Urban Agriculture and Urban Food Provisioning in Pre-1850 Europe: Towards a Research Agenda

“Feeding the city” has been a prominent topic in historical literature for many decades. Most of this literature, however, remained based on the assumption that cities above a certain population level are essentially fed through the market, with rural agricultural surpluses being exchanged for the products of urban industry and trade. Stimulated by recent articulations of alternative ways of urban food provision- ing, this article reconsiders the importance of urban agriculture in European towns before 1850 from the perspective of “urban food alternatives”. The scattered evidence suggests that in many European towns a significant part of the urban population was directly involved in food production, but also that important differences persisted both between towns and between households in a town. While traditional interpre- tations – for instance, those linking urban agriculture with small towns, poverty, or the rise of commercial horticulture – fail to explain this spatial, social, and temporal variation, a better understanding of the success and decline of urban agriculture in dif- ferent market configurations and in different social contexts might offer an important historical contribution to present-day debates on the viability and social dynamics of such urban food alternatives.“Feeding the city” has been a prominent topic in historical literature for many decades. Most of this literature, however, remained based on the assumption that cities above a certain population level are essentially fed through the market, with rural agricultural surpluses being exchanged for the products of urban industry and trade. Stimulated by recent articulations of alternative ways of urban food provision- ing, this article reconsiders the importance of urban agriculture in European towns before 1850 from the perspective of “urban food alternatives”. The scattered evidence suggests that in many European towns a significant part of the urban population was directly involved in food production, but also that important differences persisted both between towns and between households in a town. While traditional interpre- tations – for instance, those linking urban agriculture with small towns, poverty, or the rise of commercial horticulture – fail to explain this spatial, social, and temporal variation, a better understanding of the success and decline of urban agriculture in dif- ferent market configurations and in different social contexts might offer an important historical contribution to present-day debates on the viability and social dynamics of such urban food alternatives

De spade in de dijk. Waterbeheer en rurale samenleving in de Vlaamse kustvlakte (1280-1580)

The Spade in de Dijk is the first synthesis on the organisation of water management in Coastal Flanders during the later Middle Ages. Based on the unique archival evidence produced by local water boards (wateringen), large landowners and local and regional authorities, Tim Soens argues for the occurrence of profound changes in coastal water management in the later Middle Ages. Water management gradually became less inclusive, investments lowered, and flood risk increased. This evolution was triggered by the social transition from a peasant society of land-owning smallholders to a society of absentee landlords and large tenant farmers

History and the Social Sciences

Since the turn of the Millennium, major changes in economic history practice such as the dominance of econometrics and the championing of “big data,” as well as changes in how research is funded, have created new pressures for medieval economic historians to confront. In this article, it is suggested that one way of strengthening the field further is to more explicitly link up with hypotheses posed in other social sciences. The historical record is one “laboratory” in which hypotheses developed by sociologists, economists, and even natural scientists can be explicitly tested, especially using dual forms of geographical and chronological comparison. As one example to demonstrate this, a case is made for the stimulating effect of “disaster studies.” Historians have failed to interact with ideas from disaster studies, not only because of the general drift away from the social sciences by the historical discipline, but also because of a twin conception that medieval disaster study bears no relation to the modern

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Tim Soens en Iason Jongepier Vijf eeuwen landbouw en landschap in de polders rond Doel. [Five centuries of agriculture and landscape in the polders near Doel.]Dat het historisch polderlandschap rond Doel bedreigd is door de voortschrijdende havenuitbreiding, werd jaren geleden al door Wannes van de Velde bezongen. De schier surrealistische leefomstandigheden in de half verlaten dorpen zijn bekend. Vanuit de eeuwenlange geschiedenis van de polderlandbouw en de typische erfgoedlandschappen die hieruit ontstonden, houden Tim Soens en Iason Jongepier een vurig maar stevig onderbouwd pleidooi voor het inpassen van de erfgoedwaarden in de toekomstige ontwikkeling van het gebied.Tim Soens en Iason Jongepier De Doelse Dijksequentie: dijken op zoek naar erfgoedwaarde. [The sequence of banks in Doel: dykes in search of heritage value.]De ovale ringdijk met de poëtische naam Zoeten Berm uit de 17de eeuw, de Nieuw-Arenbergpolder uit de 18de eeuw, de Prosperpolder uit de 19de eeuw en de Hedwigepolder uit de 20ste eeuw: een vrij intact bewaarde sequentie van wat in al deze periodes als een moderne zeedijk werd beschouwd. Tim Soens en Iason Jongepier breken een lans voor de bredere integratie van de Doelse dijksequentie in de nieuwe plannen en pleiten voor een herwaardering van historische dijken in het Vlaamse kust- en rivierengebied.Ewald Wauters De groote schoone schuere: historische hoeves in de Wase polders. [Historical farms in the Waasland polders.]De hoog oprijzende schuren met hun indrukwekkende houten gebinten beheersen het silhouet van het polderlandschap. Uit toenmalige aktes leren we dat ze gebouwd werden volgens het sleutel-op-de-deur principe, met andere woorden ze werden volledig gebouwd door de eigenaar. De pachter daarentegen stond in voor zijn eigen meer bescheiden woonhuis. Ewald Wauters onderzocht de evolutie van deze polderhoeves, een eertijds indrukwekkend patrimonium dat stilaan verdwijnt. Deze monumentale hoevegebouwen vertellen nochtans elk hun eigen verhaal, dat zou kunnen verder gezet worden binnen de nieuwe natuurbestemming van het gebied.Summar