual relationship which cannot be simply reduced to the

traditional legal dependence o f the woman on the man or to the economic interdependence o f

the peasant household: there must have been an entire emotional dimension to the relation­

ship as well, which is o f course not reflected in our sources.

T h e “improvements” seen in the countryside did not take place suddenly. T h e y were not rev­

olutionary. Rather they were the gradual result o f an intensification o f agricultural practice.

T h e spread o f new techniques was accompanied by institutional and social innovations (tran­

sition from slavery to serfdom, the taking up o f the rural population into the seigneurial sys­

tem and its Christianization, and the establishment o f the family-based farming unit). In the

sixties, Georges D u b y created a sensation by publishing figures revealing the extremely low

yields o f cereal farming in the Early M iddle Ages.28 T h e measurement o f the growth o f agri­

cultural yields prior to the 12th century would seem to be very hit and miss, as no direct sources

are available to us, and indeed remain rare before the 14th century. T h e value o f generalizing

from the extremely low seed yields suggested by Georges Duby, which he deduced from a

description o f Annapes near Lille has been hotly disputed, and the Annapes figures have been

revised upwards.29 T h e most severe criticism came from agricultural experts, who pointed out

that “.. .agriculture with a normal yield o f 1.6 to 1 would be physically impossible, as it would

not produce sufficient energy for it to be sustained”. Nowadays it is estimated that cereal pro­

duction must have at least doubled between the Carolingian period and the 13th century.30 In

reality, regardless o f the figures put forward, the generalization o f yields calculated on the basis

o f single crops on the seigneurial demesne leads to the assumption that there was only one

model o f agricultural production, whereas all the evidence is that the Carolingian countryside

was divided between family farming, which was more meticulous, more intensive and more

varied, and made frequent use o f draught animals, and the extensive farming o f the large

demesnes, worked by gangs o f peasants, and where most certainly it was the total volume o f

the crop which counted.

Networks, forms and flows o f trade

W e must now give our attention to the relationship between the country and the town, or

rather to the relationship between the rural world, the producer o f provisions and supplies and

the other parts o f society which it nourished. These relations are expressed in unequal trading

structures which were at the same time expressions o f power. T heir establishment and consol­

idation are one o f the driving forces in the transformation o f mediaeval society. T o use a for­

mulation already expressed by Henri Pirenne, the mediaeval town is the point o f convergence

o f a regionally integrated market system, with well-balanced production and distribution sys­

tems. However, the goods in the trading network did not necessarily end up in the town as a

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

geographical, economic and social entity. Rather it was the royal palace, the baron’s castle, and

the abbey which were the centres for the concentration and redistribution o f wealth. T h e net­

works did not just constitute a physical route, but also a social, economic and political system.

It is in this respect that historians draw our attention to the “role o f the great estate” and the

institutional players in the economic rise o f the W est between the 8th and the ioth centuries.

T h e development o f the towns takes place “against the background o f the older flourishing o f

the estates”.31 T h e Meuse valley lies at the centre o f the old Carolingian heartland (Herstal,

Landen, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), etc.) and it is between the M euse and the Rhine that the

hereditary lands o f the majordomos o f the Austrasian Palaces and their descendants lay. From

the 7th to the 9th century the symbol o f this prosperity was not the waterborne merchant but

rather the country palace and the royal monastery and their structured network o f great

estates. T h e estate system steered this dynamism so that it favoured the crown and the

grandees by the implementation o f a concept o f centrality which was applied to all kinds o f

economic transactions and social control.32 Essentially, the estate system, which in the late

19th century and early 20th century had been considered as the best illustration o f the priority

primitive economies gave to their own consumption, is nowadays regarded as one o f the main

levers used to effect a transition to a trading economy.

Again we must avoid anachronisms when defining the scope o f the economy, or better, o f the

trading economies o f the Early M iddle A ges. First o f all attention must be given to the local

level, the level o f the pagus, in which a first network o f primary markets, was doubtless essen­

tially oriented towards the trading o f ordinary consumer goods. T h e increase in the number o f

markets during the 9th century, either by royal grant, as was generally the case east o f the

Rhine, or more spontaneously elsewhere, and their integration into these trading networks is

also explained by the flourishing o f the estate economy. T h e majority o f the local markets did,

however, not give birth to towns. Their appearance seems rather to have been more an element

o f the basic structure o f the physical environment, which was expressed at the local level. Soci­

ety in general continued to be profoundly rural, although there was traffic, movement and

trade. In the countryside the estate system shattered the traditional framework o f peasant

farming, based as it was on self-sufficiency and the satisfaction o f the basic needs o f the pro­

ducer. It forged the links o f a chain o f markets and rural market towns, leading peasants into

producing for sale and allowing the number o f non-agricultural producers in the village to

grow. T h e rural market town, with its market organized to fit in with peasant needs and

located at the centre o f a small area, was the link and precondition for the establishment o f

dense and regular relations between town and country.33

Despite the dynamic image conferred nowadays on the networks o f estates in the Early

M iddle A ges, it would be unwise to ignore a number o f signs which could be a indication, as

Henri Pirenne thought, o f the contraction o f local markets experienced by the Carolingian

economy. T h e Frankish kingdom was never'an area in which a sole coinage was adopted, and

the circulation o f some coins was limited to the regional level. T h e interregional networks and

the “circulation areas” o f the monasteries must have been essentially linear in the 9th century.

Their existence does not mean that they were from then on at the apex o f a hierarchical trad­

ing network. There could be differences depending on whether the linear trading relationship

was linked (in the Meuse basin) or passed by (the Scheldt) a regional space. T h e Frankish

economy produced surpluses although it was characterized within its boundaries by regional

barriers and the absence o f generalized trading.

T h e quickening o f international trading circuits can be explained by the closeness o f areas

producing food surpluses and the creation o f new markets with lively demand in the British

Isles, the Rhine estuary and Northern Europe. Three main trading circuits came into being.

T h e oldest, dating from the 6th century joined the two shores o f the “Britannic Sea”, between

the Loire and the Irish Sea. In the 7th century, the trading impulse reached the shores o f the

Channel and the North Sea, with trading between England, the Seine estuary and the Rhine

delta. Two main trading circuits were established in this region: to the East was a circuit which

covered the Rhine basin as far as M ainz, the Rhine-M euse delta and East Anglia and the

Tham es. T h e other more westerly circuit linked the Paris basin, the Somme and Northern

France with the coasts o f the W est o f England. Few Franks travelled these trading routes. It

was primarily Anglo-Saxon, and later Frisian, mariners who provided the links and kept the

trade going. Furthermore there is clear evidence o f a certain interchange between the two net­

works.34 T h at this was so is underlined by the fact that a new coin appeared on both sides o f

the sea between 660 and 67o.35 T his was the silver penny (denier). T h e chronology, the condi­

tions which occasioned its growth and the functioning o f the third circuit, which was estab­

lished in the N orth o f the Frankish world is still poorly understood. Relations between the

peoples living on the shores o f the N orth Sea most certainly continued throughout the Early

M iddle Ages. In the latter half o f the 8th century, staging posts appeared along the rivers and

coasts leading towards Frisia and Jutland. Around the year 800, the North saw the establish­

ment o f new and prosperous trading centres, such as the Haithabu emporia in Schleswig and

those o f Birka in the Swedish heartland.36 A t about the same time silver Arabic coins were

m aking their first appearance in Sweden, and would continue to arrive until the mid 10th cen­

tury. T his third circuit brought the societies o f the N orth Sea coasts into contact with the

Baltic and the Scandinavian east.

T h e idea that there was a direct trading route along which “long-distance merchants” car­

ried silver, silks and other luxury goods from Bagdad to Sweden has now been abandoned.

Archaeological findings have shown that there was an immense degree o f permeability at that

time, w ith exchanges from place to place, and between neighbouring regions.37 There were

trading frontiers between these separate regions, which had their own ports and central

towns, and which served their respective hinterlands. N or should we really concentrate on

looking for the existence o f commerce in the general complex o f economic and social rela­

tions which passed along these trading routes: men and things were also subject to other

forms o f exchange, including migration, war, exchanges o f gifts, the collection o f tribute,

etc.38

T h e variety o f the forms trade took is illustrated by the new turn taken by the relations

between Anglo-Saxons, Franks and Vikings after 820/830, when war gained the upper hand

over commerce. Towards 850 the Baltic region became cut o ff from Rhenish ceramics and

Dorestad coinage. T h e decline o f the wiks was a general phenomenon. Pillaged on seven suc­

cessive occasions after 834, Dorestad failed to revive after the final sack in 863. W ar had been

preceded by economic recession (perhaps in about 820 ?). W ar did not close the circuits, it sim­

ply transformed the “methods” o f trade.

T h e Origins o f the Towns

Another aspect o f the continuity between Antiquity and M iddle Ages has rightly been

stressed by Pirenne, namely the life o f the towns. In the regions we are speaking o f the signif­

icant archaeological findings o f recent decades have tended to highlight the Roman origins o f

many medieval urban centres.39 Such findings must nevertheless be interpreted with care and

without imposing a non-existent systematic order on them. T h e historian often finds it diffi­

cult to disentangle the evidence in the sources and the archaeological record for real continued

occupation and functionality from that indicative o f the reoccupation o f a site or a full return

to functionality. After the move o f the episcopal seat to M aastricht in the 6th century and then

to Liège in the 7th century, the ancient capital city o f Tongeren became no more than a centre

o f estate management in the Early M iddle Ages. A series o f ancient conurbations owe their

survival to the continuance o f their central political, administrative and religious functions:

the Merovingian pagi such as Gent, Kortrijk, Aardenburg, Tournai (Doornik), Thérouanne,

and Cambrai (Kamerijk) are named after the urban centres whose existence in Roman times

is well established. Sometimes though such continuity is merely topographical: Germanic

names such as Aardenburg, Antwerpen (Antwerp), and Brugge (Bruges) suggest that there

may well have been a break in occupation. Activities disappeared: the Roman forges o f Ganda

were abandoned in Merovingian times.40 Cases where topographic and functional continuity

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

are beyond dispute are still rare: at H u y (Hoei), craft activities and techniques continued dur­

ing the Merovingian period in the workshops o f the Batta district, where smiths, goldsmiths,

potters and bone carvers were all active.41 In reality one should speak o f a slow discontinuity

between the town o f ancient times and the mediaeval town and acknowledge the great variety

o f ways town life developed. In contrast to the Rom an period, the town was no longer a “social

model”, with a native population, civilization and organization. A t the same time it should be

stressed that one o f the most telling indications o f the transition from Antiquity to the M id ­

dle A ges in the W est was the extraordinary decline in the life-style o f the prince and the elite.

