This article focuses upon the first phases of the systematic peat reclamation in the area between the Zuiderzee and the Drenthe plateau in the northeastern part of the Netherlands. Due to the scarcity of sources, the reclamation history...
moreThis article focuses upon the first phases of the systematic peat reclamation in the area between the Zuiderzee and the Drenthe plateau in the northeastern part of the Netherlands. Due to the scarcity of sources, the reclamation history of this region has not been studied as thoroughly as that of the Holland-Utrecht peat districts. Usually, the beginning here is dated in the second half of the 12th century, though its chronology is rather confused since different dates are given for villages lying close to one another. Recent archaeological findings for the southern part of Friesland indicating that the whole blanket bog up to the shore of the Tjeukemeer was already occupied by the year 1000 induce us to take a new look at the first reclamations in this region bordering on Friesland in the south.
Our study, combining a retrospective GIS-based analysis of relevant church property with a close rereading of charters and other administrative documents, has led to several new insights. The first is that the zone between Kuinre and Vollenhove behind which the blanket bogs extended up to the lateral moraine of the Drenthe Plateau, originally was not a coast (of the lake Almere) but a river bank zone. It appears to have been taken into cultivation shortly before or after the year 1000, in a manorial setting, by serfs belonging to the ‘Olde Hof’ (Old Manor) of the bishop of Utrecht at Vollenhove. This was realized after the bishop, who by then was not yet count in the regions involved, had acquired the ius forestense from the king for his demesnes near Vollenhove, Steenwijk and possibly also near Voorst. This development can be seen as the first reclamation phase.
The second then, was the systematic opening up of the large peat blocks of IJsselham and Giethoorn. The settlers of IJsselham did not commence their draining activities in the centre of the block – as has long time been assumed - but at its southwestern edge, just behind the manorial settlements on the former river bank. The problem of where to locate their original starting line – emanating from the fact that the river bank zone makes part of the late medieval parish of Blankenham that was only split off from IJsselham in 1418 – can be solved by establishing that the first church of IJsselham was founded in the river bank zone some time before 1132. Property reconstruction makes clear that this church did migrate with the colonists when they moved further into the blanket bog. Seen in this way, the IJsselham case is not a unique one. On the contrary, it fits exactly in the ‘shift’ model that has been developed for analyzing the process in the peat ridge district north-west of Utrecht and the Staphorst-Rouveen area.
Another important observation is that both in IJsselham and in Giethoorn the first settlers were unfree, just like the serfs on the river bank holdings dependent on the Old Manor at Vollenhove. They were called servi and had to perform labour services on the demesne of the bishop. Until now, we had only few indications that early large-scale peat reclamations in the Northern Netherlands have been organized in a manorial context. The dominating view is that in a relatively short space of time, around 1050, small-scale reclamations of the manorial type gave way to large-scale enterprises involving large numbers of free settlers. The IJsselham and Giethoorn cases then, do not fit in this pattern. They seem to represent an intermediate form, of large-scale projects carried out within a manorial context. Just because of this, it is likely that they started already in the 11th century, probably not long after the bishop had been given territorial count’s rights in Drenthe (1042) and Salland (1046).
The last conclusion concerns the third phase, i.e. the opening up of the other large peat blocks, north and south of IJsselham and Giethoorn. A reasonable case is made for dating its beginning in the last quarter of the 11th century during the administration of bishop Koenraad, at least for the Kuinre region and the area of Oosterzee, which were part of the Frisian county of Suthergo that had come under the rule of the bishop in 1077. It is known that all reclamations here have been carried out by free peasants paying only small recognition fees. In Stellingwerf, the earliest enterprises of this type probably were only realized after 1125. As for the zone along the Sethe southeast of Vollenhove, it is established that cultivation concessions were given out to groups of colonists in the first three decades of the 12th century. This was done in packages of hundred strips or breaks (‘slagen) of about 20-25 meters in width. It lies at hand that the first similar concessions at the opposite side of the Sethe – in the Staphorst/Rouveen blocks – have been given out in the same years or shortly thereafter.
With all this, a rough three phase model pushes itself forward regarding the early peat reclamations in territories where – different from Friesland – in the early Middle Ages several manors with large demesnes had been established. The years that mark these three phases, 1. 1000-1050, 2. 1050-1075, and 3. 1075-1150, are at variance with the dates given thus far. They suggest that the developments in the northwestern part of the prince bishopric of Utrecht (the Oversticht) were not lagging far behind those in its southwestern part (the Nedersticht), where the first large-scale reclamation projects appear to have been well under way after the middle of the 11th century. More historical and archaeological research is needed however, to test the model in detail for both the researched region and similar peat reclamation districts.
