Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:50:51.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From disaster to sustainability: floods, changing property relations and water management in the south-western Netherlands, c.1500–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

PIET VAN CRUYNINGEN
PIET VAN CRUYNINGEN*
Affiliation:
Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands and Wageningen University.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When large parts of the south-western Netherlands flooded in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the main cause was insufficient maintenance of the sea defences. The subsequent re-embankment of the polders resulted in changes to both soil conditions and property relations in the region. The Church and the local peasants lost land and members of the urban bourgeoisie became the most important landowners. Unlike their risk-averse predecessors, these capitalist landlords were prepared to invest in drainage. They were also able to organise state support for those polders that were at risk of flooding. Tenant and yeomen farmers had an equally important role as they maintained the fertility of the soil and were prepared to invest in the upkeep of the flood defences.

Du désastre à la durabilité: inondations, évolution des relations de propriété et gestion de l'eau au sud-ouest des pays-bas, entre 1500 et 1800

Lorsque de grandes zones du sud-ouest des Pays-Bas furent inondées au cours des 15e et 16e siècles, c’était essentiellement par défaut d'entretien des digues empêchant l'inondation marine. Le renforcement ultérieur des levées de terre protégeant les polders entraîna à la fois des changements dans la nature des sols et dans les relations de propriété au sein de la région. L'Eglise et les paysans y perdirent des terres et ce furent des représentants de la bourgeoisie urbaine qui devinrent les propriétaires fonciers les plus importants. Contrairement à leurs prédécesseurs qui s'étaient montrés réticents à prendre des risques, ces nouveaux seigneurs capitalistes étaient prêts à investir dans le drainage. Ils suscitèrent même l'appui de l'Etat pour les polders qui étaient les plus exposés au risque d'inondation. Locataires et paysans propriétaires eurent un rôle d’égale importance car ils maintinrent la fertilité du sol, toujours prêts à investir dans le bon entretien des protections contre les inondations.

Von der katastrophe zur nachhaltigkeit: überflutungen, veränderte eigentumsbeziehungen und wasserwirtschaft in den südwestlichen niederlanden, ca.1500–1800

Wenn im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert große Teile der südwestlichen Niederlande überflutet wurden, so lag der Hauptgrund dafür in der unzureichenden Instandhaltung der Küstenbefestigung. Die daraufhin unternommene Wiedereindeichung der Polder zog Veränderungen sowohl der Bodenbeschaffenheit als auch der Eigentumsverhältnisse innerhalb der Region nach sich. Die Kirche und die örtlichen Bauern verloren Land, während Mitglieder der städtischen Bourgeoise die wichtigsten Landbesitzer wurden. Anders als ihre risikoscheuen Vorgänger waren diese kapitalistischen Grundherren bereit, in Trockenlegungsprojekte zu investieren, und außerdem vermochten sie für die Polder, die einem besonderen Überflutungsrisiko ausgesetzten waren, staatliche Unterstützung zu erwirken. Pächter und freie Bauern besaßen dabei eine gleichermaßen wichtige Rolle, weil sie die Fruchtbarkeit des Bodens aufrecht erhielten und bereit waren, in die Instandhaltung der Küstenbefestigungen zu investieren.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , August 2014 , pp. 241 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ENDNOTES

1 Mauelshagen, F., ‘Disaster and political culture in Germany since 1500’, in Mauch, C. and Pfister, C. eds., Natural disasters, cultural responses. Case studies toward a global environmental history (Lanham, 2009), 42–3Google Scholar; de Kraker, A. M. J., ‘Flood events in the southwestern Netherlands and coastal Belgium, 1400–1953’, Hydrological Sciences Journal 51 (2006), 913–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Galloway, J. A., ‘Storm flooding, coastal defence and land use around the Thames estuary and tidal river c. 1250–1450’, Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009), 171–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Soens, T., ‘Floods and money: funding drainage and flood control in coastal Flanders from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries’, Continuity and Change 26, 3 (2011), 333–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soens, T., De spade in de dijk? Waterbeheer en samenleving in de Vlaamse kustvlakte (1280–1580) (Gent, 2009), 265–71Google Scholar; Soens, T., ‘Explaining deficiencies of water management in the late medieval Flemish coastal plain, 13th–16th centuries’, Jaarboek voor Ecologische Geschiedenis (2005/2006), 35–61Google Scholar; Soens, T., ‘Threatened by the sea, condemned by man? Flood risk and environmental inequalities along the North Sea coast, 1200–1800’, in , G.Guilbaud, Massard and Rodger, R. eds., Environmental and social inequalities in the city. Historical perspectives (Cambridge, 2011), 91–111Google Scholar.