Regardless o f whether it was an ancient civitas (such as Tournai), or a vims (like Maastricht)

or a trading post (like Dorestad), the town o f the Early M iddle Ages is revealed as combining

craft and commercial activities and farming. T h e vicus or commercial centre serves as a point

o f coalescence in the “town”. E ven so the latter b y no means conforms to the formal topo­

graphic criteria o f what might be understood to be a town (high density, conurbation). It

would have been more a cluster o f population nucleii where it would have been possible to find

a centre o f administration, newly built concentrations o f housing, and recognizable districts

devoted to a particular craft or to farming. T h is multiplicity o f habitats can thus not be

reduced to the traditional duality o f fortress- plus-commercial settlement. In reality things

were far more complex and would vary depending on the place and period. In the n th century

these multi-centred concentrations o f population started to merge together and soon became

“a sole and single town, largely due to the establishment o f an export industry at its heart”.

Another important factor was the consolidation or establishment o f a recognizable rural hin­

terland and a network o f trading circuits linked to these urban centres. Consequently the town

o f the Early M iddle Ages, like the abbey or rural palace at the heart o f the estate system,

became a nexus o f trading networks where the surpluses o f agricultural production were con­

centrated. T h e favourable situation o f a place for the purposes o f defence or for traffic explains

the appearance in the late 8th century and subsequently o f new centres o f activity next to the

most ancient centres: the vicus, castrum ot portus. T h e development is first seen in the valley of

the M euse and appeared later along the course o f the Scheldt and in the Scheldt estuary. Trad­

ing in these centres was largely local. O n the other hand the ephemeral “ports o f trade”, which

appeared along the N orth Sea coasts between the 7th and 9th centuries, effectively played a

“gateway” role, and saw international trading. These “wiks”, which were often founded by

Royal decree, were compulsory stopping posts for travelling merchants, were the place where

custom dues were collected, and where foreign coinage not current in the realm o f the Franks

could be changed or overstruck. Like the other “ancient” settlements which attracted a vicus

ox portus in the 9th century, they served a central function and the roots o f their development

were nourished by a structured hinterland. T h e distribution o f archaeological findings indi­

cates that with the exception o f pottery, which tended to be concentrated in the largest pro­

duction centres, craft work was basically a domestic business. Traces o f bone and horn carv­

ing, leather working, and metal-working are typical o f all o f these sites and is suggestive o f a

population o f specialist craftworkers, something which can also be found in the centres o f the

M euse valley (Maastricht, H u y and Namur).42 Textile production before the year one thou­

sand tended to be more o f a country activity, with centres in estate workshops and above in all

vast numbers o f domestic looms in peasant farms. Rural linen and cloth were supplied to the

great abbeys from their holdings in the N orth-W est, in Flanders, Frisia, and Northern Ger­

many.

In the past historians thought that upstream o f the “trading frontier” on which Dorestad

lay, the territory o f the South Netherlands and the M euse valley were covered and crossed

by international trading routes. Since the publication o f Rousseau’s book, it has been real­

ized that the M euse area had a head start over the Flanders in commercial and urban devel-

opment.43 There is no trace o f any significant commercial activity in the Scheldt valley

before the end o f the 8th century. T h e entire region was isolated from the main trading

routes, which tended to run a little further to the south (Quentovic) or more to the north

(Dom burg on W alcheren and Dorestad). A s for the coast, it had been deserted since the

incursion o f the sea in the 3rd century. T h e network o f towns was largely subordinated to

central functions.44

T he Meuse Region

T h e hypothesis o f the synchronous development o f the towns o f the Meuse in terms o f both

their nature and their scale must likewise be abandoned before the idea o f variable rates o f

growth and the diversity o f urban types. River traffic generated by trade appears to have

occurred both upstream and downstream. T h e centre o f gravity o f the M euse Region was to

the north, in the delta o f the M euse and Rhine, where the Frisians had since about 600 orga­

nized a major clearing house for trade between the Frankish world, the British Isles and

Northern Europe. Maastricht appears to have been a gateway which was linked to Dorestad.

In the 7th century the upstream valley did not play the role o f major corridor for international

trade so often attributed to it.45 T h e four portus o f the M euse valley: Maastricht, Huy, Namur

and Dinant formed an enduring armature o f urban development between the 6th and the 10th

centuries. Here there is evidence that the land was divided into parcels, and were subject to a

tax payable solely in coin. There are also numerous traces o f oratoria. These are not primitive

churches, rather they existed to serve the needs o f the inhabitants o f the portus.46 A t M aas­

tricht there were numerous foreign merchants living in the vicus.47 It may be assumed that a

similar state o f affairs existed in the other portus o f the Meuse and that these merchants

attended to the links with the hinterland. However, archaeology and written sources only pro­

vide us with direct evidence o f craft and trading activities before the year 800 in Maastricht

and Huy. Numismatic history attests to the unity o f the Meuse area, where a degree o f trade

was common, although it was limited to a single area and prior to the second half o f the 10th

century without any opening to neighbouring regions such as the Frankish Rhineland in the

east and the old Neustrian lands to the west.48 Trade in the Meuse region had been even more

localized, as indicated by the relations established by the vici in the Meuse valley with the hin­

terland and the birth in the Carolingian period o f rural markets and fairs just large enough to

serve the needs o f a local area, such as Saint-Hubert near Bastogne. A t Fosses, merchants

came to the fair to sell and to buy. Based as it was on the relationship between town and coun­

try, the regional economy o f the M euse area turned on craft production, local markets, and the

central religious or political functions o f the palaces, abbeys, towns and the larger villages.49

-All in all the significance o f the M euse region owes far more to its place in the power struc­

tures o f the Carolingian kings - palaces, great estates, monasteries, than role o f its river as “a

running road”.50

A fter the decline which started in the period 820-830, the “wiks” o f the N orth Sea coast

(Domburg, Dorestad, Quentovic, and Yserae Portus in the Southern Netherlands) disap­

peared during the 2nd half o f 9th and the 10th centuries. There are no simple explanations

(military, economic or political) for their disappearance. This, however, does not mean that

trade came to an end in this part o f Europe. T h e Viking raids did not make the old established

settlements disappear. T o the contrary it could well be that they benefited from the disappear­

ance o f the emporia and were able to attract the flows o f international trade in the Scheldt and

Meuse valleys and at T ie l and Deventer in East Holland. D id some sort o f passing o f the

baton take place in the Scheldt valley, as Verhuist suggests might have happened in Antwerp

in the latter half o f the 9th century?51 T h e rarity and fragility o f the sources for the first half o f

the 10th century oblige us to be cautious. It would be too bold to follow Rousseau and speak

o f the continuity o f urban life from the 5th to the 12th century.52 W e have only a very approx­

imate idea o f the development o f the economy in the Frankish world during the 9th and the

10th centuries. W ithout a doubt there were a series o f crises, perhaps between 820 and 830, fol­

lowed by a period o f growth, perhaps between 850 and 860. In the Meuse region, the recession,

which was marked by a pronounced decline in the money supply and the emission o f coinage,

was severe between 880 and 950. Examination o f the various forms o f coins provides an insight

into coinage emissions, and we see only 19 sorts o f coins struck in the mints o f the Meuse (with

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

l í in Maastricht) during the first half o f the ioth century. A fter 950, trade revived and we see

107 different sorts being struck (10 o f which were struck in Maastricht).53 Studies o f coin

hoards in the Baltic region dating from the 10th and n th centuries tend to confirm this pic­

ture. Between 950 and 990 no discovered hoards contain pennies struck in the mints o f the

middle Meuse, Utrecht or Frisia. T h e currents o f trade which linked the Germanic world to

the Baltic only brought in Cologne pennies mixed with other imperial coinage. T h e economic

frontier o f the 9 th century between the M euse and Rhine basins still existed in the second half

o f the 10th century. Links to the N orth and the Baltic from the Rhine and M euse delta were

slow to be reestablished. Around the year one thousand, coin hoards show a complete reversal

in their provenance. From then on, Meuse coinage was used in Cologne and was taken to the

east mixed up with Cologne coinage, which is the first evidence for contacts and monetary

flows between the two regions. Later on a significant proportion o f Meuse-struck coins

reached the Baltic, by more direct routes, indicating that other routes for the circulation o f

coins had been established between the Meuse and Eastern Europe.54 B y the close o f the ioth

century, Cologne was playing a leading role as a centre for the trade between Germ any and

Eastern Europe, two centuries before Cologne was to become, as Lamprecht puts it, “T h e

great seaport o f the Empire”.

