From Clovis to the Counts of Flanders : transformations in rural settlement in Western Flanders (ca. AD 450-AD 1000)

The Counts of Flanders were among the most powerful and respected medieval sovereigns in Western Europe, despite the rather humble size of the territory they controlled. A large population, a highly-productive agriculture and abundant cities with international trade connections are mostly cited as the reasons behind their economic, political and military success. However, how this triangulation came into being is still poorly understood. The roots of the count’s economic might lay in the Early Middle Ages, a period when certain transformations gradually shaped a structure which would determine rural Flanders for centuries to come. The Merovingian period is both culturally and economically defined by its relatively regional scope, smaller scale and inter-site variation. Furthermore, the eight century can be seen as a period of transition, giving way to a more homogenous system in the Carolingian period, characterized by a shared material culture and a more focused approach to rural settlement and agriculture. The emergence of a new house type able to stock large harvests and the increasing structuring of the farmstead and the landscape are but some of the archaeological markers of this new socio-economic system with surplus-extraction at its core. This transition is not unique for Flanders, as ‘the long eight century’ is being recognized in different parts of Western Europe. The swift taking over of Carolingian power by the first Counts of Flanders during the later 9th and 10th century should thus not only be explained by royal weakness, but also by the fact that these first counts could depend upon a robust economic structure for which the seeds were sown some hundred to two hundred years earlier. Easier than elsewhere, they could step into the void left by the Carolingian kings, and reap the fruits of labour