Lost but revived. A study of medieval grouped rural settlements in the County of Flanders (casus Nieuw-Roeselare).

Despite their historically attested importance as centres of agrarian and artisanal production in the

hinterland of the major towns, medieval rural settlements in the County of Flanders have seldom

been at the centre of academic archaeological studies. Only in recent years and building on

important methodological improvements in the field of landscape-archaeology, a more systematic

enquiry into the nature, diversity and transformation of medieval rural occupation forms and fieldsystems

has been developed. In this project we propose to explore in more detail one specific subtype

of medieval rural occupation, namely grouped rural settlements. Based on the case of the lost

ab nihilo planted site of Nieuw-Roeselare, the nature and spatio-temporal development of the site

will be assessed in a non-invasive way by applying a wide array of integrated landscapearchaeological

methods including historic map study, aerial photography, geophysical survey and

intra-site fieldwalking. The project will significantly contribute to, and add an important

methodological aspect to the debates on medieval rural settlements, planted villages and lost

villages in Flanders and Northwestern Europe.