Exchanging Medieval Material Culture Studies on archaeology and ...

and (N-W-) Europe. Th e moats around the moated farmsteads
in coastal Flanders were indeed apparently more than exclusively
functional features, for instance for drainage, defence or
use as fi sh resource.
Verhaeghe suggested a very probable link between the general
social and symbolic meaning and use of these moats and the
use of moats in the high status motte-and-bailey sites19. He formulated
the hypothesis that the use of moats around the farms
designed a kind of social emulation, in which the moat around
the farm had to be seen as an imitation of these fashionable
features used in the higher circles20. Indeed, coastal Flanders
was already in the 12th century an exceptionally early urban
market oriented area where farmers had no or very few
seigniorial ties or duties21. One could indeed suggest that the
apparent independence of the coastal farmers from lords or
nobility, seems to have been the context in which these farmers
chose to signal their free status and social independence.
Th e questions that remain are how, when and from where the
idea of using a moat as a sign to defi ne them was transferred
from the higher circles to the free (and other) farmers. It suggests
all together that the farmers and peasants did not fear
to use moats and were not opposed in doing so in the early
13th century. Th e example(s) to follow must have been not
far away and in one way or another it must have stimulated
the idea of imitation, either by the ambitions of the peasants,
or by the accessibility of it as a sign to use, or by a combination
of both. Th e use of moats indeed might have been derived
from social position, namely the position of being free farmers
and could then have acted as a sign from which a social
position is derived22. Th e question is, which was the reference
sign for those coastal farmers, and in which context could the
farmers and peasants use and imitate the idea of moats around
their farms? One particular problem is that classical mottebailey
strongholds were not a widespread phenomenon in the
coastal plain.
3 Coastal knights of the count of Flanders
When we look at the social elites in the coastal plain in the
medieval period and especially the period around the 12th
century and before that, we notice the apparent absence of real
(‘high’) nobility from within the coastal area23. Local and
micro-regional lordship can be found in estates at the sandy
edge of the coastal plain, while in comital strongholds as Sint-
Winoksbergen, Bourbourg, Veurne (Furnes), Oudenburg and
19 Verhaeghe 1981; Idem 1986; Idem 2002.
20 Idem 1998, 304; Idem 2002.
21 Brenner 2001.
22 Verhaeghe 1998, 282-283.
23 Koch 1951; Warlop 1968.
24 Th ese strongholds were mainly circular fortresses
who were probably erected against the last
large Viking invasion in the southern Netherlands
between 885 and 891. As stated in the mid-11thcentury
Vita Winnoci, written in an abbey in one of
these forts, it is most likely that the young as well
as unscrupulous Prince Baldwin II (878-918) was
responsible for the construction of the circular
ring forts in the coastal plain of Flanders, and this
between 884/885 and 891 (Meijns 2007).
25 Monumenta Germaniae Historica (mgh),
Scriptores (ss), 12: Vita Karoli comitis Flandriae,
§ 97: “Eodem die, scilicet feria quarta, cives nostri et
maritimi fl andrenses coniuraverunt ut simul deinceps
starent pro tuendo honere loci et patriae.”
26 Duby 1977, 178-185.
27 Von Groote 1980.
<strong>Medieval</strong> moated sites in coastal Flanders 291
of course Bruges we fi nd castellani or burggraven (‘castle governors’),
who are connected to the higher nobility of Flanders24.
Th ese governors were appointed offi cials who had their roots
elsewhere and who had no clear territorial possessions in the
coastal plain itself. Th ere are some indications that some of
them hold motte-bailey castles within the circular strongholds
of Veurne and Bergues, but these castles are archaeologically
not very well known.
Next to this small group of higher offi cials, some contemporary
written sources, like the account of the murder of Charles the
Good by Galbert of Bruges (1127-1128), mention the presence
of a group or even confederacy of coastal knights in early-12thcentury
Flanders25. Knights were not considered nobility until
the end of the 12th century, although they did play a higher
social role in society26. In his article of 1980 about the position
of these knights in the events of 1127/1128, W. von Groote
gave some interesting characteristics of these knights, which he
considered as the notables of the coastal plain27. Th e fi rst is
that these knights, called the maritimi fl andrenses acted and
lived in the actual alluvial polder area of coastal Flanders.
Furthermore, these knights were involved in the defence of
comital fortresses in the coastal area and in the regional practice
of justice (as scabini terrae). Th ey also seem to have been
involved in the management of comital estates. Th e most
important amongst them (the meliores) belonged to the principes
of coastal Flanders28. Th e milites from Oostkerke, who were
situated next to the Zwin (the tidal inlet that connected Bruges
with the sea) seem to have been engaged in the control of the
trade to Bruges and had a role in the surveillance of the public
order (as exercitus)29.
Th e actual connection between these knights and estates or
manors in the coastal area remained unclear though, as well as
the actual position and place of these knights in the coastal
landscape. According to the ‘traditional’ historical-geographical
interpretations of the formation of the coastal landscape,
this landscape was fi rst of all the result of the embanking, reclamations
and actions of large ecclesiastical institutions in the
salt marshes of the high medieval coastal plain30. According to
this theory, the ecclesiastical property rights of these salt
marshes were granted by the counts, which were the theoretical
landowners of the unembanked salt marshes. Th e counts however,
would not have been interested in developing estates of
their own31. Inside the coastal plain itself, the counts would
only have kept a limited number of smaller feudal manors and
some rents in kind.
28 mgh, ss, Vita Karoli comitis Flandriae,
§ 51: “ex Isandica Alardus scabinus cum sua potentia,
ex Ostburg Haiolum cum illius locis potestatibus,
ex Reddenburg Hugo Berlensis cum illius loci
fortioribus, ex Lapscura, Ostkerca, Utkerca, Liswega,
Slipen, Gistella, Oldenburg, Lichtervelda, Iadbeca
omnes fortiores et meliores ...”; Von Groote 1980.
29 Ibid..
30 See for instance Verhulst 1995.
31 Th oen 2001.