THE ORIGINS OF TOWNS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE PIRENNE THESIS

THE ORIGINS OF TOWNS IN THELOW COUNTRIES ANDTHE PIRENNE THESIS*

iTHE PIRENNE THESIS ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE

AND THE ORIGINS OF TOWNS

The early history of towns in the Low Countries — that is, beforethe year 1000 — was dominated for some fifty years after the end ofthe last century by ideas put forward by the great Belgian historianHenri Pirenne (1862-1935).' After the First World War Pirennebrought together into one single and coherent theory both his ideasabout the origin and decline of towns and his more recent views onthe development of international trade, postulating a strong linkbetween the two.2 He believed that international trade in the early

* I am very much indebted to Susan Reynolds for her most kind revision of mytranslation and for the attention she has shown to some details of my text. The mapswere drawn most kindly by Marc Ryckaen, Ghent University.

1 On the life and work of Henri Pirenne, see B. D. Lyon, Henri Pirenne: ABiographical and Intellectual Study (Ghent, 1974).

2 Pirenne's principal writings on urban history were reprinted after his death, in H.Pirenne, Les villes et les institutions urbaines, 2 vols. (Paris and Brussels, 1939). Themost comprehensive of these studies was first published in English in 1925 under thetitle Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade, trans. F. D. Hasley(Princeton, 1952), and only thereafter published in French, in 1927. Since then it hasbeen reprinted many times. His views on international trade during the early middleages were first set out in H. Pirenne, "Mahomet et Charlemagne", Revue beige dephilologie el d'hisloire, i (1922), pp. 77-86; H. Pirenne, "Un contraste economique:Me>ovingiens et Carolingiens", Revue beige de philologie et d"histoire, ii (1923), pp. 223-35. Pirenne subsequently studied many particular aspects of the economy of theMerovingian period in different articles published between 1922 and his death, allreprinted in H. Pirenne, Hisioire economique de f Occident medieval, ed. E. Coornaert(Bruges, 1951), pp. 53-154. Then, after the first synthesis of his ideas on the originsof medieval cities and international trade in his Medieval Cities, he wrote a new onein the introduction and chapters 1 and 2 of his brilliant "Histoire economique et socialedu moyen age", originally published as a contribution to G. Glotz (ed.), HistotregeneWale, 2? section: histoire du moyen age, viii (Paris, 1933), and reprinted separatelymany limes since, notably with an "Annexe bibliographique et critique" by H. VanWerveke: H. Pirenne, Histoire economique et sociale dumcyen age, ed. H. Van Werveke,2nd edn. (Paris, 1969), trans, into English as H. Pirenne, Economic and Social Historyof Medieval Europe, trans. I. E. Clegg (New York, 1956). All the following referencesin my text to Pirenne's ideas were taken from these two most representative works;detailed citations to them are hereafter omitted. A final synthesis of Pirenne's viewson the subject was published only posthumously: H. Pirenne, Mahomet el Charlemagne,

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4 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 122

middle ages was greatly influenced by external factors. In the negativesense these were war and disorder — on which his views may wellhave been affected by his personal experience of the First World Waras disruption and catastrophe.3

A similar, somewhat deterministic view4 prevailed in his theory ofthe origin and decline of towns; these could only spring, accordingto Pirenne, from an external incentive, which had to be internationaltrade. International trade in the Mediterranean, especially with theNear East, had, he thought, survived the Germanic invasions andthe fall of the Roman empire, so that the continuity of urban life inthe Merovingian period was ensured over the greater part of Gaul.On the other hand, when at the beginning of the eighth centuryinternational trade collapsed, as Pirenne thought, because of the Arabconquest of the western Mediterranean, towns as Pirenne definedthem — that is, places of trade and industry which also had a propermunicipal organization — inevitably disappeared. Some shrunkenbut fortified civitates survived in Carolingian times, but merely ascentres of ecclesiastical administration. They were henceforth, asPirenne put it, "toothing-stones" ("pierres d'attente"), some of themattracting new urban life, in the sense Pirenne understood it, onlycenturies later.

This new urban life appeared, as he saw it, in the course of thetenth century, when once more an external stimulus, the revival oftrade, provoked the rise of new urban settlements {suburbia) outsidethe walls of many old clerical civitates and at the foot of new fortifi-cations (castra). These fortifications had been built in the course ofthe ninth century against the Viking invasions along the coasts andrivers of present-day Belgium and northern France. The henceforthexisting duality — suburbiumJcivitas or suburbiumJcastrum — whichPirenne considered to be an essential feature of the medieval town5

ed. F. Vercauteren (Paris and Brussels, 1937); trans, into English as H. Pirenne,Mohammed and Charlemagne (New York, 1968).

3 The Arab conquest of the western Mediterranean was described by him as a"cosmic cataclysm": Pirenne, Medieval Cities, p. 23.

4 W. Prevenier, "Henri Pirenne et les villes des anciens Pays-Bas au bas moyen age,jtiV-xv* siecles", in G. Despy and A. Verhulst (eds.), La fortune historiographique destheses d'Henri Pirenne (Archives et Bibliotheques de Belgique, Brussels, 1986), p. 28,draws attention to the fact that this determinism in Pirenne's thought, perhaps a relicof Marxist influences during his studies in Germany in the late nineteenth century,became less absolute after World War I and was compensated for by the greater rolein history which he thereafter assigned to chance.

' For recent reflections on this dualistic view, see R. Fossier, Enfance de t'Europe:aspects economiques el sociaux, 2 vols. (Nouvelle Clio 17 and 17 bis, Paris, 1982), ii, p.

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THE ORIGINS OF TOWNS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES 5

arose, in his eyes, out of purely military, not economic needs. For tohim the new settlement, inhabited by merchants whom he believedto have been primarily engaged in international trade, was attractedby the pre-urban fortified nucleus, whether civitas or castrum, onlyfor reasons of military protection. In Pirenne's eyes the populationof clerics and soldiers living inside this fortification had no economicsignificance.6

The tenth-century revival of trade, which holds such an importantplace in Pirenne's theory, to the extent of being used as a kind ofdeus ex machina to explain the renaissance of urban life, was in itsturn once more due to external causes. These were primarily therestoration of long-distance connections with the Near East via Veniceand Scandinavia, the Scandinavian route itself being used as soon asthe aggressive and predatory Vikings (as Pirenne saw them) hadturned into peaceable merchants.

Pirenne's view of the revival of trade in the tenth century presupposeda complete breakdown of international commerce during the preced-ing Carolingian period. In this respect Pirenne himself saw butone difficulty, though an important one: namely, some signs ofinternational trading activity around the North Sea in the eighth andninth centuries, the significance of which was hard to deny. Toeliminate this obstacle on his way to an overall theory of the downfalland absence of international trade during the eighth and ninth centur-ies as a consequence both of Arab conquests in the Mediterraneanand of Viking invasions on the shores of the North Sea, Pirenneregarded the North Sea commerce of the eighth and ninth centuries(n 5 ami.)1018; R. Lopez, Inlervista sulla dtla medievak, ed. M. Berengo (Saggi tascabili Laterza100, Rome and Ban, 1984), pp. 130-5.

6 Among the vast literature on this subject I cite only the most recent and comprehen-sive studies: H. Jankuhn et al. (eds.), Untenuchungen zu Handel und Verkehr der vor-und fruhgeschichtlichen Zeu m Miuel- und Nordeuropa, iii, Der Handel des friihenMiuelahen (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen, Philolo-gisch-Historische Klasse, 3rd ser., cl, Gottingen, 1985); S. Lebecq, Marchands etnavigaieurs frisons du haul moyen age, 2 vols. (Lille, 1983); R. Hodges and D.Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe: Archaeology and thePirenne Thesis (Ithaca and London, 1983); R. Hodges, Dark Age Economics: The Originsof Towns and Trade, A.D. 600-1000 (London, 1982); H. Jankuhn, W. Schlesinger etal. (eds.), Vor- und Fruhformen der europdischen Stadt im Mittelaher, 2 vols., 2ndedn. (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 3rd ser., lxxxiv, Gottingen, 1975). See also the works of E. Ennencited below, n. 13.

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as a merely ephemeral phenomenon. The places where the northerntrade was concentrated, namely Quentovic and Dorestad, he con-sidered to have been the last and most northern offshoots of theMediterranean trade route, and as ephemeral as the trade itself, beingsnuffed out by Viking activities about the middle of the ninth century.

