Exchanging Medieval Material Culture Studies on archaeology and ...

292
Dries Tys
4 Coastal estates of the count of Flanders
Th is view was contested by the ‘discovery’ of extensive comital
estates in coastal Flanders by reconstructing the actual 10th- to
12th-century social property relations in the central part of the
coastal plain, on the east bank of the river Yzer, the so called
‘Kamerlings Ambacht’ (fi g. 2; fi g. 3)32. According to this
research, it was count Baldwin II (879-918) who succeeded in
the creation of an enormous territorial property in the coastal
plain, next to the free lands of an older population of early
medieval sheep farmers, who lived more land inward on dwelling
mounds33. He apparently did so by exercising the ability to
gain control over important resources, through the usurpation
of older estates belonging to the crown or ecclesiastical institutions,
but also through the exercise of the regal right of waste
grounds in the coastal plain, which were to be found in the
lower salt marshes in the estuaries of the open tidal channels
and rivers, like the Zwin, the Yzer, the Gersta, and others.
Th e interdisciplinary analysis of the medieval landscape of case
study areas in the coastal plain resulted in the reconstruction
of several of these comital estates in the estuaries, like the
estates on the east bank of the river Yzer (all together 1600
hectares and with a capacity of 10,000 sheep), the huge comital
estates around Veurne, specialised in animal husbandry and
sheep herding but also containing several fi sheries, and the
estates of the ‘lardarium’ and ‘spicarium’ of Bergues on both
sides of the Gersta estuary.
Detailed analysis of the medieval landscape developments
(with attention to spatial structures, fi eld systems, property
relations and site catchment analysis) of the area on the east
bank of the river Yzer resulted indeed in the reconstruction of
Fig. 2 Th e parishes on the eastbank of the Yzer and
their relation. Th ere existed two mother parishes:
Testerep (Mariakerke) and Leffi nge.
32 Tys 2003; Idem 2005.
33 Loveluck & Tys 2006; Tys 2004.
34 See Verhulst & Gysseling 1962; Lyon &
Verhulst 1967.
Nieuwpoort
35 Around 1170, the treasury was reorganised in
the context of the development of a new estate
1600 hectares of ‘old’ territorial comital domains in this specifi
c area. In the 15th- and 16th-century land books, these
lands were described either as ‘Camerland’ or as ‘Proostland’,
being in fact the lands of the Brevia Camera and Magna Brevia
of Bruges (fi g. 3).
Th e Brevia Camera and Magna Brevia were two of the more
important estate accounts of the comital treasury34. Both
accounts went back to an older, united estate account in the
castellany of Bruges, which would have originated around the
end of the 11th century35. Th is account collected all the revenues
in money of the comital brevia-estates in the castellany of
Bruges, which were mainly estates leased out in census since the
end of the 11th century. Before the end of the 11th century,
these domains were part of the estate management called the
spicaria of Bruges, which refers to the comital storehouse in the
comital fortress in Bruges (the ‘Burg’). Th is storehouse acted as
rent-collecting centre of the comital estates in the region of
Bruges. Spatial and historical analysis of the estates in relation
to the descriptions of the revenues and incomes in later sources
from the comital treasury (the Grote Brief of 1187, the oldest
known general account of the revenues of the comital territorial
estates) show that these incomes could be brought back to
specialised sheep domains. Th e comital estates seem indeed to
have started with the delivery of bulk products and/or rents in
kind to the storehouses. In the case of the mentioned estates in
the area between the later towns of Ostend and Nieuwpoort, it
seems that they mainly delivered lambs (meat) and wool.
According to Verhulst and Lyon, the castral spicaria-system
came into existence around the year 1000, together with the
division of Flanders in castellanies36.
Westende
Noordzee
Walraversyde
Middelkerke
Wilskerke
Slijpe
Mariakerke
Leffinge
Oostende
Sint-Katharina-West
Stene
Zevekote
Mannekensvere Sint-Pieterskapelle
( Honkevliete)
Zande
Snaaskerke
Moere
Zandvoorde
Bredene
Oudenburg
Gistel
account administration, the so called ‘reddeninge’,
see Declercq 1997; Soens & Tys 2001.
36 Lyon & Verhulst 1967.