In English

Roman land register

An enclave of 3.26 ha of tithes of Denderbelle in Lebbeke (East Flanders, Belgium), the naming of that enclave and the layout of its fields, ditches and roads when considered in relation to the orientation and mathematical proportions of that enclave have put us on the trail of a systematic land use that preceded the formation of our municipalities.

Further investigation proves that the part of Lebbeke where the property of Saint Baafs was situated was the origin of this system and that, away from the Kerkhofzijde of the municipality, little else corresponds to it. The aforementioned domain stems at least from the eighth century.

In the vicinity of Lebbeke we find that same phenomenon at the other former landholdings of the abbeys of Saint Baafs, Lobbes and Affligem. If we rigidly extrapolate the land use we find in the Kerkhofzijde in Lebbeke the contours of the old domains and the connecting roads are so conspicuous that an authoritative and developed agency must have been at work here.

It is suggested that the Merovingians could not have provided that authority. Archaeological finds and pre-Christian religious sites lead us to the Romans shortly after the conquest of Gaul in 57-51 B.C. This land development apparently covered more than 5,000 km2 and the whole of the civitas Nerviorum. Moreover, the land planning appears to be as old as the connecting roads and closely linked to the location of Zwijveke, the name of which attests to the census by Augustus from 27 or 18 till 12 B.C. The Roman occupier did a thorough job, as a colonizer would. The D land register of Orange from around 36 B.C. shows similar characteristics and from Augustus onwards the zoning in parcels changed by dividing them into less than 20 actus in area. All this shows that this land register and its attachments is probably the oldest evidence of the Roman occupation of our regions. The land register evidently existed before the emperor Augustus developed the big road system between 39 and 15 B.C.

A tool developed by Chris Claus on Google Maps is an extremely accurate method that makes it almost possible to predict the boundary lines that can be found archaeologically.

The Gallo-Roman land use left many observable remnants on site, including: municipality and other boundaries, parcel divisions, ditches, roads, domains, farms and religious sites. They prove that we cannot underestimate the population density and the intensity of the land use in the Nervian territory during Gallo-Roman times. Moreover, the traces of this intervention lasted longer than had been believed up to now.

In our quest for historical elements about Lebbeke from the early Middle Ages we found that in Carolingian times the core area of Saint Baafs in Lebbeke had a brewery, before Wenemar moved the power centre to Dendermonde. Therefore, this is probably the oldest trace of a Flemish brewery, possibly continuing a Gallo-Roman tradition.