It is on this precise point that research since the Second WorldWar, particularly in archaeology, has undermined Pirenne's argu-ment. Long-distance trade on the North Sea and in Scandinavia isnow considered to have maintained a continuous and vigorous activityat least from the seventh century on. It was mainly independent ofMediterranean trade and flourished without a break through theninth century, thanks not only to the Frisians but to the Vikingsthemselves, whose activities are now considered less negatively thanthey were in Pirenne's day. The Carolingian period in this respect isnow even seen as a high point, while other evidence, mainly foundin new interpretations of polyptychs and capitularies, also points toan expansion of trade at the time, both within the Frankish kingdomand between it and other areas.7 This was based on the growth of theagrarian economy which is itself seen mainly as the effect of populationincrease.8 Consequently, there is no longer any need to consider therevival of trade in the tenth and eleventh centuries as a totallynew development, contrasting sharply with the preceding period,although there is still room for discussion about the impact of theViking invasions on the development of trade and towns, particularlyduring the second half of the ninth century.9

In the same way, at the other chronological end of Pirenne's theory,

7 R. De Bock-Doehaerd, The Early Middle Ages in the West: Economy and Society(Europe in the Middle Ages, Selected Studies, xiii, Amsterdam, New York andOxford, 1978); Hodges and Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins ofEurope, pp. 108-10, 170-3. Not all medievalists share this optimistic view: see R.Fossier, "Les tendances de Peconomie: stagnation ou croissance?", in Nasdtd dell'Europa ed Europa carolingia (Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi suU'altomedioevo, xxvii, Spoleto, 1981), pp. 261-90; R. Fossier, "L'economie du haut moyenage entre Loire et Rhin", in Despy and Verhulst (eds.), Fortune historiographique destheses a"Henri Pireme, pp. 51-9 (with recent bibliography).

8 G. Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants fromthe Seventh to the Twelfth Century (World Econ. Hist. Ser., Ithaca, 1978).

' I do not share the negative evaluation of the Viking invasions given by Hodgesand Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, pp. 165-7. Myargument is based on town development during the second half of the ninth centuryin the southern Low Countries, as set out below.

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the contrast he saw between Merovingians and Carolingians nowseems equally exaggerated. In particular its alleged cause, the Arabconquest, together with its influence on the unity and intensity ofMediterranean trade, has been challenged.10

The decline of commercial life in the Mediterranean now seems tohave been a slow process that had already begun at the end ofthe third century. The Germanic invasions — Ostrogoths in Italy,Visigoths in Spain and Vandals in North Africa — did not, as Pirennerightly put it, abruptly destroy Mediterranean trade between east andwest. It was the military operations of Byzantium and the occupationof northern Italy by the Lombards in the sixth century rather thanthe Arab conquests of the seventh that caused damage to this trade.It was these, not the Arabs, that divided the Mediterranean intotwo — or even three — regions, the first focused on Rome and Italy,the second on Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean and thethird on the ports of Provence and Spain. The nadir of trade in thewestern Mediterranean, for these and other reasons — such as thedecline and depopulation of Rome, the bubonic plague, etc. — wasreached at the end of the seventh century and the beginning ofthe eighth, just before Arab naval operations started in the westernMediterranean. These naval operations are now thought, pace Pi-renne, to have caused only temporary damage to trade in that region.At the same time, however, from the end of the seventh centuryonwards, there are signs of an economic revival, the centre of whichnow lay in north-west Europe.11 The very beginning of the Carolin-gian economic revival reaches back as far as this moment. This revivalwas not due in the first place to external stimuli, but was primarilybased, as it now seems, on population growth and agrarian expan-sion.12 While Pirenne could not conceive of towns in an agrarian

10 The most recent and comprehensive studies of this problem and particularly ofthe Pirenne thesis are: Hodges and Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne, and theOrigins of Europe; D. Claude, Untersucnungen zu Handel und Verkehr der vor- undfruhgeschichdichenZeitinMiuel-undNordeuropa, ii, Der HandeltmwestUchen Mittelmeerwahrend des Fruhmiuelahen (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften inGottingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 3rd ser., cxliv, Gottingen, 1985).

" F. L. Ganshof, "Quelques aspects principaux de la vie economique franque auviic siecle", in Caraueri del secolo settimo in Ocadente (Settimane di studio del Centroitaliano di studi sull'alto medioevo, no. 5, Spoleto, 1958), i, pp. 73-101; F. L. Ganshof,"Das frankische Reich", in H. Kellenbenz(ed.), Handbuchdereuropaischen Wirtschafts-und Sozialgeschichte, ii (Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 159, 190; Hodges and Whitehouse,Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, pp. 93-8.

12 See De Bock-Doehaerd, Early Middle Ages in the West; Duby, Early Growth ofthe European Economy. Hodges and Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and theOrigins of Europe, pp. 103-8, 111-22, on the other hand, believe in the role of an

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society otherwise than as centres of administration — mainly ecclesi-astical —and seats of military power, modern research on the contraryattributes to an elite consisting of kings, aristocrats and ecclesiastics,all of whom had great purchasing-power, the leading role in theeconomy of the time.13

It was in this context that settlements of unambiguously commercialcharacter appeared in north-west Europe, especially in the LowCountries, from the seventh century onwards and multiplied in theeighth and ninth. Until some thirty years ago they were consideredto have been totally new and established on virgin soil, without anyantecedents in an earlier period. This view, strongly advocated byPirenne and his disciples, has now been abandoned.14 WhereasPirenne attributed their development exclusively to the revival oflong-distance trade after the Carolingian period, modern views situatetheir growth mainly during the Carolingian period. Previously, inMerovingian times, they had often been what are called "centralplaces" — that is, mainly administrative centres: for example, capitalsof pagi, bishops' sees, etc.

Archaeological arguments, moreover, suggest the Roman origin ofmost of these centres, and thus some form of continuity from Romanto Merovingian and Carolingian times.15 This continuity, if notfunctional in the sense of a continuous occupation of the site and a

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external stimulus such as the Baltic trade. In my view, they underestimate the internaldynamics of the Carolingian countryside from which the aristocracy drew most of itsincome.

13 Hodges and Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, pp.91-2, 101; E. Ennen, The Medieval Town, trans. N. Fryde (Oxford, 1979); E. Ennen,"The Early History of the European Town: A Retrospective View", in H. B. Clarkeand A. Simms (eds.), The Comparative History of Urban Origins in Non-Roman Europe(B.A.R. Internat. Ser., ccxxv, Oxford, 1985), pp. 3-14; R. Van Uytven, "Les originesdes villes dans les anciens Pays-Bas, jusque vers 1300", in Despy and Verhulst (eds.),Fortune histonographunie des theses d'Hevn Pirenne, pp. 13-26. See also the works citedabove, n. 6.

14 S. Reynolds, An Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (Oxford,1977), pp. 16-22. Syntheses available in English by former students of Pirenne, whoseviews they mainly reflect, are H. Van Werveke, T h e Rise of Towns", in M. Postan(ed.), Cambridge Economic History of Europe, iii (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 3-41; F.Vercauteren, "From the Ancient City to the Medieval Commune", in R. Cameron(ed.), Essays in French Economic History (Georgetown, 1970), pp. 13-20.

15 A. Verhulst, "An Aspect of the Question of Continuity between Antiquity andMiddle Ages: The Origin of Flemish Cities between the North Sea and the Scheldt",Jl. Medieval Hist., iii (1977), pp. 175-206. On the continuity problem in general, seeE. M. Wightman, Gallia Belgka (London, 1985), pp. 241, 307-8.

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continuation of its former functions, was at least topographical: therelevant places are located at or near places which had already existedin Roman times as non-rural settlements, fortified sites, castra, viciand the like. Until some twenty years or so ago the old cwitates, allexcept Tongeren situated in the south-west of the Low Countries(Therouanne, Tournai, Arras, Cambrai), were considered, in accord-ance with the views of Pirenne, to have been the only urban settle-ments of Roman origin possibly capable of developing after theCarolingian period into points of concentration for interregional andinternational trade.16 Their central function in church Life, togetherwith the fact that most of them became the seats of mints and hadancient Roman walls which could easily be restored, made themparticularly suitable, in the eyes of many historians of the Pirenneschool. Other Roman centres of minor importance, vici, castra andthe like, were thought to have been abandoned in the fifth and sixthcenturies, to have disappeared completely or, like some cwitates(Tongeren, Therouanne), to have lost all economic significance.Consequently they could not, in the eyes of Pirenne and his disciples,have served as the starting-point for new urban life in later centuries.As to the Roman origins of some other medieval towns, they weresimply ignored.

Largely as a consequence of the debate caused by Pirenne's theories,however, and particularly because of the increasing use of new sourcesof evidence like archaeology, numismatics, topography, place-namesand lexicography,17 which are well suited to compensate for thescarcity of written sources, opinions different from those of Pirenne

16 F. Vercauteren, Etude sur les cwitates de la Belgique seconde (Academie royale deBelgique, Memoires in-8°, xxxiii, Brussels, 1934) is the classic work on the subject bya student of Pirenne. The most recent general history of late Roman urban life in theLow Countries is Wightman, Gallia Belgica, pp. 219-42.

17 On this recent development in urban historiography, see F. Vercauteren, "Con-ceptions et m£thodes de Phistoire des villes medieVales au cours du dernier demi-siecle", in Comiti International des sciences histonques: actes du xif congrh international,Vienne, 1965, v (Vienna, 1965), pp. 649-73, repr. in F. Vercauteren, Etudes d'histoiremtdtfvale (Pro Civitate, Collection Histoire, in-8° ser., liii, Brussels, 1978), pp. 305-28. A survey of the results of this interdisciplinary approach has been given by H.Jankuhn, "The Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of the Early History ofMedieval Towns", in Clarke and Simms (eds.), Comparative History of Urban Origins,pp. 15-42.