3 De Kraker, , ‘Flood events’, 915–9; C. Dekker, ‘Tussen twee vloeden. De strijd tegen het water in Zeeland bewesten Schelde tussen 1530 en 1532’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 103 (1988), 607–21Google Scholar.

4 van Bavel, B., Manors and markets. Economy and society in the Low Countries, 500–1600 (Oxford, 2010), 10, 47–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 405–8.

5 de Kraker, A., ‘Storminess in the Low Countries, 1390–1725’, Environment and History 19 (2013), 153–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Soens, ‘Threatened’, 109.

7 van Cruyningen, P., ‘Bevolking en sociale verhoudingen’, in Brusse, P. and Mijnhardt, W. eds., Geschiedenis van Zeeland, vol. 2 (Zwolle, 2012), 135Google Scholar.

8 Priester, P., Geschiedenis van de Zeeuwse landbouw circa 1600–1910, A.A.G. Bijdragen 37 (Wageningen, 1998)Google Scholar; van Cruyningen, P. J., Behoudend maar buigzaam. Boeren in West-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen 1650–1850, A.A.G. Bijdragen 40 (Wageningen, 2000), 32–51Google Scholar, 98–105.

9 Van Bavel, Manors and markets, 330–2, 342; van Bavel, B. J. P., ‘People and land: rural population developments and property structures in the Low Countries, c. 1300–c. 1600’, Continuity and Change 17, 1 (2002), 9–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van Bavel, B. J. P., ‘Land, lease and agriculture: the transition of the rural economy of the Dutch river area from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century’, Past and Present 172 (2001), 38–9Google Scholar.

10 For instance in the 1849 report of the Zeeland Agricultural Association, quoted in Boerendonk, M. J., Historische studie over den Zeeuwschen landbouw (‘s-Gravenhage, 1935), 346Google Scholar.

11 Bieleman, J., ‘Farming system research as a guideline in agricultural history’, in van Bavel, B. J. P. and Thoen, E., Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area Middle Ages–20th century. Elements for comparison, CORN Publication Series 2 (Turnhout, 1999), 235–50Google Scholar; Bieleman, J., ‘The Dutch Golden Age and Dutch agriculture’, in Lilljewall, B. ed., Agrarian systems in Early Modern Europe. Technology, tools, trade (Stockholm, 1999), 14–17Google Scholar.

12 McNeill, J. R. and Winiwarter, V., ‘Breaking the sod: humankind, history and soil’, Science 304 (2004), 1627–8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Ohlander, L., Lagerberg, C. and Gertsson, U., ‘Visions for sound agricultural systems’, Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 14 (1999), 73–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Bieleman, ‘Farming system research’, 246.

14 van Dam, P. J. E. M., ‘Fuzzy boundaries and three-legged tables. A comment on ecological and spatial dynamics in Bas van Bavel, ‘Manors and markets’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 8 (2011), 3Google Scholar, 113.

15 van Bavel, B., van Cruyningen, P. and , E.Thoen, , ‘The Low Countries, 1000–1750’, in van Bavel, B. J. P. and Hoyle, R. W. eds., Social relations, property and power (Turnhout, 2010), 169–98Google Scholar; Thoen, E., ‘“Social agrosystems” as an economic concept to explain regional differences. An essay taking the former county of Flanders as an example (Middle Ages–19th century)’, in van Bavel, B. J. P. and Hoppenbrouwers, P. eds., Land holding and land transfer in the North Sea area (late Middle Ages–20th century), CORN Publication Series 5 (Turnhout, 2004), 47–66Google Scholar.

16 Thoen, ‘“Social agrosystems”’, 48.

17 French, H. R. and Hoyle, R. W., The character of English rural society. Earls Colne, 1550–1750 (Manchester and New York, 2007), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 North, D. C., Institutions, institutional change and economic performance (Cambridge, 1990), 47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van Bavel, B. and Hoyle, R. W., ‘Introduction: social relations, property and power in the North Sea area, 500–2000’, in Van Bavel, and Hoyle, , Social relations, 12–13Google Scholar.

19 van de Ven, G. P. ed., Man-made lowlands. History of water management and land reclamation in the Netherlands (Utrecht, 2004), 105–7Google Scholar.

20 van Bavel, B. J. P., ‘Structures of landownership, mobility of land and farm sizes. Diverging developments in the northern part of the Low Countries’, in Van Bavel, and Hoppenbrouwers, , Land holding, 131–48Google Scholar; Thoen, E., ‘Zeeuwse landbouw en Vlaamse landbouw vanaf de Middeleeuwen: antipoden of complementariteit? Opmerkingen naar aanleiding van het verschijnen van het boek van Peter Priester over de Zeeuwse landbouw’, Nehalennia 126 (1999), 17Google Scholar.

