Medieval and modern open fields in southern Belgium: a summary review and new perspectives

New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’

“…Thorough research carried out in recent decades by Samuel Leturcq and other scholars has led to an important conclusion: there is no conclusive evidence that rigid open-field systems with compulsory crop rotation existed in continental north-west Europe in the early and high Middle Ages (Derville, 1988;Arnoux, 1997, 138-40;Leturcq, 2015;. Open fields (that is, fields with intermingled strips and collective management) are certainly documented in many regions (Leturcq, 2007;Thoen, 2018;Schroeder, 2018). They could be extensive (occupying the entire arable land of a settlement), form patchworks (being composed of different fields spread over a settlement's arable land) or formed of a single 'infield' surrounded by other fields, pasture, wasteland or woodland (see the detailed typology established for Flanders by Thoen, 2018, 165-79).…”