T h e evolution o f the M euse region between the 9th century and the millennium is well illus­

trated by the rise o f Liège. Originally a small country estate where Bishop Lam bert was mur­

dered in about 700, it became the seat o f the Bishop o f Tongeren (Tongres) during the second

half o f the 8th century. Designated a vicus publicus in 769, the small clerical settlement which

grew up around the Saint Lambert basilica gave Liège a central function, helped no doubt by

the proximity o f the palace at Herstal, which since 769 had been the centre o f a pagellus - a

royal residence and royal mint at the end o f the 8th century. It is not until to the end o f the ioth

century, however, that we find pennies struck bearing the name o f the town. T h e Bishops o f

Liège had certainly struck coins, no doubt within the episcopal precincts, but these bore the

name o f the bishop. T h e vicus o f Liège had the appearance o f an urban agglomeration, with

houses, stone walls and other dwellings when it was flooded in 958. Though laid waste by the

Normans in 881, it was quickly rebuilt. W in e from Worms was sold there in 960. Nonetheless

this town life must have consisted primarily o f passive consumers, clerics and members o f the

bishop’s court and other hangers-on. T h e relatively late appearance in the records o f the col­

lection o f stall dues, in 960, the lack o f any mention o f a river port or a market before the end

o f the n th century makes it probable that Liège continued to be preoccupied w ith its political

and religious functions until the m id-tenth century. A generation later the town was sur­

rounded by a wall, built on the orders o f Bishop N otger (972-1008). Similarly it was in the lat­

ter half o f the same ioth century that the bishops o f Liège built their position as princes hold­

ing temporal sway over extensive lands. Under Bishop Notger Liège embarked on an

ambitious programme o f construction, leaving an indelible mediaeval imprint on the town.55

B y the year one thousand merchants from Liège were trading side by side with merchants from

H u y (Hoei) in London. T h e y regularly travelled in the Rhine valley in the n th century. H ow ­

ever little is known about the precise activitives o f these n th and 12th century merchants,

“W ere they mainly importers o f wine, unfinished wool, or linen or were they rather exporters

o f the products o f Lièges metalworkers and leatherworkers?”56 There is no certain evidence

for the systematic sale o f metal products until the latter half o f the 12th century. Furthermore

Liège linen was little known in other regions before 1250. T h e town never joined either o f the

two great leagues o f trading cities: the London-based Hansa League or the X V II cities. Like

Despy, it appears that one must conclude that the Liège o f the first half o f the 13th century was

primarily concerned with tertiary functions, whose prosperity was based on its central role as

the liturgical and political capital o f the bishop.57 Around 1100, there were eight chapters in the

episcopal cité with roughly 270 prebendaries and two abbeys occupied by between 70 and 80

chorister monks.

Indeed one has to look to the bishop and the Church in Liège to understand the links

between the production o f artistic and cultural works, power centres and the accumulation o f

DU

wealth. Before 972, the bishops held property and rights in the most important centres o f the

M euse region, as well as various large abbeys such as Saint-Hubert and Lobbes. Under N o t-

ger, the H oly Roman Emperor, O tto II, granted general immunity for the Saint-Lambert pos­

sessions. In 985, O tto II, granted the Com té o f H u y to Notger. In 987, he added the Com té o f

Brugeron between the G ete (Gette) and the D ijle (Dyle) rivers, the market dues and coinage

o f Maastricht, the abbeys o f Lobbes, Fosses, and Gembloux, and in 992 the abbey o f Brogne.

B y the time Notger died, the foundations o f a solid temporal principality had been laid, form­

ing a welcome buffer between the H oly Roman Empire and the ambitions o f the French kings

in Lotharingia (Lorraine) and, very soon, the expansionist plans o f the Counts o f Flanders.

N or did the accretion o f property come to a halt in the n th century. In 1040 the Com té o f

Haspinga, lying between the Geer and the M euse, was added, while the Com té o f Hainaut was

enfeoffed in io7i.S8 B y the time the generosity o f the H oly Roman Emperors comes to an end

towards the close o f the n th century, the “... riches o f the Church in Liège allow her to buy vir­

tually anything it wants and to nourish the heritage o f Saint Lambert simply by paying for

it”.59 Between 1071 and 1096, Bishops Théoduin and O tbert spent 100 gold pounds on such

operations and over 2000 silver marks. Their wealth sprung from the exercise o f royal prerog­

atives and their vast estates, whose revenues all flowed into Liège. These were collected and

checked by a system established during the n th century comprising a clerical arm (the cathe­

dral chapters, collegial churches and abbeys, archdeaconates, deaconates and parishes), a mil­

itary arm (fortresses commanded by constables invested by the bishop); and an estate arm

(forty or so centres o f operations spread evenly over the lands o f Saint Lambert, which were

entrusted to members o f the episcopal familia). In order to maintain authority over the lands

the Prince Bishops adopted a system o f clientism. “To the nobles they granted fiefs, to the

emerging burgesses they granted charters o f liberties”.60 Examples include H u y in 1066, Sint

Truiden (Saint-Trond) in 1146, and Liège at the end o f the 12th century. T his powerfiil appa­

ratus made the Church the most powerful political force throughout the Meuse region. In

1107, abbé Etienne de Saint-Jacques declared, “N othing can equal the power o f the bishops

whose court and opulence rivals that o f the kings themselves”.61 T h e clergy o f Liège, recount­

ing the battle o f Steppes in 1213, makes W illiam o f Salisbury, half-brother o f John Lackland

(King John o f England), say these bitter words, “Perish those who have given such power to a

priest”.62

T h e Scheldt Region

T h e first indications o f territorial cohesion in Flanders begin to emerge in 862 with the suc­

cess o f Baldwin I (Baudouin/Boudewijn), a Carolingian count, who carried off and subse­

quently wed the daughter o f Charles the Bald, Judith, already twice widowed by a King o f

Wessex. W ith his appearance and that o f his son Baldwin II, the Counts o f Flanders com­

menced a long period in which they played a key political role in the W est o f the Frankish

Kingdom. Certain basic traits o f the policies o f the Counts o f Flanders emerged by the end o f

the 9th century and during the 10 century. These included matrimonial policies aimed at cre­

ating closer relations with the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms; taking an active part in French affairs

o f state; and territorial expansion, although to the south this came up against the new-found

might o f the Dukes o f Normandy. T h e first “Grand Marquis”, Arnold I, son o f Baldwin II,

ruled lands which stretched from the Somme and the Canche to the Zwin. His successors were

soon to direct their expansionist dreams towards the East. Mediaeval chroniclers were well

aware o f the paradoxical nature o f the extraordinary success o f the Flemish “princes”, who

reigned over a “terre brehaigne, peu valant et plaine de palus” (a barren land, worthless and full

o f marshes).63 T h e apparent paradox hides three fundamental elements which underpinned

the spectacular economic and urban growth o f the County, namely long-term rural expansion

since the Carolingian era; the establishment o f power structures which had been based on for­

tifications and sites o f refuge since the end o f the 9th century; and the rise o f the towns with

rights, liberties and their own administrative system.

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

T h e Flemish Countryside

T h e rapid growth o f the Flemish towns during the course of the n th and the 12th centuries can

only be understood if the vital role o f agriculture is acknowledged. In the nineteen-sixties the

question o f the respective interaction o f demographic expansion and rural growth lead to

fierce argument between neo-Malthusians, who stressed the key importance o f technical

innovation, and sociologists such as Boserup, who considered that demographic pressure led

to both expansion and deepening in all areas.64 T h e acceleration o f demographic growth

already observable in the 8th century, and which was sustained throughout the n th , 12th and

13th centuries was not the result o f a “technical revolution” in the year one thousand.65 T h e

majority o f the technical innovations o f the M iddle Ages, such as the heavy plough, harnesses,

and watermills, were already known in ancient times.66 W hat happened in the M iddle A ges

was that an awareness o f these techniques was spread and that they became integrated into

farming practice. Demographic pressure was an important factor “either as the direct cause or

indirectly as a catalyst” in the astonishing increase in the area o f land under cultivation.67 T h e

trend to clearing new land for cultivation and putting other land to good use by empolderment

or the construction o f dykes, the multiplication or expansion o f centres o f settlement, and the

colonization o f entire new areas, between the ioth and the end o f the 13th century, did by no

means proceed in linear fashion, in time or in space. It has been the great land clearances

which have really captured the imagination o f historians. Nonetheless the greatest impact on

country life and the elements which nourished the rise o f the towns was made by the intensi­

fication and specialization o f farming. T h e very real economic boom experienced during the

central period o f the M iddle Ages was not due to the “great clearances but the phase follow­

ing them, the return to interregional trade in agricultural products”.68

In Flanders the apogee o f the clearances was reached in the n th and 12th centuries, a cen­

tury before the remainder o f the Southern Netherlands.69 It is evident that since the 9th cen­

tury the clearances were above all the result o f the more intensive occupation o f ancient lands.

This element is also applicable to the great clearances after the year one thousand, which were

launched from long-populated areas. T h e most densely populated regions in the 12th century

were G ent, where clearances had started in the ioth century and Dendermonde, Aalst (Alost)

and Diksmuide (Dixmude). T h e improvement o f depopulated regions during the Early M id ­

dle A ges was part o f the second wave o f clearances which started at the end o f the n th and con­

tinued during the 12th century. A fter a pause in clearances between about 1175 to 1215, the

improvement o f the extensive heathlands in the Northern Flanders continued well into the

13th century. T h e first phase o f the expansion o f agricultural land consisted o f putting the old

lands into use until saturation point was reached. A third o f the new concentrations o f popu­

lation which appeared in the n th century were located in the G ent area. T h e density o f the

rural population in the n th century explains the rapidity o f urban growth. H ardly a few

decades before, leper ( Ypres), where in 1127 a fair was held that attracted merchants from far-

o ff Italy, was hardly more than a hamlet where an estate collection office was sited. Calais was

a tiny fishing village in 1165, but by 1300 had become a town with a population o f 15,000, rep­

resenting a tripling in population with every generation. Saint-Om er is known to have tripled

its population every century.70 G ent, Bruges, and leper reached the peak o f their development

in the 13th century, with populations o f 64,000, 42,000 and 35,000 respectively.71 B y the mid-

14th century, about 40 % o f the Flemish population lived in towns.

T h e expansion of the land area under cultivation is insufficient in itself to resolve the para­

dox o f Flemish agriculture, where we see an awkward environment, frequently poor soils (par­

ticularly when compared to neighbouring Picardy); combined with advanced techniques

(horses, intensive crop rotation, forage crops, etc.); as well as a spectacular rise in yields, which

can only be explained by the dynamism o f the small Flemish farm. T h e best modern hypoth­

esis is inspired by the idea that the rural economy in the County o f Flanders had since the n th

century been rooted in a macro-economic agrarian “ecosystem”, based partly on pronounced

regional specialization in three different areas: i) the coastal strip, which specialized in stock-

farming products; 2) the southern part o f the County with its loam soils, which was the gra­

nary o f the County and exported cereals along the Scheldt and Leie (Lys) to the cities o f the

North; and 3) the sandy soils o f the Flemish heartland, where a type o f extensive cash-crop

farming grew up which supplied the needs o f ale brewers.72

T h e coastal region was taken into use in progressive steps. T h e first shepherding operations

appeared on artificial mounds in the centre o f salt marshes known as schorren in the 8th cen­

tury, but it was not until the 10th century that the first villages appeared. T h e saline land was

originally drained naturally via the channels taken by the flood water. In the following century,

however, following the third Dunkirk incursion, the first small collective dykes (seawalls or

embankments) begin to appear. These were then followed in about 1050 by major works such

as the O ude Zeedijk east o f Veurne (Fumes). T h e second phase, which started in about 1130,

saw the construction o f what might be termed offensive dykes rather than defensive dykes.

