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The Origins of European Villages and the First European Expansion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Fredric Cheyette
Fredric Cheyette
Affiliation:
Amherst College
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Abstract

The countryside of Europe in the Roman period was one of dispersed villas and farmsteads placed in a regular grid. That of post-Roman Europe was one of nucleated villages surrounded by irregular fields and “spider's web” tracks. The change occurred between the sixth and the ninth centuries, when the countryside was largely emptied of its population. The reasons for this change should be explored, for this reconstruction of the countryside was the start of the medieval economic expansion that gave Europe a density of population and intensity of land exploitation it had never before achieved.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 182 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1977

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References

1 Dion, R., Essai sur la formation du paysage rural français (Tours, 1934), pp. 3–4Google Scholar, 31. According to Dion the origins of the northern form of agriculture are to be found “towards the East, towards the great plains of Europe” (p. 93), a remarkable assertion even in the 1930s.

2 Bloch, M., French Rural History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970), trans. Sondheimer, J., pp. 67–69, 74–77Google Scholar, and the argument of ch. 2. See also Bloch's famous contribution to the Cambridge Economic History, I, (2nd ed.; Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar, “The Rise of Dependent Cultivation and Seignorial Institutions, “esp. sees. 3, 4, and 6.

3 For a recent review of the literature see W. Schlesinger, “Zur Problematik der Erforschung der deutschen Ostsiedlung,” and Graus, F., “Die Problematik der deutschen Ostsiedlung aus tschechischer Sicht,” in the collective work Die deutsche Ostsiedlung des Mittelalters als Problem der europäischen Geschichte (Sigmaringen, 1975), pp. 11–75Google Scholar, a volume that contains surveys of colonization in Spain, France, and the Low Countries, as well as Central Europe.

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7 See the comments following the Verhulst lezione in ibid., pp. 255–57. Whether one accepts these critiques seems to depend on whether one takes the history of words to be the history of things. For a quite different argument for continuity, intentionally dismissing the words in which institutions are cast, see Herlihy, David, “The Carolingian Mansus,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 13 (1960), 79–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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10 Clavel, Béziers, pp. 207 ff.

11 See Bradford, J., Ancient Landscapes (London, 1957), pp. 156–206Google Scholar, and the photographs published by G. Schmiedt, “Contributo della foto-interpretazione alia ricostruzione del paesaggio agrario altomedievale,” Agricoltura e mondo rurale, following p. 832.

12 Bradford, Ancient Landscapes, p. 211. Additional examples of centuriation visible from the air in southern France have recently been published by Soyer, J., “Les centuriations de Provence,” Revue archeologique de Narbonnaise, 6 (1973)Google Scholar and 7 (1974).

13 Clavel, Béziers, p. 300 and map 17. Clavel found 203 verifiable villa locations within the territory of the ancient civitas. See in general ibid., pp. 296 ff.

14 Passelac, M., “Le vicus Eburomagus: Eléments de topographie, documents archeologiques,” Rev. arch. Narb., 3 (1970), 71–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and M. Gayraud, “L'inscription de Bram (Aude),” ibid., pp. 103–14.

15 Dilke, Roman Surveyor, pp. 149–50, presents the evidence for non-Mediterranean Europe and in ch. 13 for Britain. But see the criticism by Jones, G. D. E. in Britannia, 3 (1972), pp. 373–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the remarks of Bradford concerning alleged centuriation in Germany and Switzerland: “… the evidence is, at present, insufficient in its existing form” (Ancient Landscapes, p. 216). Wacher, John is equally negative in The Towns of Roman Britain ([Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974], p. 41)Google Scholar, though there are intriguing patterns near Gloucester and fields laid out per strigas in the Vale of York (ibid., pp. 152, 176). Traces of centuriation have been claimed by R. Fossier for the vicinity of Amiens (La terre et les hommes en Picardie, I [Paris and Louvain, 1968] pp. 138 ff.Google Scholar), but they are limited to a few squares, and are not entirely convincing. (The author himself advances his case largely in the conditional mode.) Even less convincing are the claims of K. Filipp for the remnant of a Roman centuria in the hamlet of Goldburghausen (Ries) (“Hausformengefuge und Dorfentwicklung im Ries,” Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde, 44 [1970], 115–17Google Scholar). A single square, about 700 m. on a side, might surely come into existence in a landscape in a number of ways. It is the repeated pattern, and the identity of orientation over an extensive area, that make the hypothesis of centuriation plausible. There is, of course, no reason a priori to doubt that the Romans centuriated the lands they conquered in northern Europe. Quite the contrary; there is every reason to assume that they did. Some day, perhaps, convincing evidence will be discovered. Some Roman fields in the vicinity of Mayen, their date verified by excavation, showed no sign of centuriation; see Seel, K. A., “Römerzeitliche Fluren im Mayener Stadtwald,” Bonner Jahrbücher, 163 (1963), 337.Google Scholar

