Ports et environnement de la France atlantique (XIe-XVesiècle)

Abstract

Ports and harbours are territories with their own specific geographical features, which explain why these territories have played such an important role in the lives of coastal populations in the second half of the Middle Ages. This article explores one of maritime history’s most distinct aspects, that is the implicit and explicit relation between mankind and the environment, or to put it in other words, how the historical interplay between man and nature shaped port territories. Most important in this interplay is the sometimes unwavering role of local actors to maintain and sustain navigation and secure safe mooring conditions over time. If, in the end, many ports have survived, quite a few have disappeared. Success or failure depended as much on the varying difficulties of local conditions, the destructive power of natural phenomena or the soundness of the undertaken works (which often depended on the capacities and the degree of knowledge of these coastal communities). Port resilience varied therefore both in time and space. In order to cope with these changing geographical features and marine conditions, ports were sometimes relocated in the twelfth century. This was especially true when these harbours wanted to continue to cater for the ever larger ships calling them. In time this relocation process subdued somewhat, especially between the estuaries of the river Seine and the Zwin. On this stretch of the coastline the sedimentation process was not only particularly active, but the coastal cities’ strong economic interests also curtailed plans to move the maritime activities to other areas along the coast.