These were built with the object o f reclaiming land or “polders” from the sea. T h e desalination

o f the soil led to the creation o f new resources. U ntil the end o f the 12th century, land recla­

mation was primarily left to a few large abbeys, like the A b bey o f the Dunes (near Veurne). In

the 13th century, the nobility and patrician burgesses took a part in dyke construction enter­

prises. T h e activities o f the coastal communities existing before the establishment o f new ports

by the 13 th century Counts included fishing, cattle-farming and the handling o f goods in tran­

sit. T h e oldest markets in the towns such as G en t and Bruges were fish markets. Stock farm­

ing was, however, the main activity o f the entire coastal region. Great herds o f cattle and sheep

were raised for meat, dairy products, leather and wool and sent to towns inland. T h e growth

in the number o f polders allowed the expansion o f grazing land and cultivated fields. B y end

o f the 12th century cash crops such as madder were being raised. Other products o f growing

importance were sea salt and peat.73

Nowadays historians think that agriculture adopted intensive methods between the 12th and

13 th centuries, before the economic crisis o f the Late M iddle A ges.74 Three yearly rotation was

practised on the rich soils in the south o f the County even in Carolingian times by the great

estate.75 In 1120 it was being used on the land o f the A b b ey o f Marchiennes between the Lys

and the Scheldt to the north o f the Lille. T h e “Gros B rief” o f 1187 shows that it was widely

used by the great estates in the County north o f Lille. T h e long application o f crop rotation

would explain why in the mid-i3th century other ways o f intensifying farming methods were

sought on the loam soils o f Southern Flanders where cereal cropping had approached the lim­

its o f its possibilities both in terms o f yields and area.76 Vetch was sown on old fallow and cat­

tle allowed to graze it. A s a result the field would become enriched by natural manure and the

nitrogen fixed by the vetch. T his practice became widespread in the mid-i3th century in the

Tournai-Lille region and in Haspengouw (Hesbaye). T h e practice o f catch-cropping (or inter­

cropping) opened new ecological prospects making it possible to achieve a diversification o f

cultivated products, improved stock yields, organic and green manures, which in turn made it

possible to grow other crops. For example woad, a demanding cash crop grown for dyers, made

its first appearance in the 13th century.77 T h e practice o f growing forage and industrial crops

was introduced mainly by peasant farmers, and was often prohibited on the great tenanted

farms. Throughout the M iddle A ges the line between intensive and extensive farming prac­

tice largely coincides with the fine between the small and the large farmer.

T h e light sandy soils o f inland Flanders produced mainly rye and oats and were farmed on

the “dries” system (a type o f outfield rotation system). Rye was the staple o f the peasant diet,

while the oats were used to feed the horses and make ale. T h e woodlands, which were still

fairly extensive in the n th and 12th centuries, were used for raising pigs. T h a t pigs were a reg­

ular feature o f the diet in the M iddle A ges has been confirmed by archaeological finds in Gent.

Nonetheless it is likely that inland Flanders played a much more limited role in the mediaeval

trading economy, than did the coastal strip or the south o f the County.78

T h e importance o f oats in Flemish agriculture also explains the early abandonment o f oxen

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

as draught animals in favour o f the horse. Indeed the horse was probably already being used by

Flemish farmers in the year iooo. Even though further investigation is required, it appears

that oxen had been all but completely replaced by the second half o f the 12th century. A s it was

quicker than the ox and more suitable for small intensive farms, the horse could plough much

greater areas. W ith the concurrent improvement o f the cart, peasant farmers could travel fur­

ther than the nearby villages and even reach the smaller towns. T h e abandonment o f the ox as

a draught animal also made it possible to concentrate cattle-farming activities on dairy and

beef production. Other elements o f technical advance, such as water resource management

and peat cutting, are indicative o f the advanced state o f Flemish farming in the n th and 12th

centuries.79

Flanders therefore developed an original system for diversifying its agricultural production,

which encompassed a better balance with cattle farming and regional specialization, which

began to appear in the 12th century. Such trade flows would not have been possible without the

establishment o f a true regional economy covering the entire County and neighbouring

regions. T h e loam plains o f French Flanders, Artois and Picardy (the territorial losses o f the

County did not affect trading patterns) were the granary which nourished the valleys o f the

Leie (Lys) and Scheldt. Examination o f the urban development o f the cereal regions shows

that simply equating cereal production w ith urban growth is fallacious. There is no large town

at all in the rich lands o f Picardy. Towns do not grow up spontaneously in the country. Stock-

farming goes a long way to explaining the dynamism o f the Flemish countryside. Between the

8th and the 12th centuries, intensive sheep farming on the “schorren” and peat soils permitted

the production o f vast quantities o f wool, which were carried via the estate network to G en t in

the year 1000. In the 12th century, Flanders was blessed with a coast which produced a wealth

o f saleable goods (unprocessed wool, meat, dairy products, fish, salt, peat, and madder), as well

as densely populated regions around G ent, leper and Aalst with a possibly more fragile nutri­

tional balance, and intensifying agricultural practice on the most fertile lands combined w ith

easy access to cereal resources.

T h e hypothetical early specialization o f the coastal strip should not result in the progress

made by stock farmers elsewhere being ignored. W hen Galbert de Bruges writes about peas­

ant life between the Scheldt and Leie he confirms this, as do the toponymie distributions o f

place names relating to sheep farming in inland Flanders, wool production in Artois and the

Tournai area in the early n th century or the importance o f the drovers’ roads (Middle D utch:

herdgang) uncovered by archaeologists in the G ent area.80 T h e prosperity o f stock farming in

Flanders was striking enough for contemporaries to remark on it. Sometime between 1055 and

1065, Archbishop Gervais o f Reims expressed his admiration to Count Baldwin V o f the lat­

ter’s success in making, “ ... by his invention and energy (...) a land [fertile] that only a short

time ago was hardly good for farming at all (...), to such an extent that it surpasses in this

respect lands more suited to production; (...) so that it produces from its bosom fruit in abun­

dance and a profusion o f harvests; making it smile on those who till it and swell so with fecun­

dity that it even provides enough to fatten the beasts in the fields and meadows”.81

T h e Role o f the Prince?

There remains one particularly thorny question. Nam ely should the growth o f the rural econ­

omy be explained by the independence and dynamism o f the Flemish peasantry and the m od­

erate demands o f the lords regarding newly cleared land82 or was it rather a matter o f

seigneural initiative? T h e idea o f internally fuelled growth runs into certain theoretical and

practical objections. A n intensification o f farm practice on small peasant farms is not a sus­

tained and irreversible process. It could be nipped in the bud by population growth and an

abundance o f cheap agricultural labour. Large farms also found ways o f adapting to the mar­

ket by entering into tenancy agreements. T h e growing practice o f collecting taxes in coin

encouraged the development o f the intensive use o f money in the countryside.83

T h e Flemish boom and the transfer o f capital away from the countryside could have been

64

stimulated by the residential and consumption patterns o f the Flemish elite. T h e C ount o f

Flanders established a princely court and gathered the most powerful lords around him dur­

in g the n th century. In Brabant, the D u ke did not attempt to call his great noblemen to court

before the close o f the M iddle A ges.84 T h e C o u n t’s coffers appear to have been well-filled with

gold and silver, precious stones and valuable linen (!) since the reign o f Baldwin V. It is hardly

surprising that both the murderers and avengers o f Charles the G ood searched for them in

vain. T h e luxurious life of the Count and the nobility was a stimulus to industry and trade. T h e

charitable acts o f the Count attracted the poor to the towns, to whom he gave food, money and

clothing (!).

Galbert de Bruges’s enumeration o f the measures taken by the Charles the G ood for the

alleviation o f the famine o f 1124-1126 is a good indication o f the extent to which the town dom­

inated the countryside in the early 12th century and the degree to which the Count could influ­

ence the economy. Halfway through Lent in 1125, the bread ran out. Peasant farmers from

G en t and the Leie to the Scheldt had no option but to slaughter their livestock in order to feed

their families. T h e famine caused hundreds o f deaths in the countryside and peasants flocked to

the towns. T h e Count dealt severely with those wealthy hoarders who had been speculating in

grain, which in itself illustrates the not inconsiderable economic role played by the rich in the

trade in agricultural produce. H e suspended brewing operations and fixed wine prices in order

to encourage cereal imports. H e gave orders for bread to be made from oats and regulated loaf

sizes. H e ruled that one unit o f agricultural land in all parts o f the County should be sown with

beans and peas in order to bring the next harvest forward. H e instructed all his estates to

maintain a hundred poor people and suspended the payment o f tenancy dues.85 From this it is

possible to conclude that such a thing as a commodity foodstuffs market existed in Flanders

in the early 12th century, which it was possible to push in the direction o f cereal purchases and

bread production by forbidding the brewing o f beer and cutting purchases o f wine from the

French wine-producing regions o f Laon, Beauvais and Reims. There is nothing to indicate

that the players in this market were primarily professional merchants. T h e speculators were

the rich and probably belonged to the elite who lived in the town. A s the story o f the uprisings

in Laon in 1112 and Bruges in 1127 tells, the nobles, senior clerics and important officials had

“hôtels” or residences in town, where they stored the foodstuffs collected from the country.

T h e political decisions o f Count Charles are striking for their diversity and their nature.

However, we must ask ourselves what they say about the role o f politics and the social fabric in

the growth o f rural and urban Flanders. Jan D hondt regarded the complex o f “castle, collegiate

church, and fair” as the fruit o f the C ou nt’s initiatives in the m id-nth century.86 Hans Van

W erveke spoke o f the economic policies o f his successor, Philippe d ’Alsace, typified by the

foundation o f a series o f ports along the Flemish coast,87 which were the key element o f a new

drainage system and the exploitation o f the coastal plains o f Flanders.88 A n d as we have seen

the Bishop o f Reims was fulsome in his praise o f Baldwin V, whom he saw as responsible for

the new fertility o f the Flemish lands.