21 De Kraker, ‘Flood events’, 915; Vos, P. and Zeiler, F. D., ‘Overstromingsgeschiedenis van Zuidwest-Nederland, interactie tussen natuurlijke en antropogene processen’, Grondboor en Hamer 62 (2008), 86–95Google Scholar.

22 Augustyn, B., ‘De evolutie van het duinecosysteem in Vlaanderen in de Middeleeuwen: antropogene factoren versus zeespiegelrijzingstheorie’, Historisch-Geografisch Tijdschrift 13 (1995), 9–19Google Scholar.

23 Stol, T., ‘Opkomst en ondergang van de Grote Waard’, Holland 13 (1981), 129–45Google Scholar.

24 Soens, Spade, 338–9; De Kraker, ‘Flood events’, 919; de Kraker, A. M. J., Landschap uit balans. De invloed van de natuur, de economie en de politiek op de ontwikkeling van het landschap in de Vier Ambachten en het Land van Saeftinge tussen 1488 en 1609 (Utrecht, 1997), 23–7Google Scholar.

25 Soens, Spade, 102.

26 Van de Ven, Man-made lowlands, 107–9.

27 Beekman, F., De kop van Schouwen onder het zand. Duizend jaar duinvorming en duingebruik op een Zeeuws eiland (Utrecht, 2007), 114–16Google Scholar.

28 van Steensel, A., Edelen in Zeeland. Macht, rijkdom en status in een laatmiddeleeuwse samenleving (Hilversum, 2010), 136–41Google Scholar.

29 Hoppenbrouwers, P., ‘Mapping an unexplored field. The Brenner Debate and the case of Holland’, in Hoppenbrouwers, P. and Van Zanden, J. L., Peasants into farmers? The transformation of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages–19th century) in light of the Brenner debate CORN Publication Series 4 (Turnhout, 2001), 44–7Google Scholar; Naber, J. C., Een terugblik. Statistische bewerking van de informatie van 1514 (Haarlem, 1970), 46–51Google Scholar; de Vries, J., The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age 1500–1700 (New Haven and London, 1974), 36Google Scholar, 42 44, 50.

30 Estimate based on nine districts covering 16,700 hectares of taxable land: Soens, Spade, 81, 91–2, 94–5; De Kraker, Landschap, 262–8, 271; Zeeuws Archief, Middelburg, Handschriftenverzameling 1513.

31 Soens, T. and Thoen, E., ‘The origins of leasehold in the former county of Flanders’, in van Bavel, B. J. P. and Schofield, P. R. eds., The development of leasehold in northwestern Europe, c. 1200–1600, CORN Publication Series 10 (Turnhout, 2008), 46Google Scholar.

32 Thoen, ‘“Social agrosystems”’, 55.

33 Soens, ‘Threatened’, 102–3; De Kraker, Landschap, 265–6, 280.

34 Dekker, C. and Baetens, R., Geld in het water. Antwerps en Mechels kapitaal in Zuid-Beveland na de stormvloeden van de 16e eeuw (Hilversum, 2010), 87Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., 56, 68–9, 87.

36 Ibid., 219–48.

37 P. van Cruyningen, ‘Land en water’, in Brusse and Mijnhardt, Geschiedenis van Zeeland; L. F. Teixeira de Mattos, De waterkeeringen, waterschappen en polders van Zuid-Holland, vols. 5–10 ('s-Gravenhage, 1916–1952); de Geus, A. and van Rappard, E. C. B., Statistiek tableau der polders in Noord Braband (‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1843)Google Scholar; Renes, J., West-Brabant. Een cultuurhistorisch landschapsonderzoek (Waalre, 1985)Google Scholar.

38 Soens, Spade, 217, 245; Dekker and Baetens, Geld, 153.

39 Klok, J., Voorne en Putten (Utrecht, 1939), 154–5Google Scholar.

40 Baars, C., ‘De Geschiedenis van het grondbezit van Gelderse en Utrechtse edelen in de Beijerlanden’, in van der Woude, A. M. ed., Dertig jaar afdeling agrarische geschiedenis, A.A.G. Bijdragen 28 (Wageningen, 1986), 109–44Google Scholar.

41 Hallema, A., Geschiedenis van de gemeente Dinteloord en Prinsenland in de zeventiende eeuw (Dinteloord, 1955), 34–5Google Scholar.

42 Van Bavel, ‘People’, 24.

43 Hoppenbrouwers, ‘Mapping’, 47.

44 van Cruyningen, P., ‘Profits and risks in drainage projects in Staats-Vlaanderen c. 1590–1665’, Jaarboek voor Ecologische Geschiedenis (2005/2006), 134Google Scholar.