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have now made headway, particularly since the late 1950s and early1960s.18

The inauguration of the post-Pirenne era was signalled by the longarticle published in 1958 by the German historian Franz Petri onurban origins in the Low Countries and northern France.19 It was botha synthetic and an analytical survey, based on a new interpretation ofthe texts in the light of recent German urban historiography and ofthe then still tentative results of recent archaeological research in afew Belgian and Dutch towns. Since that time systematic excavationshave been undertaken in many towns of the Low Countries.20 Theirhistorical interpretation is still a problem, partly because of theirfragmentary character, but they have nevertheless led some historiansboth to a fresh examination of the few long-known texts and to theircombination with new insights gained from the topographical studyof towns.

Historical topography had indeed already been propagated byPirenne and practised comparatively by his student F. L. Ganshofon a European scale,21 but it has been applied since the 1950s to thedetailed study of individual towns or their topographical elements,22

18 Retrospective bibliographies for Holland: G. Van Herwijnen, Bibliografie van desudengeschiedenis van Nederland (Leiden, 1978); for France: P. Dollinger and P. Wolff,Bibliographie cThiswire des villes de France (Paris, 1967); for Belgium: W. Blockmansel al., "Belgique", in P. Wolff (ed.), Guide international a"histoire urbaine, i: Europe(Paris, 1977), pp. 109-31. Critical bibliographies: C. Dury and D. Morsa, "Saggiocritico degh studi sulla storia urbana in Belgio, 1970-1980", Storia urbana, xvii (1981),pp. 141-82; A. Verhulst, "Nijverheid en handel: Beredeneerde bibliografie", inAlgemene Gcschiedenis derNederianden, i (Haarlem, 1981), pp. 441-3. General survey:D. M. Nicholas, "Medieval Urban Origins in Northern Continental Europe: State ofResearch and Some Tentative Conclusions", Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Hist.,vi (1969), pp. 55-114; Van Uyiven, "Origines des villes dans les anciens Pays-Bas",pp. 13-26.

" F. Petri, "Die Anfa'nge des mittelalterlichen Stadtewesens in den Niederlandenund dem angrenzenden Frankreich", in T. Mayer (ed.), Studien zu den Anfangen deseuropdischen Stadtevxsens (Vortrage und Forschungen, iv, Lindau and Constance,1958), pp. 227-95.

20 J. C. Besteman and H. Sarfatij, "Bibliographie zur Archaologie des Mittelaltersin den Niederlanden, 1945 bis 1975", Zeitschnft fur Archaologie des Miuelahers, v(1977), pp. 168-231; H. Sarfatij, "Archaeology and the Town in the Netherlands", inM. W. Barley (ed.), European Towns: Their Archaeology and Early History (London andNew York, 1977), pp. 203-17; F. Verhaeghe and H. L. Janssen, "Stadsgeschiedenis enStadsarcheologie in de Nederianden", Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen in Belgie, liii (1982),pp. 1-51.

21 F. L. Ganshof, Etude sur le developpemenl des villes entre Loire et Rhin an moyenage (Paris and Brussels, 1943).

22 For example: J. Dhondt, "De vroege topografie van Brugge", Handelingen derMaatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde le Gem, xi (1957), pp. 3-30; A.Verhulst, "Les origines et 1'histoire ancienne de la ville de Bruges, ix*-xiie siecle", Le

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to which another of Pirenne's students, Hans Van Werveke, hasdevoted several articles and a book.23 A large part of this book alsoconsists of a lexicographical study of the word burgus.2* In this respectthe work was symptomatic of the interest which Latin words such ascastrum, castellum, urbs and the like had aroused among Belgianhistorians about that time.25 This interest was not unrelated to thediscussions of terms like vicus and wik then current in Germany andScandinavia.26

One of the major difficulties in the study of urban origins, indeed,is not only the scarcity of written sources, but also the interpretationof early medieval Latin terminology related to non-rural settlements.In texts of the late seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, tolls aregenerally said to have been collected in civitates, castella and portus.27

Only the last of these three words, signifying "river-port", has acommercial connotation.28 The word portus is sometimes used withreference to a civitas, like Tournai in the ninth century, indicating

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moyen age, Ixvi (1960), pp. 27-63; A. Verhulst, "Probleme der Stadtkernforschung ineinigen flamischen Stadten des Fruh- und Hochmittelalters", in H. Jager (ed.)>Stadtkemforschung (Cologne and Vienna, 1987), pp. 279-95 (concerning Ghent,Antwerp, Bruges).

23 H. Van Werveke and A. Verhulst, "Castmm en Oudburg te Gent", Handelingender Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, xiv (1960), pp. 3-59; H.Van Werveke, De oudtle burchten aan de Vlaamse en de Zeeuwse kust (Mededelingenvan de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen van Belgie, Klasse derLetteren, xxvii, 1, Brussels, 1965).

24 H. Van Werveke, "Burgus": venterkwg of nederzeuing? (Verhandelingen van deKoninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen van Belgie, Klasse der Letteren,xlix, Brussels, 1965).

2! J. F. Verbruggen, "Note sur le sens des mots castrum, castellum et quelquesautres expressions qui designent des fortifications", Revue beige dephilologie et d'hisurire,xxvii (1950), pp. 147-55; C. Wyffels, "Voetnoot bij urbs, suburbium en vetus urbs",Archiefen BibUotheekwezen in Belgie, xlii (1971), pp. 289-93; A. Joris, "A propos de'burgus' a Huy et a Namur", in W. Besch, K. Fehn el al. (eds.), Die Stadt in dereuropdtschen Geschichte: Festschrift E. Ennen (Bonn, 1972), pp. 192-9.

26 H. Andersson, Urbanisiene Onschaften und Uueinische Terrmnologie (Go'teborg,1971); G. Kbbler, "Civitas und vicus, burg, stat, dorf und wik", in Jankuhn, Schlesin-ger et al., Vor- und Fruhformen der europdischen Stadt im Mittelaher, pp. 61-76;L. Schiitte, Wik: Eine Siedhmgsbezeichnung in historischen und sprachlichen Bezugen(Cologne and Vienna, 1976).

27 Examples in F. L. Ganshof, "A propos du tonlieu sous les Merovingiens", inStudi m onore di Amintore Fanfani, i (Milan, 1962), pp. 293-315; F. L. Ganshof, "Apropos du tonlieu a l'epoque carolingienne", in La citta neWalto medioevo (Settimanedi studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, vi, Spoleto, 1959), pp. 485-525.

a On the classical origin of the word "portus", see S. J. De Laet, Portorium:(tude sur I'organisation douaniere chez les Remains, sunout a Fepoque du Haul-Empire(Rijksuniversiteit te Gent, Werken uitgegeven door de Faculteit van de Wijsbegeerteen Letteren, cv, Bruges, 1949), pp. 16, 19.

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that some commercial activities took place in it.29 The use of the wordportus for settlements not described earlier by other terms spread,however, during the ninth century over the whole of north-westernEurope.30 It was fairly common in the tenth and eleventh centuriesand passed into the vernacular, for example into medieval Dutch, inwhich the word "poorter" means the inhabitant of a town who hasacquired citizenship ("poorterschap").

Other words, however, such as castrum, vicus, burgus and emporium,were also used for non-rural settlements, but here too only the lastof these has a meaning explicitly related to commercial activities.31

Castrum, vicus, burgus, as well as civitas or castellum, may be inter-preted to imply a place of trade only if other indications point in thesame direction.

Another new linguistic approach to town history was the detailedstudy of the place-names of an urban area, for which M. Gysseling'sbook on Ghent stands as a brilliant example.32 Eventually, the import-ance given to economic factors in the explanation of urban originsbegan to excite interest in numismatic sources. F. Vercauteren andJ. Dhondt used such material to demonstrate the precocious characterof urban life in the Meuse valley during the Merovingian period.From the quantitative point of view, coin evidence was used to showthe evolving importance in Carolingian trade of vanished towns likeQuentovic.33

Some of the new data on urban origins in the Low Countries whichhave come to light since the death of Pirenne in 1935, and especiallysince the end of the Second World War, have been incorporated,though unsystematically, in general surveys of the economic history

29 References to portus, vicus, etc., in the Low Countries in Petri, "AnlSnge desmittelalterlichen Stidtewesens", pp. 227-95; Ganshof, "Frankische Reich", pp. 190,193-6; J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latintuais Lexicon Minns (Leiden, 1976), pp. 816-17,s.v. portus.

30 A. C. F. Koch, "Phasen in der Entstehung von Kaufmannsniederlassungenzwischen Maas und Nordsee in der Karolingerzeit", in G. Droege et al. (eds.),Landschaft und Geschichte: Festschrift fur Franz Petri (Bonn, 1970), pp. 312-24.

31 Lexikon des Miuelalten, iii (Munich and Zurich, 1986), cols. 1897-8, s.v. em-porium.

32 M. Gysseling, Genfs vroegsle geschiedenis in de Spiegel van zyn plaatsnamen(Antwerp and Brussels, 1953).

33 F. Vercauteren, "Monnaie et circulation mon£taire en Belgique et dans le Nordde la France du vic au xic siecle", in Moneta e scambi nelTalto medioevo (Settimane distudio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, viii, Spoleto, 1961), pp. 279-311;J. Dhondt, "L'essor urbain entre Meuse et Mer du Nord a l'ipoque merovingienne", inStudi in onore di Armando Sapori (Milan, 1957), pp. 57-78; J. Dhondt, "Les problemesde Quentovic", in Studi in onore di Amxniort Fanfani, i, pp. 183-248.