T h e references to a surge in violence in n th and early 12th century Flemish sources have led

D avid Nicholas to draw a picture o f a Flanders which is “rough, violent and badly governed

. . .” at the end o f the n th century.89 Galbert o f Bruges’s story, however, makes Charles the

G ood the heir to a tradition o f peace and public order guaranteed by the Counts. O n e o f the

most serious crimes o f the Erembalds was the breach o f the C o u n t’s peace and the conduct o f

a private war. T h e recurrence o f the theme o f violence in the chronicles is not an indication o f

the existence o f unbridled barbarism, but a reflection by contemporaries o f the feeling that

they were witnessing a confrontation between the public peace and private violence. In the

period between the m id-nth century and the early 12th century, the Counts o f Flanders made

every effort to enforce the C ou nt’s peace (truce, peace o f the town and the market, free pas­

sage for merchants) throughout the County. Historians tend to be more willing to point out

the role o f the Counts in the development o f the towns and urban trade than in the country­

side. Nonetheless one is inclined to think that the limitation on lordly violence in the form o f

the public peace and early development o f a network o f smaller towns accessible to country-

TwLxt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

dwellers must have helped to foster the return to rural growth in the n th and 12th centuries.

T h e history o f Charles the G ood as recorded b y Galbert o f Bruges is based on a paradigm

(which may have been inspired by the author’s social environment), namely the effect o f the

social forces unleashed by the murder in 1127 o f the Count. T h e Count, the guarantor o f the

Peace, encourages foreign merchants to come to the fairs o f Flanders. W e learn o f the unbri­

dled rise and wealth o f Bertulf and his fellows, w e see the formation o f a new elite o f clerics,

administrators and soldiers growing up which owes its prosperity to the Count. W e read o f the

robber knights and bandits who prey on the roads, careless o f death, in order to capture and

ransom the merchants. H e argues for the Count and the urban economy to take control o f the

peasant economy rather than for internally driven rural growth.

T h e Developm ent o f the Flemish Towns

For Henri Pirenne, the development o f the towns in the Southern Netherlands was ideal

material for drawing a general picture in support o f his hypotheses. T h e towns were estab­

lished in the n th century under the impulse o f the revival o f international trade. There origins

could be traced to a common characteristic, “T h e Flemish town was born o f the juxtaposition

o f a stronghold and a merchant settlement where, to borrow the terms used in the sources

there was a castrum and a portus1. For Pirenne, a castrum was not a town, it was not even urban

in nature. O nly the fact o f its pre-existence determined the location o f commercial and indus­

trial settlements.90 Archaeological discoveries show that this general picture was in reality far

more complicated and much more diverse both in space and in time. For example, at both

G en t and Valenciennes there was a portus before any fortifications were built. Furthermore not

all Flemish strongholds were built as defences against the Norsemen, examples include several

pre-urban sites such as in all likelihood Bruges in the middle o f the 9th century, Saint-Om er

before 891, Tournai in 898, Cambrai (Kamerijk) between 888 and 901. T h e main fortification

works at G ent and Douai date only from the middle o f the ioth century.91 A dm ittedly whereas

part o f the fortifications were built in response to a clear and present danger, the castle is

essentially “the material expression o f the establishment o f a feudal power”.92

T h e numerous case studies that have appeared in recent decades reveal a reality which was

far more complex and varied both in time and space than the simple dualism o f stronghold and

settlement. Antwerp had had military function since the 8th century. A trading settlement

sprung up a kilometre downstream which survived the sack o f the castrum by the Vikings in

836.93 However, the seeds o f the modern town only germinated after 980, when the ancient

vicus was fortified and transformed into a castrum (H et Steen) and merchants settled outside

its walls. A fish market (Vismarkt) which grow up below the walls suggests that like Bruges

and G en t the main activity o f the new settlement was to provision the castle. In the 7th cen­

tury G ent started to coalesce around two centres, the A bbey of Saint Peter and the A bbey o f

Saint Bavo, both o f which administered large estates. T h e merchant settlement o f the 9th cen­

tury was located on the Scheldt about 500 metres upstream o f Saint Bavo. T h e second portus

in G en t referred to in the sources appeared in the middle o f the ioth century on the banks o f

the Leie (Lys), at the foot o f the new castle built by the Count o f Flanders.94

T h e impressive size o f the C ou nt’s estates in the northern part of Flanders at the end o f the

ioth century has already been referred to. In this region the Count was by far the largest land­

holder. Farming methods, the nature and direction o f the circuits used for transferring farm

surpluses, consumer and trading patterns affecting estate produce would therefore have had a

considerable impact on the regional trading economy.

However our attention should first go to the particular pattern o f incastellamento in Flan­

ders. T h e Flemish plain saw a spate o f castle building both at the end o f the 9th century and

the close o f the ioth century. T h e y had a characteristic plan, being either circular (Bourbourg,

Bergues-Saint-W innoc, Veurne (Furnes), Diksm uide (Dixmude), and Gistel) or semi-circu-

lar and protected on one side by a river (Saint-Om er, Arras, leper (Ypres), Armentières, Kor­

trijk (Courtrai), Tournai (Doornik), G ent, Ninove, and Aalst (Alost). Some o f these had been

built on an emerging pre-urban site (Bruges, G ent, and Saint-Om er).95 Walled refiiges built

in flat countryside often gave rise to a small mediaeval town.96 Their development contrasts

sharply with that o f isolated strongholds like the large castles built by the Bishops o f Liège in

the M euse region.

A s o f the early n th century, this network o f defences formed the basis o f a new way o f divid­

ing the County into administrative districts. T h e new districts were smaller than the Carolin­

gian ̂ >«g-¿ they replaced. T h e y were administered by a “castellan” (or viscount) appointed by the

Count, and the castrum became the main centre o f the “castellany”. In addition to the tradi­

tional military and legal functions these centres were granaries, the place where the revenues

o f the Count and the resources o f his domain were concentrated and redistributed.

O n e key characteristic o f the urbanization process in Flanders was therefore the density o f

its network o f secondary centres. T h e interplay o f castrum and portus, which Pirenne regarded

as fundamental to the growth o f the big towns, probably had the greatest effect in these smaller

centres, where the initiative o f the Count meant that there were mouths to feed (the milites

castri, sergeants, clerks, and petty officials, domestics, leatherworkers and blacksmiths, etc.).

T h e construction o f various residences (the Flemish court continued to travel hither and

thither in the County well into the 12th century) and, by establishing canonical chapters in

some o f them, the Count helped to increase the demand for commercial and craft activities.

T h e “Gros B rief” o f 1187 gives quite a good idea o f the stimulating role the establishment o f a

collection office for the C ou nt’s estate dues could play; and which could result in a concentric

estate organization issuing ultimately into épiers (granaries), lardaría, vaccariae (for dairy

products) and local counting houses to handle the money; and in consumption (for mainte­

nance or payment in kind or by the establishment o f fief-rents or charity rents) ; and the sale of

part o f the farm produce by the collectors, etc.97

Regional Economy, the Urban Phenomenon and Trade Circuits

T h e network o f secondary centres was complemented by a primary system o f local and

regional fairs. T h e oldest o f these was the Saint Bavo fair, which would start on the 1st of

October. Undoubtedly o f spontaneous origin, it appears in the records shortly after the year

1000. Hagiographies o f the n th and 12th centuries reveal the importance o f the G ent market

as an outlet for products such as wool and ale from the upper Scheldt valley. There is abundant

reference to the plentifulness o f money and the crowds thronging to the fair. Prior to 1100, fairs

are reported in various pre-urban centres such as Saint-O m er (about 1050), D ouai (1076), A ar­

denburg (about 1100), and on central monastic estates such as W ormhout (1076), Torhout

(about 1084), Tronchiennes (1087) and Messines (end o f the n th century (?)). T h e fairs o f leper

and Lille were subjected to the M arket Peace in 1127. Texts from the 12th century illustrate the

primitive nature o f the Flemish fairs as interregional centres for primary farm produce.98

A s o f the 8th century and to a large extent in the following centuries, the great abbeys con­

trolled traffic areas by means o f estate curtes, whose central establishments had to take turns in

supplying the abbey. This was the system employed at Saint-Wandrille near Rouen in 719-739 and at Corbie in 822." These systems, which supplied the needs o f the Frankish state and its

superstructures, are linked as we have seen to the great “portes” (lit. gateways) o f the Carolin­

gian period on the western coast trading frontier. T h e great innovation o f a network like the

one established in Flanders in the n th and 12th centuries has nothing to do with its topology,

rather it lies in its evolutionary nature o f the centres (estate curtes or castra), the character o f

the main actors (nobility, clerical or secular administrative elite), and in the nature o f the traf­

fic from the periphery to the centre (centralized consumption and sale or a partial transfer to

the peripheries). W hen reduced to simple formulations, the evolutionary nature o f each o f

these nodal points in the Flemish model is expressed as a series o f dynamic factors: the tradi­

tional central functions such as justice and administration, infrastructure (the defence appara­

tus, church, markets, etc.), the existence o f a consuming population, demand for services

(craftsmen, retailers), supplies o f farm products sold at market prices by the recipients, and

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

guarantees o f peace and safety. A s for traffic itself, it clearly develops in relation to supply,

regional specialization and demand. Peat, salt and fish are sent to the markets in the towns,

where they are sold by retailers. In 1187, the administrators o f the C o u n t’s estates allow the

local collectors to choose either to consume or sell farm surpluses. From then on it tends to be

money, rather than estate carts, that travels from the periphery to the centre. Finally the trad­

ing networks are not confined to a single physical organization. Traffic networks and areas

instituted by the Count, church organizations great and small, and the nobility cross one

another continuously. In G ent, wool arrives via estate routes o f the Abbeys o f Saint Peter and

Saint Bavo and by merchant traders on the Scheldt. A t those places where for geographical or

political reasons concentration or redistribution points coincide the evolutionary nature o f the

system is amplified. Pierre Toubert describes a parallel development in Northern Italy, where

as o f 920, a degree o f fortification was given to numerous curtes, often accompanied by a mar­

ket. Trading networks then grew up that tended to favour the “'castelli curtensi' and the close

relationship between curtis, castrum and mercatum. It is “highly revealing o f the positive

adjustments to the commercial boom and the current redistribution o f population patterns

and local power structures”.100

T h e establishment and consolidation o f networks o f power, production and trade appear to

have been one o f the forces driving the transformation o f mediaeval society. According to a

formula already enunciated by Henri Pirenne, the mediaeval town is the point o f convergence

o f a regionally integrated market system, with fiilly articulated production and distribution

systems. A town comes into existence by its ability to control an “area di strada” and organize

itself around and towards its rural hinterland (with a multiplicity o f actors, interests and power

structures). In the early 11 th century the interplay o f taxation and exemption helps to confirm

the power o f the town markets over the countryside. W ith exemptions being granted to the

populations o f about a hundred surrounding villages, people flocked to the market in Reims,

or, at the same period, to the men o f the.familia o f Saint Vaast, who lived in a 60 km circle cen­

tred on Arras (Atrecht) ,101 T h e peasant farmer came to the market with his cart, to sell primary

products, wood for heating, unfinished wool, and above all cereal products. M ore importantly,

however, he also came to buy things such as wine and beer, salt, fish, lumber and finished iron.

