THE EARLIEST MAP OF THE MOEREN (LES MOËRES), A 1619

Transcription

1 THE EARLIEST MAP OF THE MOEREN (LES MOËRES), A 1619 Wherever peat was harvested in Flanders since the so-called Great Reclamation Period, i.e., the 12th and 13th centuries, the landscape was drastically changed. In The Moeren it was no different. Since prehistoric times, a deposit of high moor peat, several metres thick, had accumulated in the depression behind the dunes between Veurne (known in French as Furnes), Dunkerque (Dunkirk, in Dutch Duinkerke) and Bergues (in Dutch, Sint-Winoksbergen). This peat was harvested since the Late Middle Ages. In the treeless Flanders of that time, peat was an indispensable fuel, both for domestic use and for the urban and rural industries. The map reproduced here in colour is connected with the earliest diking of the area in In Middle Dutch, peat moors were known as moeren (the plural of moer ). In the second half of the 12th century, the counts of Flanders, Thierry and Philip of Alsace, to whom The Moeren belonged, donated parts of it to large abbeys, which were capable of managing the peat reclamation in the region. Quite a lot of deeds of donations of terre que vulgo dicitur mor ( land called moor in the vulgar tongue ) have come down to us, e.g. of parts of the Vormur in the parish of Sint-Niklaas- Bewesterpoort in Veurne, of the Superior Mor, of the Suthmor and of the Moer and Voormoer of Houtem. Among the beneficiaries were the Abbey of St Nicholas in Veurne, Ter Duinen Abbey, the Abbey of Nieuwenbos near Ghent and Mesen Abbey. These abbeys took on the parcelling out of this vast solitudo and built moerhoven ( domus ad custodiendas turbas, peat farms) to store the peat on the edge of the moors. The counts of Flanders had undertaken to build the basic infrastructure, i.e., roads (such as the Crucewech and Monecwech), canals and sluices to enable the exploitation of this valuable area. We know from records that they ordered the construction of the Hannekensleed canal to drain the moor via the Venepe river in Veurne, from where the water was led through the Venepe sluice into the river IJzer (Yser). The Moeren were also drained via the Moervaart canal, which led via the Poortsluis to the port of Dunkerque and via the Houtgracht canal to Bergues. However, the records alone do not suffice to create a coherent picture of the moors that were allocated to the abbeys or of their exact location in this vast area. Nor are we informed about the peat moors that remained in the possession of the counts of Flanders, as they leased out their mour entre Furnes et Berghes and did not exploit them directly, as they did with their moors in the northeast of Flanders. That is why this map (see fig 1) is unique. It shows us the whole moor area located between Adinkerke, Ghyvelde, Uxem, Warhem, Hondschoote and Houtem. As it says on the map, it was made by Stephanus vanden Schoore. Thanks to the scale indication, and therefore the map-maker s grasp of geometry, it is perfectly suited to being copied onto a contemporary cadastral map. The most striking difference between the map and the current impoldered Moeren is the irregular contour of the peat moor and its large surface area, extending far beyond the actual ring dike. In 1619, when the map was drawn, The Moeren were clearly not yet a lake in the real sense of the word. The Kleine Moeren (Little Moors) were still practically made up of peat moor, as was the border area of The Moeren. In the middle of The Moeren, however, there was a pool already. It had originated at the end of the 15 th and the 1/6

2 Fig. 1. Map from 1619 made with a view to diking The Moeren. Copy by Stephanus vanden Schoore of the (presumably lost) original by Roland Gerard. Paper on canvas, 45 x 78 cm (General State Archive, Brussels, Maps in Manuscript, no. 3024) 2/6

3 beginning of the 16th century as a result of peat dredging. This was a procedure in which, unlike the earlier, more superficial techniques of peat-cutting, the peat was dredged up from the depths below the water table using a hand dredge. Fig. 2. Peat dredger (drawn by Jan Luyken, Het Menselyck Bedrijf, 17 th century). The man dredging for peat it is unseen yet it happens A material for making fire is dug from under the water, to drive away the cold. Forced by the misery of life, man has to fish for a material to give him pleasure eternally. 3/6