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of the early middle ages.34 Nevertheless no broad synthesis of thehistory of urban life in the Low Countries during the period has yetbeen written.35

IIELEMENTS OF A NEW THEORY OF TOWN ORIGINS

IN THE LOW COUNTRIES

It is not my intention to attempt a general synthesis here. Instead,after a geographical and chronological survey of what is actuallyknown about the history of towns in the Low Countries before theyear 1000, based not only on written sources but also on archaeologicaland topographical evidence, the conclusions gained from it will beset in an economic context. First, it will be necessary to explain whythe urban centres of the Meuse valley and the trading-places in thedelta region (that is, Dorestad and other emporia) preceded towndevelopment in the Scheldt valley and along the Flemish coast, whichreally started only from the middle of the ninth century. Secondly,it will be necessary to consider why Dorestad and several otherCarolingian trade points in the Delta region disappeared in the courseof the ninth century, whereas the Scheldt towns survived into thetenth century and later. Thirdly, I shall consider, in the case of thesesurviving towns, the significance of fortifications (castra) built duringthe ninth and even more in the tenth century, for the developmentof towns, especially in Flanders. Their relation to the towns willreveal itself to be mainly an economic one, since the new fortificationsare now considered to have been important primarily as centres ofpurchasing-power.

Finally, the way in which, during the tenth and eleventh centuries,a Carolingian trading-place and post-Carolingian market settlementsituated within the same urban area could be integrated into a single

u Ganshof, "Frankische Reich", ii, pp. 151-205; J. Dhondt, Le haul moyen age, ed.M. Rouche (Bordas Etudes, ci, Paris, 1976); Doehaerd, Early Middle Ages in the West.

'• Short syntheses are meanwhile available: G. Despy, "Naissance de villes et debourgades", in H. Hasquin (ed.), La Wallonie: le pays et Us hommes (Brussels, 1975),i, pp. 93-129; A. Verhulst and R. De Bock-Doehaerd, "Nijverheid en handel", inAlgemene Getchiedenis der Nedertanden, i, pp. 183-215; R. Van Uytven, "Het stedelijkleven 1 lde-14de eeuw", in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nedertanden, ii (Haarlem, 1982),pp. 187-253; A. Verhulst, "Zur Entstehung der Stadte in Nordwest-Europa", inForschungen zur Stadt geschxchte: Drei Vonrdge (Gerda Henkel Vorlesung herausgege-ben von der gemeinsamen Kommission der Rheinisch-Westfalischen Akademie derWissenschaften und der Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Opladen, 1986), pp. 25-53; A.Verhulst, "La vie urbaine dans les anciens Pays-Bas avanl l'an mil", Le moyen age,xcii(1986), pp. 185-210.

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town will be explained, on the basis of a case-study of Ghent, bythe establishment of an export industry within the town, a majorphenomenon for which until now no satisfactory explanation hasbeen proposed.

Since the 1950s and 1960s archaeological research has revealed theRoman origins of important medieval towns on the River Meuse, likeDinant, Namur, Huy and Maastricht;3* of the principal Flemishtowns, like Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges;37 and of Carolingian tradecentres, like Domburg, on the northern coast of the isle of Walch-eren,38 or Dorestad, on the bifurcation of the rivers Rhine and Lek.39

The last two both disappeared in the ninth century. These discoverieshelp to explain why these places achieved some importance as earlyas the sixth and seventh centuries; why some were chosen as capitalsof pagi and called municipia (like Ghent, Bruges, Courtrai), as sitesof important abbeys or churches (Ghent, Antwerp) or as mints(Antwerp, Dorestad); or simply why, thanks to their exceptionalgeographical position (Domburg, Dorestad), they became centres oftrade.

As to the moment at which these places acquired, beside theircentral function, some importance in interregional and internationaltrade, significant differences can be observed. In this respect theScheldt valley and the whole region between the Scheldt and theNorth Sea lagged behind the Meuse valley during the seventh centuryand the greater part of the eighth. There are no traces of anycommercial activity of importance in the region between the NorthSea and the Scheldt before the end of the eighth century, not evenin the many civitates located in the south-western part of the area

36 Dhondt, "Essor urbain entre Meuse et Mer du Nord", pp. 57-78; F. Petri,"Merowingerzeitliche Voraussetzungen ffir die Entwicklung des Stadtewesenszwischen Maas und Nordsee", Banner Jahrbucher, clviii (1958), pp. 233-45, repr. inF. Petn, Zur Geschichte und Landeskunde: Aufsdlze und Vorxrage (Bonn, 1973), pp.681-92; Wightman, Gallia Belgica, p. 241. The monographs and other specializedworks on these and following towns are quoted below.

37 Verhulst, "Aspect of the Question of Continuity".a J. A. Trimpe Burger, "The Islands of Zeeland and South Holland in Roman

Times", Berichien Rijksdienst Oudheidkundig Boderrwnderzoek, xxiii (1973), pp. 355-65; W. A. Van Es, De Romeinen in Nederiand, 2nd edn. (Haarlem, 1981), pp. 198,246-7.

39 Van Es, Romeinen in Nederiand, pp. 101-5; W. ] . H. Verwers, "Roman PeriodSettlement Traces and Cemetery at Wijk-bij-Duurstede", Berichun RijksdienstOudheidkundig Bodemondersoek, xxv (1975), pp. 93-132.

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MAP 1EARLY MEDIEVAL TRADING-PLACES AND URBAN CENTRES IN THE

LOW COUNTRIES

If

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/• Maastricht

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50 KM

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which possessed mints. Coins from these mints were not widelydiffused. The important trade route between the famous fair of Saint-Denis40 and Quentovic, the principal port of embarkation for Englandfrom the end of the seventh century,41 passed just south of theregion between the North Sea and the Scheldt. The commercialinsignificance of this part of the Low Countries at that time seems tobe explained less by the economic passivity of the civitates, mostinhabited by clerics, as Pirenne and some of his disciples thought,than, as has been pointed out recently,42 by the general economicclimate of Neustria. The regions west of the Scheldt and even southof the Somme were indeed characterized by a sparse circulation ofmoney and goods. They lay isolated from the principal trade routein the Low Countries, which between the end of the sixth and thebeginning of the eighth century ran through the Meuse valley.

1) The Meuse valley.From the Mediterranean, an important trade route started at Mar-seilles and Fos and followed the valleys of the Rhone and the Saone,reaching the upper course of the River Meuse at Verdun. Until thetenth century Verdun was the centre of the west European slavetrade. Along the middle course of the Meuse, Dinant, Namur,Huy and Maastricht are mentioned for the first time in the seventhcentury.43

At Dinant* seven Merovingian moneyers are known by name anda toll was being levied there in 743-7. The place was then referred toas a castrum, which may recall the existence of an ancient Roman

40 The most recent summary of data concerning Saint-Denis is D. Claude, " Aspektedes Binnenhandels im Merowingerreich auf Grund der Schriftquellen", in Dtiwel,Jankuhn el at. (eds.), Untersuchungen zu Handel und Verkehr der vor- undfriihgeschichilknen Zeit in Mittel- und Nordevropa, iii, Der Handel desfnihen Mitulallers,pp. 51-3.

41 Dhondt, "Problemes de Quentovic", pp. 183-248; Lebecq, Marchands et naviga-teursfnsons, pp. 203-5.

42 W. Bleiber, Naturahuirtschaft und Ware-Geld-Beziehungen zwischen Somme undLoire wahrend des 7. Jahrhunderu (Forschungen zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte, xxvii,Berlin, 1981).

43 A. Joris, "On the Edge of Two Worlds in the Heart of the New Empire: TheRoman Regions of Northern Gaul during the Merovingian Period", Studies in Medievaland Renaissance Hist., iii (1966), pp. 1-52; A. Verhulst, "Der Handel im Merowinger-reich", in Early Medieval Studies, ii (Antikvariskt arkiv, ixl, Kingl. Vitterhets Aka-demien, Stockholm, 1970), pp. 8-10; Claude, "Aspekte des Binnenhandels imMerowingerreich", p. 42.

44 G. Despy, Note sur le portus de Dinant mix vxf et x" siicles, in Miscellanea jf. F.Niermeyer (Groningen, 1967), pp. 61-9; J. Gaier-Lhoest, L'evohaion topographique dela vide de Dinant au moycn age (Brussels, 1964).

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fortification. Its commercial character from the end of the seventhcentury or the beginning of the eighth is beyond doubt, even if it canonly be proved for the ninth century and although the term portus isapplied to Dinant only in the second half of the tenth century.Whereas for Dinant continuity from Roman times can only be pre-sumed, at Namur,45 on the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse, notonly topographical continuity but even continuity of occupationis archaeologically established from Roman to Merovingian times.Perhaps the fact that Namur is referred to as a castrum and even as acivitas in the eighth and ninth centuries has something to do with thiscontinuity. Although five moneyers are known to have worked thereduring the Merovingian period, the significance of Namur for tradecan be dated only from the ninth century: it is called a portus about866 and urban land holdings (sedilia) are then mentioned.