T h e dominance o f the town over the surrounding area will ultimately come with the rise o f

linen-weaving in the towns to the detriment o f the peasants in the surroundings who work

wool and flax.102

Two major problems are left. T h e first is the question o f where the ways o f the proto-urban

settlements o f the Early M iddle Ages, which became small towns serving largely rural needs

(such as Gembloux or Saint-Hubert) and those which gave rise to towns thriving on com­

merce and production begin to part. T h e second concerns the links between the rather coarse

estate networks that served rural needs and the main arteries o f trade.

In Toubert’s view, it was the same networks that were used for a superimposed flow o f non­

local trade, sometimes by persons whose status was ambiguous, such as agents o f the king and

certain large abbeys instructed with seeking goods which could not be obtained locally further

afield, and sometimes merchants working for their own account. Franz Irsigler thinks that the

Frankish merchants slowly eclipsed foreigners, who could have been Frisians or Jews, and who

hitherto had dominated long distance trade. B y the end o f a long period o f slow change

accompanied by ever greater professionalism, at least some o f these n th century “long-dis­

tance merchants” were the heirs o f these local estate merchants. Although more independent,

many o f them continued to be protected by the Church in order to enjoy various commercial

immunities.103 T h is attractive hypothesis nonetheless strands on the hiatus in the documen­

tary record o f the first half o f the ioth century. A fter the decline o f the emporia located in the

Northern Netherlands, the commercial role o f the Frisians was eclipsed for more than a

century. It was only at the end o f the ioth century and more clearly at the start o f the n th cen­

tury that we see Frisian merchants trying to feel their way back into their traditional markets.

T h e y pop up on the Rhine route, never totally abandoned, and further afield as far as the

Western routes towards England and the Nordic countries. B y the year one thousand they

68

have contacts in the N orth Sea area with other coastal peoples, including Scandinavians,

A nglo-D anes and Anglo-Saxons, O ld Saxons from Bremen and Hamburg, Rhenish folk from

Cologne and Duisburg, Flemings and people from the Meuse. D id those competitors “rush to

fill the gap left vacant by Frisian merchants and the decline o f Dorestad” in the first years o f

the ioth century?104 A ll along the Meuse, there is hardly a sign o f a revival o f interregional

trade before the second half o f the ioth century. It is unlikely that the portus o f the towns on

the banks o f the Scheldt played a significant role in international trade before the close o f the

ioth century. 105Nonetheless the presence o f 9th, ioth and n th century ceramics imported from

Northern France and the Rhine in Gent, Bruges, Antwerp and elsewhere seems to indicate a

certain continuity o f interregional contacts, which were in all probability commercial in

nature.106 T h e sudden halt to growth caused by the Norse incursions was not irreparable. For

the time being though it must be acknowledged that we do not know all the participants in

trading relations in the ioth century. T h e idea o f agents acting for the estates being slowly

transformed into “long-distance merchants”107 or the hypothesis o f the Frisian gap being filled

by local merchants108 must be carefiilly explored by future research. A ll we can say about n th

and 12th century merchants is that we know little about them.109 W e know nothing o f the sta­

tus (where they free or protected?) o f the merchants who start to be mentioned in textual

records shortly after the year 1000. For example, we know o f a certain Robert, the son o f

Alward o f Saint-Omer, who sells linen in Barcelona, and we know about all those from Flan­

ders, Ponthieu, Normandy and France, and from Huy, Liège and Nivelles, who pay stall dues

to the Port o f London on the Tham es. Some o f the merchants o f Arras (mentioned in a text

whose date is still uncertain (1030-1040) were part o f ú it familia o f Saint-Vaast in the early n th

century. In the I2th-i3th centuries the wine traders o f G en t were still paying dues to the abbeys

o f Saint Peter and Saint Bavo.110 W e must also ask if the dusty travellers - adventurers who

spent most o f the year tramping the roads were particularly numerous.111 Towards the end o f

the n th century we know that at Valenciennes guild brothers travelled in armed caravans for a

three day march from the town. Shortly after the year one thousand, a merchant from Tournai

came to the Saint Bavo fair to sell his load o f wool. U ntil about 1050, perhaps 1100, it would

have been this kind o f interregional trade which was carried on by the itinerant merchants.

London and England were two days away in a small sailing ship, other familiar destinations

would have been Laon, Artois and Picardy, the Meuse, and the Rhine as far as Cologne. N ot

so much adventurers, more colleagues united in a guild in order to share the immediate dan­

gers o f the robber knight and excessive tolls.

T h e Flemish merchant o f the n th century is difficult to discern from the sources. T h e

M euse Region gives us a clearer picture o f the merchants, and it seems that here the growth o f

the towns was not so fast as in Flanders. Liège, the largest town on the Meuse in the 13th cen­

tury still appears to be a town engaged primarily in tertiary activities. T h e large Flem ish towns

o f the period were completely different. T h e y were larger, pursued economic activities and

dominated the surrounding countryside. T o understand this asynchronicity between Flanders

and the Meuse basin we must examine a final problem: namely the conditions under which the

transfer o f an industry and the concentration o f labour which had hitherto been largely rural

had taken place. T h e latter could indeed have been stimulated by demographic growth and the

breakdown o f estate structures in the countryside.112

In the M iddle Ages cloth was the only industrial product exported on a large scale. Hans

Van W erveke argues that systematic manufacturing for export started in the Flem ish town in

the n th century. T his moment coincided with the use o f English wool for the manufacture o f

luxury goods. Hitherto cloth had been produced solely for the domestic market and primarily

to meet the needs o f the family. “Frisian” linen were made in the home, but sold outside the

area where they were made,113 which according to the Pirenne school meant that they did not

enter the commercial economy. Cloth and fabrics were part o f the products supplied by peas­

ants in the context o f the estate trading circuits in N orth-W est Europe. Archaeology and a

reexamination o f the textual evidence has made it possible to restore the parentage o f the

famous pallia fresonica to Frisia. Frisia in the Early M iddle A ges was not just a country with a

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

large sheep-farming industry, it also had a manufacturing industry, and was a country where

everywhere wool was spun and woven in numerous small workshops scattered over the coun­

tryside and in the towns.114 In about 830 we learn that the A bbey o f Fulda received close to 855

pieces o f cloth from its Frisian territories. In the ioth century, the A bbey o f Werden received

close to a thousand from the same area. In the 9th and ioth centuries, the monks o f Saint Bavo

in G en t had lands in Frisia “for the convenience o f the monks and particularly for their

clothes”.115 T h e homines fron d installed on the Zeeland estates o f the abbey around the year

800 had to deliver a coat every year.116

W hereas the monks o f G en t turned again to Frisia at the end o f the ioth century, a text writ­

ten in Trier (Trêves) in about 1075, entitled Conflictus ovis et lini, reveals that Flemish cloth,

prized for its colours and quality, had become an export product.117 Accompanied by their fel­

lows from the Meuse, Flemings travelled the Rhine valley to Koblenz between 1000 and

1070.118 T h e few texts dating from the 8th and ioth centuries show that sheep farming existed

on the coast. Specialized sheep-farming operations grew up on the “schorren” and the peat

soils in the n th and 12th centuries. A fter the marine incursions on the IJzer (Yser) river flood

plain in the 1014 and 1042, numerous sheep farms were set up. leper, which had hitherto only

been an estate centre, became a town in the last decades o f the n th century. In 1127, its fair was

visited by merchants from all the neighbouring kingdoms and particularly from Northern

Italy, and Count Charles purchased a silver vessel from them. Verhuist thinks that these

“Lombards” could have come to leper to buy cloth.119 G en t received local wool, which was

brought in to sell at the Saint Bavo fair by a merchant from Tournai since the start o f the n th

century. It appears that the Abbeys o f Saint Peter and Saint Bavo in G ent brought the wool

from their “schorren” north o f Bruges and Aardenburg to these pre-urban centres or to G ent.

In the current state o f documentary studies, it would seem that the growth o f sheep farming

in the ioth century favoured the spread o f textile craft skills in the countryside and pre-urban

centres. Clothes making in fact appears to be the only activity which allowed Carolingian

craftswomen to gain a certain degree o f independence, and consequently a potential for mobil­

ity, and to make a living from their skills. There were, for example, the camsilariae, who were

women who made panels o f cloth for shirts, and who lived on smallholdings near Tournai.

