Turning Back Tide: the Zwin debate in perspective. A historiographical review of the medieval port system northeast of Bruges. (original) (raw)
Tome 97-2015 juin 2016 n As the 11 th -century Encomium Emmae Reginae describes, Bruges became a leading European cultural and economic centre during the Middle Ages. The specific position it held within transcontinental and maritime trade route networks played a crucial role in this development. Lying inland, a navigable connection to the sea was not self-evident for Bruges. In order to attain and retain such connections, natural creeks were connected with man-made canals, dams and sluices, creating a port system that was named totum pro parte after its main waterway : the Zwin 2 . At the borders of the main creek, a series of Zwin cities developed, including Damme, Monnikerede, Hoeke, Mude and Sluis. These cities functioned as a network of outports, which shaped the region into a linear suburban extension of Bruges. The land that was cut across by this port system simultaneously evolved from natural mudflats and saltmarshes into an embanked agricultural landscape. To make these wetlands arable and liveable, a vast network of dikes and ditches were constructed, which resulted in seemingly opposed interests : on the one hand, searching a navigable way to the sea, and, on the other, protecting the land against flooding. Both incentives stimulated innovative hydrological engineering and had a farreaching impact on the coastal landscape.
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Urban History, 2016
ABSTRACTDuring most of the late medieval period, the Flemish city of Bruges acted as the main commercial hub of north-western Europe. In the course of the fifteenth century, however, Bruges lost much of its allure as an economic metropolis. One of the most urgent challenges the urban authorities were facing was the navigability of the waterways in and around the city. While the city government made structural investments to remedy the problems, written sources constantly emphasized how important it was that Bruges remained accessible from the sea. During the same period, the earliest preserved maps of the city and its environment emerged. Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre, this article argues that these visual representations were informed by the same commercial ideology. Despite, or exactly because of, the city's decreasing maritime accessibility, they conceived Bruges as a place that could easily be reached by trading ships and where merchants could trade in the best possi...
It’s a well-known fact that the prosperity of Flemish towns was mostly based on international maritime trade that connected Baltic with Mediterranean. The other factor which brought wealth to these towns was the development of clothes industry depended on supplies of English wool. In the beginning of XVth century Flemish towns faced with a possibility of serious crisis that might cause a great damage both to the maritime trade and supplies of wool. Coup d’etat in England in 1399 led to the deterioration of relations with France and this had its consequences for-Anglo-Flemish trade. Piracy flourished in the area of Channel. It also affected the decreasing of trading volume and threatened Flemish towns with the loss of traditional commercial relations. Piracy caused the problems to Flemish fishery too. Impossibility of safely fishing influenced the standard of life of the population of Flemish and English coast areas greatly involved in fishery. The solution of these problems was aggravated by various difficulties existing inside the county as in its international relations. From the end of XIVth century Flemish towns were under the rule of dukes of Burgundy that at the beginning tried to carry out the pro-French policy. Towns aimed at defending of their own interests in the foreign policy. To this period they already had a representative institution – Four Members of Flanders (Ghent, Bruges, Ypres and The Franc of Bruges) asserting power in struggle with the power of dukes. Numerous documents of different origin (both English and Flemish, ducal and urban) shows how active had been this representative body penetrating in subjects connected with the increasing threat of piracy to the international trade and fishery. This paper deals with the methods used by the representatives of Flemish towns to achieve their goal: both to make their sovereigns to conduct negotiations with England resulting in various treaties (in fighting with piracy, protecting and regulating fishery and maritime trade) and to assure the participation of their own representatives in this process. The achievements of penetrating of towns represented in Four Members were very important for improving of situation in international trade and fishery, as in supplies of English wool. After the long series of negotiations in 1405 they obtained a treaty providing the free fishing in the Channel for English and Flemish fishers and regulating the conditions of occasional staying of fishing-boats in ports of other side. Four Members at last gained the commercial treaty with England assuring the safety of merchants, pilgrims, clergy and fishers both on land (in the region of Picardy and Calais) and at sea in 1407.
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Boyce, G., & Gorski, R. , Resources and Infrastructures in the Maritime Economy, 1500-2000, St. John's, Newfoundland, International Maritime Economic History Association, 2002, pp 63 - 82