Recent archaeological discoveries at Huy*6 not only confirm itsRoman origins, but also show continuity of occupation and even offunctions, since pottery ovens, bone and precious-metal workshops,dating from the seventh century, were excavated on the very site oftheir Roman predecessors.47 No fewer than twelve moneyers wereactive at Huy during the seventh century. They issued coins on themodel of the type issued at Marseilles and in the Rhone and Saonevalleys. Some of these have been found at Domburg, in Frisia andin England, while others, from the ninth century, on which the placeis called a vicns, even reached Haithabu. In 743-7 a toll is mentionedat Huy in the same text as that of Dinant and the place is twice calleda portus in the ninth century. This description allows us to interpretthe sedilia mentioned at Huy about 860 as urban holdings.

Maastricht,4* where a recently discovered Roman castelhon hadbecome the property of the Frankish king and to which the see ofthe bishop of Tongres had been transferred in the sixth century, iscalled oppidum, urbs and civitas in narrative sources of the early eighthcentury. Its importance as a "central place" is thus beyond doubt,while its urban character can also be inferred from the presence of

45 F. Rousseau, Namur, mile mosane, 2nd edn. (Brussels, 1958).46 A . Jo r i s , La ville de Huy au moyen age (Pa r i s , 1959); A . Jo r i s , Huy, mile nUdievale

(Brussels, 1965).47 J. Willems, Le quartier arttsanal gallo-romain et miwvingien de "Balta" a Huy

(Archaeologia belgica, cxlviii, Brussels, 1973); J. Willems, "L'artisanat de la poterie,de Pos et de l'orfevrerie au haut moyen age a Huy", in A. Van Doorselaer (ed.), Demerozuingische Beschaving in de Scheldevallei (Westvlaamse Archaeologica,Monografieen, ii, Courtrai, 1981), p. 168.

41 J. Deeters, Servatiussttft und Stadt Maastricht (Rheinisches Archiv, lxxiii, Bonn,1970); T. A. Panhuysen, Maastricht stoat op zgn verleden (Maastricht, 1984).

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eleven or twelve moneyers, one of whom was also active at Dorestadduring the second quarter of the seventh century. Their coins havebeen found at Domburg, in Frisia, in the Holstein region and alsoin the Rhone valley, demonstrating the wide connections of Maas-tricht in the seventh and eighth centuries. Nevertheless its role intrade can only be proved by a text of the ninth century, in whichEinhard mentions the presence at Maastricht of merchants fromelsewhere and from the town itself.

The wide diffusion over western Europe, from the seventh to theninth century, of coins struck in these urban centres of the middleMeuse area, should not make us believe, as Pirenne and some of hisstudents did, that town life and commercial activity in this regionwere the effect of long-distance trade alone. Continuity of specializedartisanal activity from Roman times onwards on the one hand, andrural expansion, especially in the heart of the Ardennes during theninth century,49 on the other, were equally important.

The very beginning of this commercial activity, however, is difficultto date with any precision. If one were to go by the role held in it bythe trade route from the Mediterranean through the Rhone and Saonevalley, as demonstrated by numismatic evidence,50 one would placethis beginning in the course of the seventh century. Favoured byother factors, like the commercial expansion of Dorestad from circa720 onwards and the southward shift of its former trade after theplace fell into the hands of the Vikings circa 834-7, the commercialdevelopment of the urban centres of the Meuse region was at a highpoint during the greater part of the eighth and ninth centuries, butcontinued even after that.

2) The Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta.Meanwhile the now vanished Carolingian town of Dorestad, near thebifurcation of the Rhine and Lek rivers, where from the eleventhcentury onwards the small town of Wijk-bij-Duurstede was to comeinto existence, had, for about a century, undergone a striking develop-ment.51 Originating probably from a Frankish royal estate situated a

n G. Despy, "Villes et campagnes aux ix* et x* siecle: l'exemple du pays mosan",Revue du nord, 1 (1968), pp. 145-68.

50 P. Berghaus, "Wirtschaft, Handel und Verkehr der Merowingerzeit im Lichtnumismatischer Quellen", in Diiwel, Jankuhn et al. (eds.), Untenuchungen zu Handelund Verkehr, iii, pp. 194-212.

51 The vast bibliography on Dorestad has recently been collected by Lebecq,Marchands et navigateun frisons au haul moyen age, i, pp. 332-6, which also has (pp.149-63) a good summary of the history of this place. The most recent and important

(ana. at p. 20)

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MAP 2

THE NORTH-WESTERN NETHERLANDS IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES,WITH THE MAIN TRADING-PLACES*

Present coastline

Riverbeds of the earty middle ages

Earty medieval limits of the North Sea and the Almere inner sea

Maritime route from the North Sea and Scandinavia to Dorestad

* Source: after J. C. Besteman and H. Sarfatij, "Bibliographic zur Aichaologie desMittelalters in den Niederlanden, 1945 bis 1975", Zeitschrift fur Ankdologie desMiuelahm, v (1977).

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little to the north of it, where an important mint functioned before650 and again after 690, an urban settlement developed rapidly fromabout 720 on the left bank of the Kromme Rijn. The course of thisriver, however, was continually shifting eastwards during the eighthand ninth centuries as the result of the bifurcation of the River Lek,which from the seventh century onwards drained more and morewater from the Rhine. The continuous eastward movement of theRhine created expanding facilities for the settlement on its westernbank. This coincided with the political integration of Frisia into theFrankish realm by Charles Martel, which delivered Dorestad from adangerous position on the frontier and at the same time deprived thenearby city of Utrecht of its strategic and military significance. Therole of the Frankish monarchy in the development of Dorestad as acentre of trade was equally important: a collecting-point for royaltolls, one of the four principal points on the borders of the Frankishkingdom, was established here, and merchants were granted specialroyal protection. Dorestad's decline from the 830s onwards corres-pondingly coincided with the subjection of the place and its regionto the Danes.52

Dorestad was not the only place of trade in this northern borderregion of the Frankish kingdom, nor was it the only one to disappearin the course of the ninth century. Medemblik,53 situated in northernHolland on the estuary forming part of the route from Dorestad toScandinavia, had a densely inhabited harbour quarter at the end ofthe eighth century, but disappeared through flood — very possiblythe great flood of 838. An emporium called Witla, which cannot nowbe located but lay somewhere at the mouth of the Meuse, south ofRotterdam, was devastated by the Vikings in S36.54

Finally, on the north-west coast of the isle of Walcheren, nearDomburg, a very important trading-centre, preceded by a Romansettlement, developed from the sixth century onwards;55 its commer-work in English is W. A. Van Es and W. J. H. Verwers, Excavations at Dorestad, i:The Harbow Hoogstraal I (Amersfoort, 1980). There is also an important chapter onDorestad in C. Dekker, Hel Kromme Rijngebied in de Middeleevwen (Stichtse Histori-sche Reeks, ix, Utrecht, 1983), pp. 281-3, 303-6. See also Lexikon des Mitulalters(Munich and Zurich, 1985), cols. 1264-6, s.v. Dorestad; and Hodges, Dark AgeEconomics, pp. 87-94.

52 D. P. Blok, "De Wikingen in Friesland", Naamktmde, x (1978), p. 30.53 J. C. Besteman, "Carolingian Medembuk", Berichten van de Rgksdienst voor het

OudhetdkundigBodemondeTzoek,xxiv (1974), pp. 43-106; Hodges, Dark Age Economics,pp. 77-81 n.

M Koch, "Phasen in der Entstehung", p. 313; Lebecq, Marchands et namgauursfrisons, i, pp. 145-6.

! ! Bibliography in Lebecq, Marchands et navigateurs frisons, i, p. 334, to whichshould be added the important study of H. Jankuhn, "Die fruirmittelalterlichen

(am. m f. 21)

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cial relations, as demonstrated by the numerous coins found on thebeach at Domburg, extended from England to the Rhine valley andnorthern Italy and included the valleys of the Meuse, the Moselle,the Rhone and the Loire. From the middle of the ninth century theserelations shrank and were henceforth limited to the surroundingregions, chiefly the Scheldt valley. In the end, before the end of theninth century, this mysterious place, whose name has not beentransmitted by a single written source, disappeared completely. Theproblem of the disappearance before the end of the ninth century ofthese places in the delta of the Meuse and Rhine has been muchdiscussed and different explanations have been proposed.56 Amongthem, damage and devastation by natural causes, like flooding, ormilitary events, like Viking raids, combined with the absence of adefence system, are the most common. But these external causes donot hold for all the places and certainly not for many other tradecentres outside the Low Countries that also failed to survive. Manyurban centres of the Carolingian period, moreover, which had thesame characteristics as these emporia, did not disappear, but survivedafter the ninth century, even when they were devastated by Vikingraids or temporarily abandoned. This was the case with Hamburg,Bremen and Emden in northern Germany and also, and most particu-larly, with some Carolingian portus in the southern Netherlands, likeGhent, Antwerp and perhaps Bruges, to which we must now turn.