4 Because of the continuous expansion of the central moor pool, more and more ground was lost. Ter Duinen Abbey, that owned moerlanden ende hoygarsen (moors and mowing grasslands) here, complained that, as a result of dredging, the area of its peat moors in The Moeren had been reduced from 110 gemet (acres) to 60 gemet. A case file submitted to the Privy Council, the supreme court of the Netherlands, states that de Paepenmoere ofte Meunickenhouck met het anspoelen van den watere vermindert is. Dat men nu met schepenen vaert, daer men over dertich jaeren met waeghenen ende peerden gepasseert heeft ( the Paepenmoere [Priests moor] or Meunickenhouck [Monks corner] has decreased as more water came up. That ships now sail where carts and horses used to pass thirty years ago ). The lost territory would only be reclaimed in the 17th century, by building dikes and draining the land with water windmills. The map is not the original map, which was deposited with the Council of Finance that had given permission for the diking enterprise, but the copy made for the Privy Council, that had to hear innumerable cases concerning the expropriation of the original landowners in The Moeren pursuant to the seizure right of the rulers in the impossibility of impoldering. The marginal comments specify that it is a Copie de la carte figurative signee par Roland Gerard le XXIIe d apvril 1619 trouvee concorder avecq l originele carte (copy of the figurative map signed by Roland Gerard on 22 April 1619 established as concordant with the original map ). The document is 45 cm high by 78 cm wide and is now kept in the General State Archives in Brussels, in the collection of Maps in Manuscript, no The map shows the complete originally planned location line of the ring dike. Considering the date, it must have belonged with the diking charter issued by the archdukes Albert and Isabella on 22 April The preparations for the diking operations were thorough. The possibilities of reclaiming The Moeren had already been examined in 1616 by the well-known Dutch hydraulic engineer and water windmill designer Jan Adriaensz. Rijp, known as Leeghwater, maistre des moulins du Beemster. 4/6

5 Fig. 3. Photograph of the oldest type of water windmill, the wooden square mill that was already in use in the 15th century (Kinderdijk, the Netherlands). It is possible that the design of the 17 th - century octagonal water windmill with water wheel mill gangs was by J.A. Leeghwater. As noted, the map was signed by Roland Gerard, who presumably designed the dike (which was later shortened to reduce the costs). He was bailiff of the viscountcies of Broekburg and Grevelingen, alderman and merchant residing at Dunkerque, and the highest-bidding contractor for the reclamation of the whole territory. He acted on behalf of Louis Louvel, Lord of Froyennes, Nicolas d Asneau and their associates, who thereby acquired 2/5 of the territory to be reclaimed. The condition was that they were to impolder the 3/5 of The Moeren that continued to belong to the archdukes along with their own land. In view of the risks posed by the enterprise, the concessionaires later transferred a part to the contractors Paul De Cuypere from Dunkerque and Wenceslaus Cobergher, royal architect and superintendent of the Mounts of Piety (the public pawn-broking establishments that lent money to the poor). They did not make a great profit from the land reclamation. We must keep in mind that it takes about 20 years for reclaimed moorland to become suitable for agriculture because the humification of the remaining peat is a very slow process. Moreover, here in The Moeren, the soil turned out to be of disappointingly low quality after the 5/6

6 reclamation. Borings done in 1632 showed that, besides coorenaerde (plough land) and cleye (clay), many parcels still consisted mostly of derrynck (peat) or sandt (sand). In 1626, the king of Spain declared The Moeren suitable for farming by patent letter. As a result of political events, The Moeren were inundated again from 1646 until 1758, in 1782, from 1793 until 1801 and during World War II. It was these later floods that deposited the fertile layer of clay that now covers The Moeren. Fig. 4. Aerial photograph of the current landscape of The Moeren. Bibliography: KORTHALS ALTES J., De eerste bedijking der Groote en Kleine Moeren in West- Vlaanderen, in: Annales de la Société d Emulation de Bruges, no. 68, 1925, p AUGUSTYN B., Droogmakerijen. Casus: De Moeren, in: PREVENIER W. and AUGUSTYN B. (eds.), De gewestelijke en lokale overheidsinstellingen in Vlaanderen tot 1795, Brussels, General State Archive. Studia 72, 1997, p AUGUSTYN B., De vroegste kaart van De Moeren, in: In de Steigers. Erfgoednieuws uit West-Vlaanderen, vol. 11, no. 3, 2004, p /6