16 Agache, R., Vues aériennes de la Somme et recherche du passé, Bulletin de la Société de préhistoire du Nord, spec. no., 5 (Amiens, 1962)Google Scholar; Archéologie aérienne de la Somme; Recherches nouvelles, 1963–1964, Bull. Soc. préhist. Nord, spec, no., 6 (Amiens, 1964); Détection aérienne de vestiges protohistoriques, gallo-romains et médiévaux dans le bassin de la Somme et ses abords, Bull. Soc. préhist. Nord, spec, no., 7 (Amiens, 1970).

17 Essertaux: Dufournet, P., “L'action des contraintes agraires collectives sur la formation du paysage en Amiénois,” Actes du 92e congrès national des sociétés savantes, Strasbourg, 1967 [hereafter Actes … cong. soc. sav.], Sect, d'archéologie (Paris, 1970), pp. 123–61Google Scholar. Estréessur-Noye: R. Agache, Détection aérienne des vestiges archéologiques [slides and explanatory folder] (Paris, n. d.), slide 18.

18 Tours: Boussard, J., “Essai sur le peuplement de la Touraine du ler au VIIIe siècle,” Le Moyen Age, 60 (1954), 273Google Scholar. Augusta Raurica: Martin, M., “Das Fortleben der spätrömischenromanischen Bevölkerung von Kaiseraugst und Umgebung im Frühmittelalter,” Provincialia: Festschrift für Rudolf Laur-Belart (Basel, 1968), pp. 133–50Google Scholar. Alesia: Grémaud, G., “L'abandon des établissements et des habitats gallo-romains en Côte-d'Or”, Actes 90e cong. soc. sav., Nice, 1965, Sect, d'arch (Paris, 1966) p. 111Google Scholar. Lopodunum: Schleiermacher, W., “Die späatesten Spuren der antiken Besiedlung im Raum von Speyer, Worms, Mainz, Frankfurt, und Ladenburg,” Bonner lahrbücher, 162 (1962), 165–73Google Scholar. Alsace: J. J. Hatt, “Les enseignements historiques de vingt années de fouille en Alsace et Moselle, 1946–66,” Actes 92e cong. soc. sav., Sect, d'arch., pp. 21–30. Provence: R. Boyer, “Les habitats de plaine en Provence à la fin de l'Antiquité,” ibid., pp. 201–20. The list could be exhaustively—and exhaustingly—extended.

19 Ardennes: Perin, P., “Le peuplement rural de la région ardennaise,” Actes 95e cong. soc. sav., Rheims, 1970, Sect, d'arch (Paris, 1974), pp. 347–65Google Scholar. East of the Rhine: Schleiermacher, “Späteste Spuren” and Boelcke, W. A., “Zur Problematik der frühen alemannischen Landnahme im deutschen Südwesten,” in Wirtschaftliche und soziale Strukturen im saekularen Wandel: Festschrift für W. Abel, I (Hannover, 1974), p. 25Google Scholar. Britain: J. Wacher, Towns of Roman Britain, pp. 411–422; Rivet, A. L. F., The Roman Villa in Britain (New York, 1969), pp. 214–15, 221–37Google Scholar. Languedoc: Bacon, J. P., “La villa gallo-romain de Condoumine à Puissalicon,” Rev. arch. Narb., 4 (1971), 93–132Google Scholar; Passelac, “Vicus Eburomagus,” p. 89. On the archeological evidence of the Visigothic invasions in this area, Clavel (alas) says only, “Des destructions dont ils sont cause témoignent les couches de cendres parfois importantes, contemporaines, sur bien des sites du Biterrois, de leur installation,” without giving either numbers or archeological references (Béziers, p. 176). Given the uncertain dating of medieval pottery until quite recently, one hardly knows how much weight to give her signalling of “Visigothic sherds” found on Roman villa sites (ibid., p. 298, map 16). Central Germany: Nitz, H.-J., “Langstreifenfluren zwischen Ems und Saale: Wege und Ergebnisse ihrer Erforschung in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten,” Siedlungs- und Agrargeographische Forschungen in Europa und Afrika, Braunschweiger Geographischer Studien, 3 (Wiesbaden, 1972), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; and, above all, the recent survey of the archaeological material by H. Jankuhn, “Rodung und Wiistung in vor- und frühgeschichtlicher Zeit,” in Die deutsche Ostsiedlung, pp. 111–28. Central Italy: Kahane, A., Threipland, L. Murray, and Ward-Perkins, J., “The Ager Veientanus, North and East of Rome,” Papers of the British School at Rome, 36 (1968), 161 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Potter, T. W., “Ricenti ricerche in Etruria meridionale,” Archeologia medievale, 2 (1975), 224 ff.Google Scholar

