Exchanging Medieval Material Culture Studies on archaeology and ...

16
dries Tys
Fig. 3 Frans with his Brussels
students on the fi eldschool
practice in Aalst in 2005.
on the historical landscape around Raversyde and the history
of the fi shermen’s village. Out of this study followed a PhD
under supervision of Frans Verhaeghe, on the development and
life trajectory of the medieval rural landscape and settlement
structure in coastal Flanders.
From the early eighties Frans’ own contributions to settlement
archaeology shift ed gradually more towards urban archaeology.
His connections with town archaeology in Bruges, Antwerp and
Tours brought on the questions on the rise, development and
organisation of and in early medieval towns, a.o. in relation to
the question on continuity between Roman and medieval towns
in the Southern Netherlands17. What few people know is that
Frans was also member of the International Reference Committee
on the excavations of Birka between 1989 and 1996. As well in
the project in Ename Frans played an important advisory role.
He also contributed to the study and publication of the excavations
(1989-1991) ‘des Jardins du Carrousel’ in Paris (study on the
spatial distribution of archaeological small fi nds on the 15th to
16th century parcel structure) and was member of the scientifi c
team of the excavations in Saint-Denis18. He did the study of the
ceramics from the ‘Quartier des foulons’ in Arras (France) and of
the lead-glazed Meuse pottery from Oost-Souburgh, one of the
well-known ring forts of the late 9th and 10th century in the
Scheldt-estuary. His contributions on the subject are also of a
methodological and theoretical nature, warning us for a correct
and critical interpretation of the relation between written and
material sources on these subjects. In the analytical and interpretation
models on the development of early towns, he stressed the
importance of the relation between these urban central places
and the importance of trade and production of artefacts. Th e
17 Verhaeghe 1988; Verhaeghe 1990; Verhaeghe
1992; Janssen & Verhaeghe 1993; Verhaeghe 1993;
Verhaeghe 1994; Verhaeghe 1995; Verhaeghe 1998;
Verhaeghe 2005.
PhD’s of Koen De Groote and Dirk Callebaut (in progress) are
connected to this part of his research. His attention did not only
go out towards the early towns, but also to the urban phenomenon
and lifestyle in the early modern period, in relation to the
birth of the consumer society19.
5 Archaeological theory and methods
Th roughout his scientifi c thoughts and writings, Frans Verhaeghe
has always been very concerned about the practice of theory
and the critical approach of methods. In doing so, he is clearly
a processual thinker, with an emphasis on the use of theoretical
and even philosophical ideas and the critical use of models in
the interpretation of material life. Another aspect was and is
the use of natural sciences in archaeology, in order to elaborate
the scientifi c dataset with which archaeologists can work to
study the archaeological processes.
With his theoretical writings, he wanted to address both archaeologists
and historians working on the medieval and early modern
period. Many archaeologists, especially in the southern
Netherlands were still comfortable with the role of archaeology
as an anecdotic and descriptive science. In answer to them, he
wanted to stress the potential of archaeology as social science,
aimed at the explanation of human behaviour, indeed by using
theory and investigating the limits of methods and models.
Archaeology was/is not just about describing and classifying
sites and artefacts, but about interpreting social practices in
their context. Towards historians he stressed the idea of complementarity
between historical and archaeological records and
interpretations. Both records document the same past, but
18 Fixot & Verhaeghe 1996.
19 Verhaeghe 1996.