45 Baars, C., De geschiedenis van de landbouw in de Beijerlanden (Wageningen, 1973)Google Scholar, appendices 1 and 9.

46 Van Cruyningen, ‘Profits’, 134–5.

47 Brusse, P. and Mijnhardt, W. W., Towards a new template for Dutch history. De-urbanization and the balance between city and countryside (Zwolle and Utrecht, 2011), 37–8Google Scholar.

48 Van Cruyningen, ‘Land en water’.

49 Soens, ‘Threatened’, 98–9.

50 Baars, Geschiedenis, appendix 18.

51 Ibid.

52 Knottnerus, O. S., ‘Yeomen and farmers in the Wadden Sea coastal marshes c. 1500–c. 1900’, in Van Bavel, and Hoppenbrouwers, , Land holding, 149–50Google Scholar; van Bavel, B., ‘Elements in the transition of the rural economy. Factors contributing to the emergence of large farms in the Dutch river area (15th–16th centuries)’, in Hoppenbrouwers, and Van Zanden, , Peasants, 179–201Google Scholar; French and Hoyle, Character, 25, 40; Hipkin, S., ‘Tenant farming and short-term leasing on Romney Marsh, 1587–1705’, Economic History Review 53 (2000), 646–76Google Scholar; Moriceau, J.-M., Les fermiers de l'Ile-de-France. L'ascension d'un patronat agricole (XVe–XVIIIe siecle) (Paris, 1994), 118–20Google Scholar.

53 van Bavel, B. J. P., ‘The organization and rise of land and lease markets in northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000–1800’, Continuity and Change 23, 1 (2008), 13–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 14–15, 39–43; French and Hoyle, Character, 25.

54 Knottnerus, ‘Yeomen’, 171–5; van Bavel, B. J. P., ‘Rural wage labour in the Low Countries: an assessment of the importance and nature of wage labour in the countryside of Holland, Guelders and Flanders’, Continuity and Change 21, 1 (2006), 37–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 45.

55 Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 48; Van Bavel, ‘Rural wage labour’, 50.

56 Priester, Geschiedenis, 440–1, 485; Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 390.

57 Van Bavel, ‘People’, 12–15.

58 Priester, Geschiedenis, 213–28; Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 142–6.

59 Priester, Geschiedenis, 332; Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 171–3; J. Lucassen, Naar de kusten van de Noordzee. Trekarbeid in Europees perspektief, 1600–1900 (Utrecht, 1984), 289–90.

60 Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 49–51, 178; Knottnerus, ‘Yeomen’, 171.

61 Especially by Priester, Geschiedenis.

62 Baars, Geschiedenis, 151–3; Priester, Geschiedenis, 378–81; Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 182–4; B. J. P. van Bavel, ‘Arable yields and total arable output in the Netherlands from the late Middle Ages to the mid-19th century’, in Van Bavel and Thoen, Land productivity, 101, 103.

63 Brusse and Mijnhardt, Template, 36–40.

64 Bieleman, ‘Farming system research’, 246; Brusse, P., Overleven door ondernemen. De agrarische geschiedenis van de Over-Betuwe 1650–1850, A.A.G. Bijdragen 38 (Wageningen, 1999), 360–1Google Scholar.

65 Thoen, ‘Zeeuwse landbouw’, 9–11.

66 Soens, Spade, 102–3; Soens, ‘Floods and money’, 349; De Kraker, Landschap, 262, 266, 268; Dekker and Baetens, Geld, 56, 64, 68–9, 87.

67 De Kraker, Landschap, 270–80.

68 Van Cruyningen, ‘Land en water’, 38–43.

69 Van Cruyningen, ‘Profits’, 130–7.

70 Van Cruyningen, P., ‘De economie’, in Brusse and Mijnhardt, Geschiedenis van Zeeland, 87–99Google Scholar.

71 Van Cruyningen, Behoudend, 108–10, 114–15; van Cruyningen, P., ‘Waterbeheer, landbouw en samenleving in West-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen in de 17e en 18e eeuw’, Jaarboek voor Ecologische Geschiedenis (2001), 57–66Google Scholar.

72 Archief Waterschap Scheldestromen, Terneuzen, Watering Cadzand 202.

73 Brusse and Mijnhardt, Template, 42.

74 Soens, Spade, 216–17.

75 Schorer, J. A., De geschiedenis der calamiteuse polders in Zeeland tot het reglement van 20 januari 1791 (Leiden, 1897), 13–14Google Scholar.

76 Ibid., 115, 128.

77 Ibid., 149–50.