The literature on late antique and early medieval habitation distribution is not always easy to use for this purpose, as many studies, especially those of cemetery distribution, are concerned primarily or exclusively with the geography of settlement rather than with establishing continuity or discontinuity in its chronology. The examples are too numerous to mention. One is thus left puzzling whether a shift in location or a significant reduction in area signifies a major chronological discontinuity. Yet other studies view the problem of continuity as primarily anthropological or cultural, for the evidence that cemeteries provide consists, of course, in skeletons and cultural artifacts. See, for example, Straub, R., “Zur Kontinuität der voralemannischen Bevölkerung,” rpt. in Müller, W., ed., Zur Geschichte der Alemannen, (Darmstadt, 1975), pp. 49–66Google Scholar. And finally, most of the archeological evidence comes from the excavation of cemeteries rather than of settlements, thus adding a host of problems stemming from the relationships between settlements and cemeteries, the social structure of burials, the possible gaps in our knowledge of the distribution of cemeteries, and the special problems of dating cemetery finds. On these methodological issues, see Jankuhn, “Rodung und Wüstung,” pp. 81–88.

20 So powerful does this argument appear to some scholars that even where the archaeological evidence overwhelmingly indicates a discontinuity of settlement, the toponymic evidence is accepted as proving the contrary. For example, Perin, “Peuplement rural de la region ardennaise.”

21 Roblin, M., he terroir de Paris aux époques gallo-romaine et franque (2nd ed.; Paris, 1971), pp. 23, 89–91.Google Scholar

22 Lemoine, J., Toponymie du Languedoc et de la Gascogne (Paris, 1975), pp. 214–15, 219.Google Scholar

23 H. J. Nitz, “Langstreifenfluren,” p. 22. For comparisons of various types of evidence for dating settlement in a region see J. C. Tesdorpf, Die Entstehung der Kulturlandschaft am westlichen Bodensee, Veröff. d. Kommission für geschichtliche Landeskunde im Baden-Wurttemburg, Reihe B, 72 (Stuttgart, 1972), pp. 208 ff.; and Böhner, K., “Das Trierer Land zur Merowingerzeit nach dem Zeugnis der Bodenfunde,” in Laufner, R., ed., Geschichte des Trierer Landes, I, Schriftenreihe zur Trierischen Landesgeschichte und Volkskunde, 10 (Trier, 1964), pp. 329 ff.Google Scholar

24 Boyer, “Habitats de plaine en Provence”; Hatt, “Fouilles en Alsace”; Seel, “Römerzeitliche Fluren.”

25 See, in general, J. C. Russell, Late Ancient and Medieval Population, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. 48, pt. 3 (Philadelphia, 1958), pp. 71–99, whose emphasis on disease—especially the plague—has been supported by Wacher, Towns of Roman Britain, pp. 414 ff.

26 For a detailed regional study, with an attempt at precise chronology and a critical review of dating techniques, see Roblin, Terroir. de Paris.

