Beyond royal estates and monasteries: landownership in the early medieval Ardennes

Abstract

Most historians who have studied the medieval Ardennes have focused exclusively on royal and monastic properties, assuming that every early reference to land in the area is either to the property of royal monasteries or to fiscal land. Actually, the evidence from the region around Bastogne (Belgium), the centre of what would later be called pagus Ardennensis, shows that as early as the seventh century ‘private’ landowners were present and active in the area. This observation leads to a new reading of the rural economy and society, the formation of monastic property and the links between local and royal power in the early medieval Ardennes.