3) The Scheldt valley and the North Sea coast.These and other urban centres in the Scheldt valley and on theFlemish North Sea coast, although many of them had already existedin Merovingian times as the continuation of non-rural Roman settle-ments, are mentioned for the first time as places of trade (portus) onlyin the second half of the ninth century. This is fifty to a hundredyears later than the commercial beginnings of most of the trading-places in the Meuse valley and of the emporia in the delta of theRhine, Meuse and Scheldt. By this time those earlier places were indecline or had already disappeared. Before attempting an explanationof this time-lag, a brief examination of the data concerning theseportus is in order.<n. 55 ami.I

Seehandelsplatze im Nord- und Ostseeraum", in Mayer (ed.), Smdien zu den Anfangendes europaischen Stadlewesens, pp. 464-72; Lexikon da Mutelahers, cols. 1176-7, s.v.Domburg.

56 W. Schlesinger, "Stadtische Friihformen zwischen Rhein und Elbe", in Mayer(ed.), Studien zu den Anfangen des europaischen Sladtewesens, pp. 351-2; Hodges andWhitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, pp. 162-7.

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At Antwerp excavations in the neighbourhood of the present Steen(that is, the castle), near the embankment of the Scheldt, brought tolight the wooden foundations of streets and houses, probably datingfrom the second half or the end of the ninth century.57 Their identifi-cation with the vicus of Antwerp mentioned in a written source ofabout 900, as well as the interpretation of both the archaeological andhistorical data in favour of the commercial character of the place atthat date, are beyond doubt.58 This is not, however, the case withthe identification of the civitas of Antwerp, which is recorded asbeing burnt by the Vikings in the year 836. The likely presence offortifications, which may be implied by the word civitas, suggests itspossible identification with an also unidentified castrum at Antwerp.A much-discussed text from Echternach Abbey mentions the exist-ence in 726 of a church which had been founded at this castrum byAmandus, the famous missionary of the Scheldt valley, about themiddle of the seventh century. No later trace of this oldest church ofAntwerp, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, has been found. Thecapitular church (later an abbey dedicated to St. Michael), whichformed the mother church of Antwerp in the twelfth century, is stillsituated more than a thousand metres south of the then centre of thetown, which itself lay very near to the urban settlement (vicus) of thelate ninth century. This chain of topographical reasoning suggests adistinction between the vicus and the castrum'civitas of the eighth andearly ninth centuries, although both places were probably in somesense continuations of Roman settlements.59

The character of the ninth-century vicus was, however, totally

?7 A. L. J. Van de Walle, "Excavations in the Ancient Centre of Antwerp", MedievalArchaeology, v (1961), pp. 123-36.

51 For these and the following data and interpretations, see: A. Verhulst, "Hetomstaan en de vroege topografie van Antwerpen van de Romeinse tijd tot het beginvan de 12e eeuw", in L. Voet et al. (eds.), De stad Antwerpen van de Romeinse tijd totde IT eeuw (Brussels, 1978), pp. 13-40; A. Verhulst, "Neue Ansichten iiber dieEntstehung der flamischen Sladte am Beispiel von Gent und Antwerpen", in W.Ehbrecht and H. Schilling (eds.), Niedertande undNordwestdeutschland: F. Petrizum80. (ieburutag (Cologne and Vienna, 1983), pp. 1-17. See also Lexikon des Mittelahers,i (Munich and Zurich, 1980), cols. 36-8, s.v. Antwerpen.

•* Archaeological reports on Roman finds by T. Oost, Tydschrift der stad Antwerpen,xxii (1976), pp. 69-76; xxvii (1981), pp. 33^3; xxviii (1982), pp. 182-8; T. Oost,"Voorgeschiedenis en archeologische vondsten", in K. Van Isacker and R. Van Uytven(eds.), Antwerpen: Twaalf eeuwen Geschiedenis en adtuur (Antwerp, 1986), pp. 22-32;T. Oost, "Bewoningsgeschiedenis van Antwerpen en omgeving", in M. C. van Trierumand H. E. Henkes (eds.), Rotterdam Papers, v: A Contribution to Prehistoric, Romanand Medieval Archaeology (Rotterdam, 1986), pp. 147-59 (with an English summary);E. Warmenbol, "Hoe romeins zijn de oudere Antwerpse vondsten wel?", Handelingender Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde le Gent, xl (1986), pp. 7-39.

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MAP 3ANTWERP

A: Castrum-civitas (seventh-ninth century), with St. Peter's and St. Paul's Church,later St. Michael's Abbey

B' Carolingian vicus (ninth-tenth century)1: Ditch of the fortified vicus ("Burggracht") (tenth century)2: St. Walburga's Church (tenth century)3: Present Steen (castle) (twelfth century)4: Fish-market5: Our Lady's Church (twelfth century)6: Ditch (probably eleventh century)7: Town walls of ±1200

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changed in the second half of the tenth century. Shortly before theyear 980 the Emperor Otto II, perhaps using a similar existingconstruction, built a semicircular wall around the vicus and trans-formed it into a fortification (castrum), of which the present Steenand some fragments of wall nearby are the only vestiges. The mer-chants were probably driven out, but established themselves outsidethe wall, where two market-places were laid out and where a church(the present cathedral of Our Lady) was built at the beginning of thetwelfth century. At the same date Antwerp is for the first time calledportus and emporium. The name of the older and smaller of the twomarket-places, the Fish-market, which is, moreover, at the very footof the fortress wall, suggests local provisioning of the fortress garrisonas the principal activity of the new merchant settlement. The contrastwith the absence of a market-place within the former ninth-centuryvicus, which was now incorporated into the imperial fortress, isstriking, the more so as the latter had had a wharf jutting out intothe Scheldt which would have been particularly well suited for long-distance trade.

We are confronted with the same contrast in the early topographyand history of Ghent.60 Here too the town of the later middle agesgrew out of several elements, chronologically, geographically andeconomically distinct, each with a different origin and history. Aportus Ganda is mentioned in connection with the feast of St. Bavoon 1 October in the well-known Martyrologium Usuardi, written about865 by a monk of Paris. A fairly complicated argument, too long tobe set out here, has led to the conclusion that this portus can possiblybe placed on the left bank of the Scheldt at Ghent, some three to fivehundred metres upstream of its confluence with the River Leie (Lys).Here, on a slight sandy elevation, stands the present cathedral of St.Bavo. It was preceded by the oldest town church, dedicated to St.John the Baptist, St. Vaast and St. Bavo, which itself perhaps goesback to a church or chapel built there before the end of the eighthcentury. Situated at the northern edge of a Merovingian urbansettlement, on the same sandy ridge along the left bank of the Scheldt,this place may have developed into a vicus by the beginning of the

w A. Verhulst, "Die Fruhgeschichle der Stadt Gent", in Festschrift Eimen, pp. 108-37; Verhulst, "Neue Ansichien tiber die Entstehung"; A. Verhulst, "Saint Bavon etles origines de Gand", Revue du nord, lxix (1986), pp. 455-67. On the archaeologicalaspects of the early history of Ghent, see the contribution of M. C. Laleman, "Deontwikkeling van de Gentse architectuur", in N. Poulain (ed.), Gent en Archiuauur("Bruges, 1985), pp. 7-23; M. C. Laleman and P. Raveschot (eds.), Wal'nlevenbirmendie muren (Ghent, 1986), pp. 9-42.

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MAP 4GHENT

+ 10

A: Carolmgian portusB: Tenth-century portus

1: Count's castle2: St Pharafldis's Church (tenth century)3: St. James's Church (eleventh-twelfth century)4- St. Michael's Church (eleventh-twelfth century)5: St. Nicholas's Church (eleventh-twelfth century)6: Belfry (thirteenth-fourteenth century)7: Engienhuus (town arsenal) (thirteenth-fourteenth century)8: St. John's Church (eighth-tenth century), now St. Bavo's Cathedral9: Geraard Duivelsteen (house of Gerard the Devil, with keep)

10: St. Bavo's Abbey (seventh century)11 • St. Peter's Abbey on the Mons Blandinium (seventh century)

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ninth century. Topographically the vicus consisted mainly of at leastthree landing-stages, called aard. Somewhere nearby a fleet had beenbuilt against the Vikings on the orders of Charlemagne, who himselfcame to Ghent to inspect it in the year 811. A semicircular D-shapedditch, dating from the late ninth or early tenth century, which musthave surrounded the whole Carolingian vicus (A on Map 4), hasrecently been discovered over a length of more than sixty metres,between Kalandenberg and Brabantdam.

There is no trace of a market-place in this Carolingian vicus. Thefair of St. Bavo, mentioned about the year 1000, was probably heldoutside it, perhaps beside St. Bavo's Abbey, which was situated atthe confluence of the Scheldt and the Leie, downstream from thevicus. This important abbey had been founded between 630 and 639by Amandus in the ruins of an old Roman castrum. The similaritywith the situation at Antwerp is of course striking. Although in Ghenttoo there is a clear distinction between the old Roman fortresstransformed into an abbey and the merchant settlement, upstream ofit, different kinds of relations, ecclesiastical and commercial, musthave developed at Ghent between the two communities. Here themain activity of the merchants seems to have been in long-distancetrade. Along with the attraction of St. Bavo's burial place, this mayalso have been the reason for the development of the vicus, as anextension of the Merovingian urban settlement south of it, duringthe eighth and ninth centuries.