T h e y sold their products for 8 pennies apiece.120 D id an increase in the availability o f wool

encourage the sale o f unfinished wool (shortly after the year 1000 in Gent) and the arrival o f

craft weavers in the town? It could well be that this first flowering o f the Flemish cloth indus­

try, a century before the first direct evidence o f the arrival o f English wool (perhaps in about

1113) was firmly and primarily based on local wool supplies. W as the “hunger” for wool the

result o f the shrinkage o f sheep flocks, itself a consequence o f the construction o f dykes around

the “schorren” and the gradual empoldering o f the entire coastal region?121 Verhuist s field

studies tend, however, to suggest a different chronology. T h e growth in the area o f agricultural

land is a phenomenon o f the end o f the n th and o f the 12th centuries.122 In 1120, when imports

o f wool from England to G en t is beyond dispute, the burgesses o f G ent were also having wool

produced in the Vier-Am bachten (Quatre-Métiers) area, about 30 km north o f the town.123 In

the early 12th century therefore textile production in Flanders was large enough to absorb all

the local wool and to extend the market for raw wool to England. T h e Conflictus ovis et lini also

indicates another change, namely that wool, unlike linen, which continued to be women’s

work, was from then on being worked by men.124 In 1137, the monks o f Sint-Truiden con­

demned the behaviour o f that “impudent and arrogant race o f workers who are weavers o f wool

and linen”, without mentioning women at all. T h e author even praises the superiority o f the

“rusticus textor et pauper” over the “'urbanus exactor”125. T h e entry o f men into an area, which

since ancient times had been entirely the business o f women, is indicative o f the tremendous

changes taking place. A final aspect which should be considered is the introduction o f the hor­

izontal loom. It was first reported by Rashi, who saw it at Troyes in m id-nth century. T h e next

innovation was a pedal loom which appeared in the 12th century.126 Such improvements made

it possible to weave longer and more even pieces. T h e old vertical loom was indeed nothing

more than a frame for holding the weft. T h e spread o f new looms must have led to the rise o f

70

two new crafts: the construction o f looms, and their operation by skilled workers.

T h e shift o f the textile industry away from the country and the domestic sphere towards the

town and the professional sphere cannot be explained exclusively by the need for weavers and

fullers to live in the towns where the merchants had their homes.127T h e facts as we know them

are indicative o f a more complex hypothesis: and where we see restrictions in demand: urban

consumers (including more luxurious products); and in supply: appearance o f new products,

accompanied by changes in technology; rapid changes in the context and gender division o f

the work (from work in the home to work in a workshop, from opera muliebria to the superbia

o f the weavers) at the point where possibilities converge: urban centres; population growth in

the countryside; abundant supplies o f raw materials; and lively trading circuits. These were the

conditions which were in effect in Flanders in the n th century and which led to the appear­

ance o f an urban textile industry. T h e history o f Gent, illuminated by recent archaeological

findings, indeed makes one suspect an even earlier chronology. A new wooden residence and

a castle chapel was built in the first half o f the ioth century on the “O udburg” site, after the

Counts o f Flanders had made themselves the masters o f the G en t area. T h e leatherworkers’

district was very nearby. B y no later than 966, the old Carolingian portus on the Scheldt had

expanded to the Leie, opposite the casde o f the Counts. It was here that the oldest market of

the portus, the Fish M arket (Vismarkt) was situated, the primary purpose o f this market being

to supply the inhabitants o f the portus, the craftworkers and the garrison on the “O udburg”

with food. T h e reason why the portus expanded towards the Leie was the presence o f this mil­

itary centre. T h e Scheldt played a key role in interregional trade. T his was the route by which

the wool destined for the Fair o f Saint Bavo arrived from Tournai in the early n th century. T h e

fair was held on the days following the feast day o f the Patron Saint on the 1st o f October. T h e

sale o f unfinished indicates that textile activities were already present in Gent. T h e portus,

where a representative o f the Count (comes G andavi portus) had been instad area, subject to its

own judicial organization. T h e largest Flemish town in the M iddle A ges had thus acquired the

diverse characteristics required by the traditional definition o f a town by the year 1000.128

T h e long slow rise o f the economies o f Northwest Europe

Pirenne’s central idea was that the mediaeval town was born. In the n th century, urban life

revived under the effects o f the revival o f international trade “on virgin soil, without any

antecedents from an earlier age”. Breaking with the division into the traditional periods o f

Western history has made possible to revise such theses. Pirenne himself suggested the enor­

mously generative idea o f a relatively continuous transition from A ntiquity to the M erovin­

gian period. Verhulst’s studies o f the origin o f the towns in Northwest Europe confirm the

relevance o f this notion. For Pirenne, the Carolingians, which he describes as that “anti­

commercial civilization” ruled over a rural West, dependent on a subsistence economy, the

Norsemen moreover having totally destroyed trade. Since then the economy o f Carolingian

times has been totally reviewed, with the intensity and nature o f trade being examined, the

start o f demographic regeneration, and the importance o f rural growth. T h e breakpoint

represented by the millenium has in fact never been really questioned by historians. T h e

majority o f modern studies stop in the early ioth century.

It is not a matter o f seeking new continuities, for example, between the 9th and the 12th cen­

turies. T h e unity o f the process o f historical development does not lie in the aspect which has

remained immutable during the entire process, but in the continuity by which one particular

change flows almost seamlessly into another in a constant succession o f transformation. A s

Norbert Elias writes, for example, what links the Northern Netherlands o f the 15th century

with the 20 th century (...) is not so much an essential core which has remained unchanged but

the continuity o f transformations whereby 20th century society proceeds from 15th century

society (...) identity not being so much as a substance but more o f a continuity o f transforma­

tions leading from one stage to the next”.129 Changing the frame o f reference in order to deal

with the historical evolution o f the Southern Netherlands between the 6th and 12th centuries

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

helps to highlight other series o f changes. T h e n th century in Flanders is one o f urban har­

vest. T h e first fruits o f the ioth century are the result o f the slow and fundamental transfor­

mation o f the countryside.

Nowadays we are fortunate in having a synoptic picture that enables us to review the “Piren-

nean” theories o f the birth o f the towns in their entirety.130 In the Southern Netherlands the

continuity o f existence o f the urban centres o f Antiquity into the M iddle Ages is far greater

than was thought. This is not necessarily manifested in topographical continuity. T h e main­

tenance o f central functions (whether religious, administrative, military or other) plays an

important role in the phenomena associated with the permanence o f non-agricultural settle­

ments. T h e topography o f these urban habitats cannot be reduced to the traditional dualism

of fortification and trading settlement. T h e reality prior to the year one thousand is far more

complex than that, and these pre-urban settlements appear to have been closer to multi-cen­

tred accretions o f people and activities than anything else. Pirenne regarded the fortification

simply as a passive attractor o f commercial activity. Nonetheless it now seems that the strong­

hold must have played an active economic role both as a centre o f concentration and con­

sumption.131

T h e other break with “Pirennean” models is the reassessment o f the role o f consumption in

the trading economy. Pirenne thought that not only was the Flemish castrum not a town it

had none o f the features o f a town either. Its population did not produce anything for itself

and from the economic point o f view it was nothing more than a consumer. Even so, as we

have seen, the definition o f the mediaeval town must be adjusted to account for both the

emergence and divergence o f the urban phenomenon in the Southern Netherlands. T h e town

was a centre o f consumption as well as a centre o f commercial activity (or more broadly speak­

ing a place where trading exchanges took place) and o f production. A s Pierre Toubert

expresses it, this was a matter o f circuits, activities and superimposed networks. Apart from

the merchants, room must be allowed for the other components o f the urban population, such

as the clerical and secular elites, officials, sergeants and servants, craftsmen and so on. T h e

role played by the C ou nt’s épiers and lardaría, or those o f an abbey, nobleman, or high official

deserve just as much attention as the market hall or merchant’s stores. T h is view o f things,

based on a very broad sociological definition o f trade, ought to make us just as interested in

the private fortune o f Chancellor Bertulf as in the more typical “Pirennian” figure o f G u il­

laume C ade.132 Essentially this is a matter o f applying the same epistemological broadening

which allows the carts o f the Carolingian monasteries to enter the trading economy to the

n th and 12th centuries. N or should the role o f the seigneuries in the n th century trading econ­

omy be forgotten. In 1095, the Count o f Hesdin’s carts travelled laden with grain and wine

through the Canche valley to the sea (where Quentovic arose) and returned with a cargo o f

salt and fish.133

Viewing the history o f the regional economies o f the Southern Netherlands between the 7th

and the 12th centuries as a single entity helps bring out how important the long-term trends

are.

T h e 7th century saw a shift in the European centre o f gravity 60m the Mediterranean to

Northwest Europe. M odern historians are well aware o f the extent o f interregional trading

between the Frankish, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian worlds between the 7th and 9th cen­

turies. T h e economic crisis o f the early 9th century, the “Norse incursions” and the documen­

tary scarcity o f the ioth century go a long way to supporting the view that this system o f inter­

regional trading was interrupted for an extended period o f time. T h e Carolingian pagi o f the

Count o f Flanders grew up on the edges o f the trading areas. For people o f the time, the

success o f this “terre brehaigne" (barren land) was an event. O ur understanding o f the

phenomenon nonetheless improves if we consider the development o f N orth Western Europe

as a space-time continuum, and stop thinking o f the hiatus o f the 9th century as a divide

between two periods. I f we ignore its specific form, we see that trading - be it commerce,

migration, pillage and war, gifts and tributes - was not interrupted by the N orse incursions nor

the crisis o f the Carolingian empire.

72

Hiatus? Flemish merchants are known to have been regular visitors to the Port o f London

shortly after the year iooo. In 1127 the news o f the death o f Count Charles arrived in London

the very next morning. English wool was being landed in G ent in 1120. T h e world o f Godric

o f Finchal, who lived at the end o f the n th century and is the archetypal merchant adventurer

“inspired by the spirit o f capitalism” as Henri Pirenne puts it, was bounded by the shores o f the

N orth Sea: England, Scotland, Denmark, and Flanders.134

Continuity?‘Count Baldwin I kidnaps and marries Judith, widow o f two Wessex kings, while

their son takes a leaf out o f the parental book by carrying o ff Elftrude, daughter o f Alfred the

Great, King o f Wessex. O ther A nglo-Flem ish marriages illustrate the permanence o f contacts

in the ioth century. There was also a commerce in thought and ideas. Dunstan and Ethel-

wood, two Englishmen, were in contact with G ent, where Gérard de Brogne had just revived

the abbey o f M ont-Blandin. In about 1030 the Danes and the Normans in 1066 set about

establishing states which straddled the trading circuits o f the 8th and the ioth centuries. Ships

from Rouen loaded with wine discharged in London around the year 1000, just like the carts

belonging to the Count o f Hesdin which travelled to the mouth o f the Canche in 1095.