27 An inventory for present-day Belgium is given in Wankenne, A., La Belgique à l' époque romaine: sites urbains, villageois, religieux et militaire, Centre national de recherches archéologiques en Belgique, ser. C, 3 (Brussels, 1972)Google Scholar. For Britain, see Wacher, Towns of Roman Britain. For the Rhine-Danube frontier, see Ennen, E., “Die Entwicklung des Städtewesens am Rhein und Mosel vom 6. bis 9. Jahrhundert,” La città nell'Alto Medioevo, SSCISAM, VI (Spoleto, 1959), pp. 419–52Google Scholar; and von Petrikovitz, H., “Das Fortleben römischer Städte am Rhein und Donau im frühen Mittelalter,” Trierer Zeitschrift, 19 (1950), 72–81.Google Scholar

28 Trier: Böhner, K., “Die Frage der Kontinuität zwischen Altertum und Mittelalter im Spiegel der fränkischen Funde des Rheinlandes,” Trierer Zeitschrift, 19 (1950), 85ff.Google Scholar; K. Böhner, “Das Trierer Land zur Merowingerzeit”; Ewig, E., Trier im Merowingerreich (Trier, 1954), pp. 76–79Google Scholar. Soissons: Kaiser, R., Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Civitas und Diözese Soissons in römischer und merowingischer Zeit, Rheinisches Archiv, 89 (Bonn, 1973), pp. 168 ffGoogle Scholar. Some other recent studies of early cityseapes are Claude, D., Topographie und Verfassung der Städte Bourges und Poitiers bis in das 11. Jahrhundert (Lubeck, 1960)Google Scholar; P. Leman, “De la voirie romaine à la voirie médieval: l'exemple de Beauvais,” Actes 95e cong. soc. sav., Sect, d'arch., pp 145–53; M. Martin, “Kaiseraugst”; Tholen, P. J., “Iuliacum-Jülich,” Bonner Jahrbücher, 175 (1975), 231–55Google Scholar; Février, P.-A., Le développement urbain en Provence (Paris, 1964), ch. 3Google Scholar; and the articles by P. Vaccari, G. Duby, J. M. Lacarra, F. Vercauteren, and J. Hubert, in La città nell'Alto Medioevo, SSCISAM, VI.

29 Petrikovitz, “Fortleben römischer Städte,”; Böhner, “Die Frage der Kontinuität.”

30 The argument and techniques for analyzing the landscape are presented in my “The Castles of the Trencavels: A preliminary Aerial Survey,” in Jordan, W. C. et al. , eds., Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1976), pp. 256–63.Google Scholar

31 Rouquette, J., ed., Cartulaire de Beziers (livre noir, (Montpellier-Paris, 1918), nos. 25, 31Google Scholar. For other tenth-century charters mentioning village fortifications in Languedoc see: ibid., no. 39 (977); Alaus, P., Cassan, , and Meynial, E., eds., Cartulaire de Cellone (Montpellier, 1898), nos. 279, 281 (954–986)Google Scholar; Cassan, and Meynial, , eds., Cartulaire d'Aniane (Montpellier, 1900), nos. 314 (978), 292 (990)Google Scholar; Terrin, O., Cartulaire du Chapitre d'Agde (Nîmes, 1969), no. 320 (956), 315 (973)Google Scholar; Histoire générale de Languedoc (Toulouse, 1872–92), V, col. 269 (972), col. 316 (990)Google Scholar; Bibliothèque nationale, ms. Doat 55, fol. 69 (957), ms. Baluze 81, fol. 393 (987–996).

32 Toubert, P., Les structures du Latium médiéval (Rome, 1973), chap. 4Google Scholar; J. de Font-Réaulx, “L'origine des villages dans le sud-est,” Actes 90e cong. soc. sav., Sect, d'arch., pp. 237–43; Baratier, E., “Les communautés de Haute Provence au Moyen Age: Problèmes d'habitat et de population,” Provence historique, 22 (1971), pp. 237–39.Google Scholar

33 Stevenson, E., “Documenti dell'Archivio della Cattedrale di Velletri,” Archivio delta Società Romana di Storia Patria, XII (1889), pp. 73–79Google Scholar [much abbreviated]. For a discussion of this and other similar tenth century charters, see Toubert, Latium, pp. 322–23.

34 This is assumed by Toubert, Font-Réaulx, and Baratier (see n. 32), as well as by J. Ward-Perkins, et al, “The Ager Veientanus,” pp. 161–65.

35 Hist. Gen. Languedoc, V, col. 316 (990); ibid., col. 344 (c. 1002). It appears, likewise, in the divisions between members of the family: ibid., cols. 405, 408, 409 (c. 1034).

36 Société archéologique de Montpellier, ms. 11, Cartulaire dit “de Foix.” Some of the same oaths are printed in Hist. Gen. Lauguedoc, V.