Although the abbey was destroyed twice by the Vikings, in 851and in 879, when they established their winter camp there, and as aresult stood abandoned until the middle of the tenth century, theportus itself, though possibly abandoned temporarily, must have beenrepopulated before that date. One reason for believing this is the factthat the church of this Carolingian portus near the Scheldt remainedfor two more centuries the only town church, although meanwhile,during the first decades of the tenth century, another portus haddeveloped some distance away, on the banks of the Leie, south ofthe still surviving count's castle.

This second portus at Ghent is first mentioned in charters datingfrom 941-50, just before the appearance in a narrative source of thelater tenth century of what was then still called a "new fortification"(novum castellum)." The portus lay at the foot of this novum castelhan,

61 Van Werveke and Verhulst, "Castrum en Oudburg te Gent"; A. Verhulst, "Diegrafliche Burgenverfassung in Flandern im Hochmittelalter", in H. Patze(ed.),Burgenim deuuchen Sprachraum, i (Vortrage und Forschungen, xix, Sigmaringen, 1976), p.272; Verhulst, "Neue Ansichten Qber die Entstehung", p. 8.

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though separated from it by two arms of the Leie. The woodenfoundations of the keep of this fortification have recently been datedby dendrochronology to the years 957-64. This slight chronologicaldifference between portus and casteUum seems to indicate the priorityof xhe portus. Nevertheless, because of the topographical relationshipbetween the casteUum and the portus, and particularly its market-place(the "Fish-Market") which lies immediately outside the main entryof the casteUum, it seems that the casteUum — or whatever settlementor seigniorial centre preceded it — surely played a major role in thedevelopment of the portus, if not in its origins. This role may perhapsbe more precisely defined by pointing to a very important element ofthe casteUum ignored by Pirenne who stressed only its military roleand considered it only in terms of defence and security for the newtrading-place.62 A close interpretation of the same narrative sourcefrom the second half of the tenth century which has already beencited led to the discovery within the territory of the novum casteUum(covering about four hectares) of a settlement of leather craftsmen.They probably worked there for the lord of the castle, the count ofFlanders, within some kind of domestic or seigniorial relationship.63

In the twelfth century the settlement earlier called the novumcasteUum was called Oudburg (vetus burgus), which may indicate thatit had in fact been established earlier than the merchant settlement(the tenth-century portus) across the River Leie. The craftsmen fromthe "Oudburg" probably bought their foodstuffs in the fish-marketof the tenth-century merchant settlement since, unlike the count andthe castle garrison, they may not have been provided with suppliesbrought to the castle as one of the centres of the comital domain.64 Itfollows from this that the second portus at Ghent, on the Leie bank,in contrast to its Carolingian predecessor on the bank of the Scheldt,probably owed its origins to local commerce rather than long-distancetrade. Soon, however, and at latest in the course of the eleventhcentury, a connection was established between these two trading-places along what became the main street of the later medieval

62 H. Pirenne, "Les villes flamandes avant le xiic siecle", in his ViUes el institutionsurbaines, i, pp. 123-41.

63 W. Janssen, "Die Bedeutung der mittelalterlichen Burg fur die Wirtschafts- undSozialgeschichte des Mittelalters", in H. Jankuhn, W. Janssen et al., Das Handwerkm vor- und fruhgeschichdicher Zeit (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaftenin Gottingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 3rd ser., cxxxiii, Gottingen, 1983), p.304.

64 On this function of the count's castle in Ghent and elsewhere in Flanders, seeB. D. Lyon and A. Verhulst, Medieval Finance: A Comparison of Financial Institutionsin Northwestern Europe (Providence, 1967), pp. 12-40.

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town, the Hoogpoort. An osmosis took place between the commercialactivities of the two nuclei, and the medieval town of Ghent was born.

In this connection it should be noted that by the end of the tenthcentury, according to a narrative source, theportus of Tournai, situatedfurther upstream on the Scheldt, was supplying Ghent with wool.This portus had developed in the third quarter of the ninth centurywithin the Roman walls of the old civitas, where an important mintand toll were then in existence.65 This wool trade means that aboutthe year 1000 a textile industry had already developed at Ghent,probably located in the quarter of the Hoogpoort. I shall return tothis problem later on.

The case of Bruges, situated at the edge of the Flemish coastalplain, is less clear.66 For some years archaeological finds and exca-vations have made it clear that there was Roman occupation duringthe first centuries A.D. and even until the fourth century at differentplaces within the present urban area. On the other hand, a newinterpretation of the mysterious municipium Flandrense, in a narrativesource of the beginning of the eighth century, makes it almost certainthat Bruges was at that time the central place of the pagus Flandrensis,most of which lay on the coastal plain between the River Yser andthe Zwin estuary near Knokke.67 After the early medieval floods ofthe so-called Second Dunkerque Transgression, Bruges was acces-sible from the sea by boat. It is possible that the name Bruges in itsearliest form (bryggja) has an Old Norse origin and meant quay orlanding-stage. The short distance (about twenty kilometres) betweenBruges and Torhout, where from 829 onwards a school existed formissionaries intended for the evangelization of Sweden by BishopAnsgar of Hamburg, makes this likely.

The commercial character of Bruges in the ninth century is difficultto prove. Nevertheless it was a place with important central functionsduring the second half of that century. These were concentratedaround the count's castle of later times (the present Burg with thetown hall), where a church dedicated to Our Lady and St. Donatian

65 P. Rolland, Les origines de la commune de Tournai (Brussels, 1931); Vercauteren,Etude sur les cwitates, pp. 233-53; archaeological information and recent bibliographyin R. Brulet, "Le quartier Saint-Brice de Tournai a l'epoque merovingienne", Revuedu nord, box (1986), pp. 361-9.

66 Verhulst, "Origines et histoire ancienne de la ville de Bruges"; J. A. Van Houtte,Bruges, essai d'histoire urbaine (Brussels, 1967); M. Ryckaert, "Die Topographie derflandrischen Hafenstadte bis 1300: Das Beispiel von Brugge", Lubecker Sckriften zwrArchaologie und Kulturgeschichte, vii (1983), pp. 47-55.

67 Verhulst, "Aspect of the Question of Continuity".

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MAP 5BRUGES

I The "Oudeburg", probably the merchants' quarter in the eleventhcentury

Extension of the town in the first half of the twelfth century

Town walls of 1297-1300

1: St. Donatian's Church (tenth century)2: St. Walburga's Church (founded tenth century [?], parish in 1239)3: St Saviour's Church (tenth century)4: Our Lady's Church (ninth or tenth century)

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was built in the model of the palatine chapel of Aachen in the tenthcentury at the latest. The castrum itself had been built by the countof Flanders some time before the year 892. It has not yet beendiscovered archaeologically, probably because it has been trans-formed and integrated into a far larger fortified complex, which wasbuilt in the course of the eleventh century, and of which the notaryGalbert has given a description in his famous account of the eventsof 1127-8.^ The reference to Bruges as a vicus about 900 is notsufficient to prove the commercial character of the place, and it is notcalled a portus before about the year 1000. It is not clear whether thisshould be explained by the silting-up of the large creek which hadconnected Bruges to the sea. After an interval of rather more than acentury the creek was rendered navigable again by new floods in theearly eleventh century.

At the end of the eleventh century there is a mention of a casteUimforinsecum — that is, a fortified settlement outside the count's castel-lum — which may be identified with the quarter called Oudeburg,immediately to the south-west of the count's castellum. In later centur-ies there were various public buildings in this quarter and the twooldest town churches, dedicated respectively to Our Lady and to St.Saviour, lay nearby. This suggests that the Oudeburg quarter atBruges originated as an annex of the castrum, similar to the Oudburgat Ghent. Unlike the latter, however, it seems to have developed atan early date, perhaps during the tenth century, into a distinctsettlement with a population of distinctively urban character engagingin commercial and industrial activities. The fact that the two principalroutes from Bruges into the interior, to Ghent and Kortrijk, taketheir departure from the Oudeburg quarter, together with the locationof the Bruges market-place at the edge of both the castrum andthe castellum forinsecum or Oudeburg quarter, not only makes thishypothesis still more likely, but also suggests that the commercialactivity of the Oudeburg population was not primarily connectedwith long-distance trade overseas. This leaves unsolved the problemof the slight indications that Bruges had overseas connections duringthe ninth century, which I referred to above.

It nevertheless remains likely that overseas trade in the ninth

" J. Mertens, "The Church of Saint Donatian at Bruges", in J. B. Ross, The Murderof Charles the Good, Centra of Flanders, by Galbert of Bruges: Translated with anIntrodxiaion and Notes, revised edn. (New York and London, 1967), pp. 318-20; J.Demeulemeester and A. Matthys, Vroegmiddeleeuwse sporen op de Burg te Brugge(Archaeologia Belgica, ccxxvi, Brussels, 1980).

