An investigation into the transition from forest dwelling pigs to farm animals in medieval Flanders, Belgium

Abstract

There is ample evidence to show that in medieval Europe, unlike today, pigs (Sus scrofa f. domestica) were herded in woodland (see for example ten Cate 1972; Laurans 1975; Mane 1997). For England, this statement has been contested (Rackham 1976, 1980, 1986), but a recent re-evaluation of the historical data indicates that pig husbandry traditions there were the same as in continental Europe (Wilson 2003). Nowadays, pigs have almost everywhere become farm animals, at best living outdoors in semi-confinement near farmhouses, or, at worst, being reared in intensive indoor units with very limited freedom of movement. At some point in time the animals thus made the transition from forest dwellers to farmyard inhabitants, a process that is hardly documented by historical data, or at least little investigated by historians. The aim of this chapter is to investigate whether the analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites can recognize this transition by identifying changes in the characteristics of diachronic pig populations, indicative of differing animal husbandry regimes. Flanders (in present-day Belgium) was one of the most densely populated regions in medieval Europe, and as such, represents an appropriate case study area where the transition from forest to farmyard pigs can be explored. Historical data from Flanders confirm that deforestation was already very advanced towards the end of the High Medieval period (10th–12th centuries AD), so much so that reforestation campaigns were implemented (be it not always successfully) during Late Medieval times (13th–15th centuries AD) (Verhulst 1990; Tack et al. 1993; Tack & Hermy 1998). Deforestation, together with overhunting, resulted in the local extinction of wild woodland mammal species such as brown bear (Ursus arctos) in the 12th century, and wild boar (Sus scrofa) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) towards the end of the Middle Ages (Ervynck et al. 1999). In fact, in Flanders, virtually no parcel of land has been continuously under forest since medieval times, a phenomenon illustrated, for example, by the poverty of the carabid beetle fauna (an insect group with poor (re-)colonizing capacities) in present-day woodlands (Desender et al. 1999).