37 R. Morghen, et al., Statuti della Provincia Romana, Istituto Storico Italiano, Fonti per la storia d'Italia, 69 (Rome, 1930), p. 7.

38 For one regional example of village distribution, see my map in “Castles of the Trencavels,” pp. 264–65.

39 There are, nevertheless, at least three deserted medieval villages whose origins have been dated to the eighth century; see Grimm, P., Hohenrode, Veröffentlichungen der Landesanstalt für Volkheitskunde zu Halle, 11 (Halle, 1939)Google Scholar; Potter, T., “Excavations in Mazzano Romano,” Papers Brit. School Rome, 40 (1972), 135–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schäfer, A., “Die Wüstung Zimmern auf Gemarkung Stebbach,” Oberrheinische Studien, 1 (1970), 357–74.Google Scholar

40 Catalunya: Bonnassie, P., La Catalogue du milieu du Xe à la fin du XIe siècle (Toulouse, 1975), I, pp. 86 ffGoogle Scholar. Auvergne: G. Fournier, “Rural Churches and Rural Communities in Early Medieval Auvergne,” in Fredric Cheyette, ed., Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe (New York, 1968), pp. 315–40. Bourges area: G. Devailly, Le Berry du Xe siècle au milieu du XIIIe (Paris, 1973), pp. 91, 108. Amiens region: Fossier, Picardie, I, pp. 167–74. East of the Rhine: M. Born, Die Entwicklung der deutschen Agrarlandschaft (Darmstadt, 1974), pp. 129–33; Nitz, “Langstreifenfluren”; H. Dannheimer, “Im Spiegel der Funde,” in W. Buhl, ed., Karolingishes Franken (Wurzburg, 1973), p. 98. England: Bonney, D., “Early Boundaries in Wessex,” in Fowler, P. J., ed., Archaeology and the Landscape (London, 1972), pp. 168–86.Google Scholar

41 Fossier, Picardie, I, p. 163.

42 The information provided by H. Stoll, (“Bevölkerungszahlen aus frühgeschichtlicher Zeit,” Die Welt als Geschichte, 8/9 [1942–43], 69–74), is commented on by Boelcke (“Problematik d. alemannischen Landnahme,” pp. 25 ff.). His comments would also apply to the figures presented in Tesdorpf, Entstehung der Kulturlandschaft, p. 96.

43 See the figures in Bonnassie, Catalogne (I, pp. 89–90), and the arguments presented in Georges Duby, L'économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l'Occident médiéval ([Paris, 1962], pp. 65–71), repeated more forcefully in his recent Guerriers et Paysans ([Paris, 1973], pp. 92–97). The Parisian data are commented upon by Emily Coleman in “L'infanticide dans le Haut Moyen Age” (Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 29 [1974], pp. 315–35), and in her as yet unpublished “People and Property: The Rational Structure of a Medieval Manor.”

44 This was, in effect, the argument made by Duby in his comments at the Spoleto conference, 1965, Agricoltura e mondo rurale, SSCISAM, XIII, p. 234–36.

45 J. Hubert, “Evolution de la topographie et de l'aspect des villes de Gaule de Ve au Xe siècle,” La Città nell'alto medioevo, SSCISAM, VI, pp. 529–58.

46 See Guerriers et Paysans, parts I, II.

47 Bonnassie, Catalogue, I, pp. 99ff.; Schäfer, “Wüstung Zimmern”; Cunliffe, B., “Saxon and Medieval Settlement Pattern in the Region of Chalton, Hampshire,” Medieval Archeology, 16 (1972), 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Cunliffe, “Saxon and Medieval Settlement”; Boelcke, “Problematik d. alemannischen Landnahme,” pp. 38 ff.; Dannheimer, “Im Spiegel der Funde,” p. 90; Tesdorpf, Entstehung der Kulturlandschaft, p. 71; Demolon, P., Le village merovingien de Brebières, Mémoires de la Commission Départementale des Monuments Historiques du Pas-de-Calais, XIV (Arras, 1972).Google Scholar

49 For such reversion to early forms in the sixth century see, for example, Tesdorpf Entstehung der Kulturlandschaft, p. 96), disputed, in part, by Boelcke (“Problematik d. alemannischen Landnahme,” p. 31); J. Boussard, “Peuplement de la Touraine,” pp. 286 ff.