T h e continuum view is also useful for thinking about the historic conditions o f the sustained

growth o f the economy o f Northwestern Europe. It is this which is the proper scale for mea­

suring phenonema o f varying intensity and duration such as the Frisian crossroads (7th to 9th

centuries), the growth o f Carolingian agriculture, the vitality o f the money economy in E n g­

land (7th to 12th centuries), the diversification o f the Flemish economy (ioth to 13 th centuries),

the industrialization and concentration o f textile production in the towns (nth to 12th cen­

turies), and the establishment o f more far-flung trading networks and new continental ports,

linking the N orth W est to the South (fairs in Flanders and Champagne, G en t and Bruges)

and to the East (Cologne) (ioth/nth to the 13th centuries).

T h e long growth o f agriculture started in the 8th century. T h e process speeded up in n th

century with the progressive diversification o f the rural economy, nourished towards the south

by cereal-growing country and stimulated in the north by the exploitation o f the coastal strip

and the production o f local wool. T h e small family farm makes its appearance as a driving

force in the intensification o f farming methods with the general introduction o f the horse as a

draught animal, the adoption o f an increasing diversity o f farming techniques, an improve­

ment in the balance between stock-farming and cultivation, and the introduction o f new

forage and cash crops. In return, the Flem ish countryside is covered with a remarkably dense

network o f defended villages and fairs. T h is mesh o f trade and power slowly starts to become

centred on the towns in about the year 1000. W e still find it difficult to gauge the power o f

attraction the towns had on the rural population o f the times. T h e growth o f the urban popu­

lation which started in the n th century was rapid and sustained. T h e appearance o f a wage-

earning class and masculinization o f the textile workforce during the n th century was

undoubtedly a crucial element in this process. It helped to shape the two faces o f mediaeval

society: the countryside and the “true” town, self-aware and capable o f attracting elite and

poor alike.

In the final analysis the mediaeval town must be considered as a social fact, a “human habi­

tat”, which in turn begs the question about the emergence o f urban society. W hen seen like

this, numerous roads lead to the town. T h e town is “large” if it becomes the political and

administrative seat, the economic, religious and cultural centre o f a large area.135 Single­

stranded explanations relying solely on commerce, the merchant or industry must be rejected,

although the importance o f such factors must be acknowledged. Long-distance commerce

creates a powerful new link between the various regions o f Europe. T h e Lombard merchants

who arrived in leper in 1127, were the heralds o f a new and lasting dimension o f economic,

artistic and cultural exchanges between the Mediterranean and the N orth Sea. A s o f the n th

century, the town becomes distinct from the countryside by the nature, culture and dynamism

o f its elites. These meliores are not the mediaeval carpetbaggers suggested by Pirenne, rather

they are a mixture o f established and, more especially, new elites (the younger scions o f noble

families, vassal knights, ecclesiatical and lay administrators, etc.). From then on, the surplus o f

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

rural production was concentrated (directly in warehouses, or indirectly as money tithes) and

consumed in the town. Such consumption could take the form o f public and private buildings,

luxury goods or works o f art, customers, wage earners, and charitable works. W ithin the town

walls princes occupied their palaces, clerics prayed, architects designed new buildings, sculp­

tors and goldsmiths pursued their arts. Comm erce is a consequence o f urban life not a cause.

T h e new eûtes were a driving force in the birth o f what Verhuist calls the “town as such, with

its own laws, administration and justice (and) free burgesses.136 T h e y withdrew the town from

the governance o f the nobles and ruled themselves, without denying the authority prince and

acquiring the total independence o f the “urban republics” o f Italy. Every inhabitant o f the

town benefited from this “freedom" which was an essential part o f the urban landscape.

Nonetheless it was the meliores who governed the town and thus secured their grip on the

finance and trade passing through it until the great revolts o f the early 14th century. In W allo-

nia the process o f the concentration o f industry came later (metal working and linen) and came

to a halt at the close o f the M iddle Ages. Indeed until the 18th century industry in Wallonia

was to remain a largely rural affair. T h e industrialization o f the textile industry in the towns

explains the earliness and extent o f urban concentration in Flanders. T h e unusual size o f the

Flemish towns greatly stimulated the demand for foodstuffs and industrial raw materials in

the countryside. In turn it explains the intensification and progress o f Flemish agriculture in

the 13th and 14th centuries.

T h e hypotheses advanced in the foregoing argue in favour o f the continuity o f economic

expansion from the Carolingian era into the nth, 12th and 13th centuries. T his lengthy start

should not be thought o f as a progressive and continuous process, lacking crests and troughs.

Proper studies o f the economic cycles concerned remain to be made. T h e economic view in

itself does not provide a complete picture o f town and country. T h e birth o f the “urban habi­

tat” as a physical space and a way o f life requires an integrated approach, which pays attention

to the social and cultural facts and the production and consumption o f material goods.137

Jean-Pierre Devroey, Université libre de Bruxelles

Translated from French by Van Lokeren, edited by Prof. dr. A. Verhuist

Notes

1. Pirenne 1900.

2 . Verhuist 1986.

3 . Verhuist 1986.

4 . Pirenne 193 7.

5 . Cipolla 1956; Lopez 1974.

6. Claude 1985 Handel.

7. Claude 1985 Aspekte; Verhuist 1993.

8. Devroey 1984.

9. Verhuist 1990 Slavery; Verhuist 1990 Rurale.

10. Devroey 1990.

11. Herhily 1990.

12. Vita Sancti Macharii.

13. Devroey 1998.

14. Devroey 1998.

15. A bel 1978.

16. Bonnassie 1990.

17. Devroey 1981.

18. Toubert 1986.

19. Schwarz 1985; Nicholas 1991.

20 . Nicholas 1991.

21 . Verhuist 1966; Verhuist 1995 Economic; Verhuist 1995 Landschap.

22 . Verhuist 1966; Verhuist 1992; Devroey 1993 Domaine.

23 . Verhuist 1966; Verhuist 1995 Economic; Verhuist 1995 Landschap.

24 . Bonnassie 1990.

25. W ickham 1992; W ickham 1995.

26 . Verhuist 1990 Slavery; Verhuist 1990 Rurale.

27 . Toubert 1986.

28 . D uby 1966.

29 . Fumagelli 1966; Montanari 1985; Delatouche 1970.

30. Rösener 1992; Verhuist 1990 Rurale; Verhuist 1990 Slavery.

31. Violante 1953.

32 . Toubert 1988.

33. Devroey-Zoller 1991.

34. Lebecq 1983.

35. Grierson 1986.

36. Ambrosiani 1988.

37. Jansson 1985.

38. Grierson 1959; Grierson 1961.

39 . Verhuist 1987; Spa 1990.

40. Verhuist 1989 Towns.

41. Devroey-Zoller 1991.

42. Spa 1990.

43 . Rousseau 1930.

44 . Verhuist 1989.

45. Rousseau 1930; contra D espy 1968.

46. Despy 1995.

47 . Despy 1968.

48 . Devroey-Zoller 1991.

49 . Despy 1968.

50 . Rousseau 1930.

51 . Verhult 1989 Towns.

52 . Rousseau 1930.

53 . Devroey-Zoller 1991.

54 . Devroey-Zoller 1991.

55 . Kupper 1990.

56 . Despy 1975.

57 . Despy 1975.

58 . Kupper 1981.

59 . Kupper 1981.

60. Kupper 1981.

61. Vita s. Modoaldi.

Twixt Meuse and Scheldt / Jean-Pierre Devroey

62 . Triumphus S. Lamberti in Steppes.

63 . Istore et Chronikes de Flandre.

64 . Boserup 1965.

65 . W hite 1940; D uby 1966.

66. Mediaeval Farming 1997.

67 . Verhuist 1990 Slavery; Verhuist 1990 Rurale.

68. W ickam 1992.

69 . Verhuist 1990 Rurale.

70 . Derville 1991; DerviËe 1995.

71 . Verhuist 1982; Verhuist 1990 Rurale.

72 . Thoen 1997.

73 . Thoen 1994; Verhuist 1995 Landschap.

74 . Verhuist 1985; Thoen 1993.

75 . Derville 1989; Morimoto 1994.

76 . Derville 1978; Derville 1989; Irsliger 1982.

77 . Verhuist 1985; Thoen ^92.

78 . Thoen 1994.

79 . Thoen 1994; Verhuist 1995 Landschap.

80 . Verhuist 1995 Landschap.

81 . Ganshof 1943.

82 . Thoen T994.

83 . Thoen 1994.

84 . VanUytven 1976; Thoen 1994.

85. Galbertus Notarius.

86. Dhondt 1948.

87 . Van Werveke 1952.

88. Verhuist 1967 Comtale; Verhuist 1967 Politique.

89 . Nicholas 1991.

90 . Pirenne 1905.

91 . Verhuist 1994.

92 . Verhuist 1994.

93 . Verhuist 1978.

94 . Verhuist 1989 Ghent.

95 . D e Meulemeester 1990.

96 . D e Meulemeester 1990.

97 . Gros Brief 1962.

98 . Yamada 1991.

99 . Devroey 1993 Monasterii.

100 . Toubert 1988.

101. Devroey 1993 Echange.

102. Derville 1991.

103. Irsigler 1989; Verhuist 1993.

104. Lebecq 1983.

105. Devroey-Zoller 1991.

106. Verhuist T994.

107. Irsigler 1989.

108. Lebecq 1983.

109. Derville 1992.

110. Irsliger 1989.

111. Ganshof 1943.

112. Van Werveke 1949; Verhuist 1993.

113. Van Werveke 1951; Van Werveke 1954.

114. Lebecq 1983.

115. Miracula sancti Bertini.

116. Verhuist 1971.

117. Verlinden 1972.

118. Tissen 1989; Kölzer 1992.

119. Verhuist 1995 Economic; Verhuist r995 Landschap.

120. Hâgerman 1991.

121. Jansen 1982.

122. Verhuist 1995 Economic; Verhuist 1995 Landschap.

123. Blockmans 1938; Verhuist 1972.

124. Herlihy 1990.

76

125 . Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium.

126 . Jansen 1982.

127 . Van Werveke 1951; Van W erveke 1954.

128 . Verhuist 1989 Ghent.

129 . Elias 1996.

130 . Verhuist 1987; Verhuist 1989 Towns.

131 . Verhuist 1987.

132 . Derville 1992.

133 . Fossier 1996.

134 . Derville 1992.

135 . Genicot 1973.

136 . Verhuist 1993.

137 . Verhuist 1997.