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century also had bases at some other points on the Flemish coastalplain, since a mysterious Iserae portus — that is, a portus which wasprobably situated near the mouth of the Yser river — is mentionedin 861.69 It possibly disappeared as a consequence of the shift of themouth of the Yser to its present position after the ninth century.70

Arguments have been propounded to place this portus at Veurne,which developed as a town in the eleventh century. Veurne grewfrom a circular fortification built by the count of Flanders at the endof the ninth century which may have destroyed the former portus.71

As a conclusion of the study so far one can say that the differentportus in the Scheldt valley and along the Flemish North Sea coastform a distinctive group of urban centres, not only geographicallybut also chronologically and economically. Chronologically theircommercial significance begins not much before the second half ofthe ninth century, although they existed earlier, in Merovingiantimes, as central places, the urban character and sites of which derivedfrom Roman origins. Economically the absence of market-places inthe Carolingian portus and their orientation towards river trade andpossibly overseas trade, as demonstrated by their position and top-ography, point to a role as transit places in interregional and eveninternational trade. In both respects they thus seem to be the suc-cessors of the ephemeral emporia of the eighth and ninth centuries inthe Rhine-Meuse delta, although they lack the wide-ranging import-ance of the emporia. It seems therefore as if the disappearance of theemporia about the middle of the ninth century was followed by asouthward and eastward shift of trade and traffic, which acted to thebenefit of towns not only in the Scheldt valley and on the FlemishNorth Sea coast, but also of Deventer and Tiel in eastern Holland,and of the towns of the Meuse valley. The causes of this change inthe geography and character of trade are not yet clear. They havealready been discussed in connection with the disappearance of tradecentres like Dorestad and Domburg. Taking into account the survival,

" Koch, "Phasen in der Entstehung von Kaufmannsniederlassungen".70 A. Verhulst, "Involution de la plaine maritime flamande au moyen age", Revue

de I'Untversui de Bruxelks (1962-3), pp. 89-106; A. Verhulst, Hiitoirc du paysage ruralen FUmdre (Brussels, 1966), pp. 25-34.

71 Van Werveke, Oudste burchten aan de Vlaamse en Zeeuwte kuu; J. De Meulemees-ter, "De circulaire versterking te Veurne", Archeclogia Belgica, ccxxiii (1980), pp. 109-13.

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after the ninth century, of urban centres situated farther away fromthe Rhine-Meuse delta which had been occupied by the Danes, oneis naturally inclined to give some weight to the lesser impact of Vikingattacks in this area.72

The detailed study of the topography of Antwerp, Ghent and Brugeshas shown that the emergence of new trading-points within theirrespective urban areas in the late ninth and tenth centuries and alsothe continuity of older Carolingian settlements in the vicinity ensuredthe continuity of town life from the ninth to the tenth century.These new portus of the tenth century, in contrast to the Carolingiansettlements, were furnished with market-places and owed theirdevelopment, if not their origin, primarily to local trade with the non-merchant population living within the walls of the new fortificationsbeside their respective portus.

This sort of fortification was seldom originally built as a defenceagainst the Vikings. Its construction was rather a manifestation of thegeneral spread of fortifications (the "incastellamento") which initiatedthe feudal period all over Europe.73 The merchants sought its proxim-ity not for military protection, but for trading possibilities. Thecastrum therefore was not, as Pirenne put it, a passive element towhich a town could become attached, but an active economic factorof attraction.

Meanwhile, perhaps after some temporary decline at the end ofthe ninth and the beginning of the tenth century, due to the effectsof the Viking invasions, long-distance trade had resumed, therebyreviving older Carolingian settlements within what became urbanareas, as is demonstrated at Ghent; transforming their character, asprobably happened at the Oudeburg quarter of Bruges; or provokingnew expansion, as at Antwerp. An osmosis between these neighbour-ing trading-stations and settlements of different origin, date andcharacter took place in the course of the tenth century, linking themtogether. At the same time industry made its entry, on a far largerscale than before, into what from now on may be called real towns.

This shifting of industry, mainly the textile industry, from country-

72 Contrary to the opinion of Hodges and Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagneand the Origins of Europe, pp. 165-7.

73 G. Fournier, Le chateau dans la France metiievale (Paris, 1978); Fossier, Enfancede {"Europe, ii, pp. 983-6.

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side to town, especially in Ghent, is a phenomenon which is stilldifficult to explain. It took place in the tenth and eleventh centuriesand was completed towards the end of the eleventh century. We haveno general explanation for it as yet, since those advanced by manyscholars from more theoretical angles, whether technical, cultural orsociological, are not very convincing.74 I may just venture to proposea possible explanation in the particular case of Ghent, one of the mostimportant textile centres of the later middle ages and, after Paris, themost populous town in western Europe before the end of the middleages. The import of raw wool across the Scheldt from the Tournairegion to Ghent is established by a text of about the year 1000. Apartfrom that, most of the wool manufactured at Ghent before the importof English wool began in the late eleventh century must have comefrom the immense saltmarshes formed by marine transgressions alongthe Flemish North Sea coast and on the islands of Zeeland from theeighth century onwards. Sheep were bred here on a very large scaleuntil the embankment of the last marshes in the eleventh and twelfthcenturies.75 The amount of wool produced must have been so massivethat it could not all have been turned into cloth by the peasants ofthe region itself, as had been the case earlier. Large quantities of woolmust have been transported over the waterways into the interior, andparticularly to Ghent where demand was high and where two veryimportant Benedictine abbeys were the principal proprietors of thesaltmarshes on the Flemish coast and in Zeeland. In Ghent there alsolived rich townspeople who owned marshes and flocks. One, namedEverwacker, at the beginning of the twelfth century owned immenseflocks of sheep on the saltmarshes along the Westerschelde north ofGhent.76

It was only as the saltmarshes of Flanders and Zeeland wereprogressively disappearing as a result of embankment in the courseof the eleventh century that English wool had to be imported as thebasic raw material for the Flemish textile industry. This opened anew and decisive period in the development of towns in the LowCountries.

* * *74 See, for example, the explanation given by H. Van Werveke, "Industrial Growth

in the Middle Ages: The Cloth Industry in Flanders", Earn. Hist. Rev., vi (1954),pp. 237-45.

75 A. Verhulst, "La laine indigene dans les anciens Pays-Bas entre le xiic et le xvii'slide", Revue histonque, div (1972), pp. 281-322.

76 F. L. Ganshof, "Bemerkungen zu einer flandrischen Gerichlsurkunde", in P.Classen and P. Scheibert (eds.), Festschrift P. E. Schramm (Wiesbaden, 1964), pp.268-79.

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The different stages in the early history of towns in the Low Countriesmay be summarized as follows. The continuity of locality, if not ofoccupation and function, enjoyed by most places with an urbancharacter from late Roman to Merovingian times, is much greaterthan Pirenne and the older school of town historians in Belgium,France and Holland once thought. While most Roman settlementsof significance had been composed of several nuclei, sometimes withdifferent functions (residential, industrial, military), as the result ofdemographic decline only one or two of these nuclei were stillinhabited in Merovingian times.

These Merovingian urban settlements generally served as "centralplaces" in ecclesiastical or lay administration. Their significance ascentres of trade or industry was rather secondary and uncommon inthe regions studied here, except for some centres in the Meuse valley,like Huy. Beside these Merovingian places or in their immediatevicinity there appeared in the course of the eighth and ninth centuriesenlargements or new settlements of purely commercial character —mostly therefore called portus or emporium. This happened first in theRhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta, where their existence was ephemeral.Their disappearance about the middle of the ninth century obviouslyprofited several urban centres situated further inland, on the banksof the Meuse, the Scheldt and the Yssel, most of which gainedcommercial significance from this time onwards. The commercialactivity of both chronological groups was dominated by long-distancetrade, the range of which was, however, wider in the case of the deltagroup than in that of the inland centres. On the other hand, the lattersurvived the Viking invasions and other possible external factors ofdecline in the course of the ninth century better than did the coastaltowns, partly because they received new impulses from new trading-places and settlements close by. These appeared during the tenthcentury in response to the market provided by the population of newfortifications built in urban areas with the intention of dominatingthem. Only in the case of these new settlements does the duality ofcastrum and suburbium, to which Pirenne and his school reduced theorigin of nearly all towns in Belgium and northern France, makesense.

Rapidly, and no later than the eleventh century or the beginning ofthe twelfth, the different topographical elements from Merovingian,Carolingian and post-Carolingian times grew together into singlesettlements, which soon acquired their own systems of defence,jurisdiction, etc. Industry, mainly cloth-making from inland wool,

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had already been introduced into some towns, such as Ghent, fromthe tenth century, and reached its second stage with the import ofEnglish wool from the end of the eleventh century onwards.

From then, Pirenne's picture of medieval town life holds good.77

What he has said about urban life and its characteristics before 1000must, however, for the greater part be rejected. As Susan Reynoldshas put it, "the urban communities which began to assert themselvesin the later eleventh century had surely been consolidating themselvesfor some time before then".78 This is particularly true of the earliesttowns of the Low Countries which, not only later but in their earlystages, too, were key examples of urban development in the middleages.

University of Ghent Adriaan Verhulst

77 Prevenier, "Pirenne et les Wiles des aneiens Pays-Bas au bas moyen age".n Reynolds, Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns, p. 22.

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Documents

THE ORIGINS OF TOWNS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE PIRENNE THESIS