Leenders, K.A.H.W..

Late dorpsvorming in het Brabantse zand.

Historisch-Geografisch Tijdschrift 29 (2011) 73 - 80.

Het Brabantse zandgebied was lange tijd een agrarisch gebied waar de bevolking gegroepeerd in gehuchten woonde en er per gemeente meestal één dorpskom was. Op 19e-eeuwse kaarten draagt die kom de gemeentenaam. Hoe oud zijn die dorpskommen eigenlijk en hoe kwamen ze aan hun naam?

Late villages on the Brabant sandy soils

The main features of the pattern of the settlements on the sandy soils of the Meuse - Demer - Scheldt region in the period 1250-1900 were a high number of hamlets, grouped in parishes. Only slowly villages developed. Around 1800 most parishes consisted of a village as main settlement and an average 12 hamlets. In this article 4 generations of villages are discerned. The first generation (1180-1235) consists of new towns that did not develop well. These new towns, that offered the inhabitants personal freedom, played a role in the expansion of the power of the duchy of Brabant in this region. The second generation, 1250-1350, consists of older hamlets upgraded to commercial centres with market rights. The third generation (1350-1650) developed more or less spontaneously as the population grew and the need for a local centre arose. The villages belonging to this generation were situated near churches, road crossings, an old juridical site etc. The last generation (1650-1850) owes its existence to the clandestine churches of the Roman Catholics, sometimes at more than a mile removed from the old church. These villages had names of their own: the name of the old hamlet, or a new name like Kerk (Church), Kerkhof (Cemetery) or Plaetse (Green). Only around 1800 they acquired a new name: the name of the whole parish.