Talk:Silva Carbonaria

A fact from Silva Carbonaria appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 January 2008, and was viewed approximately 3,804 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that of the vast Silva Carbonaria, "the charcoal forest" that stretched from south of Brussels to the Rhine in Merovingian days, 44.21 km² still remains in the Forêt de Soignes/Zoniënwoud?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/January.

Wikipedia

Please vet this text, which I've completed in a very few saves, for imagined "copyright violations" now, before Wikipedia's numerous mirrors pick it up and some bright soul sees it and reports it as a copyright violation. Thank you. --Wetman (talk) 04:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Niviala

Extensive tracts of the untamed woodlands belonged to monasteries. The Benedictine Abbey of Lobbes was in the Silva Carbonaria and that of Saint Foillan, in the Forêt de Soignes/Zoniënwoud not far from Nevele.<ref>Hoffmann 1698, ''Laubiense Monasterium in Silva Carbonaria esse situm, auctore Fulcuinô; esse et Coenobium S. Foillani in silva Soniaca parte Carbonariae non longe a Niviala:''</ref>

Isn't this Nivelles instead of Nevele? "That of Foillan would probably be closer to Nivelles as Saint Foillan worked there. --moyogo (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the article Sonian Forest translates this Niviala with Nivelles. --moyogo (talk) 14:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

picture text: "modern old-growth beech forest"

The density of such a forest is formed by both natural historical conditions:

The tree tops of beeches retaining mor daylight than those of oaks, untamed forests dominated by beeches have less undergrowth than forests dominated by oaks.
Under more or less medieval conditions, forests were used as wintertime pastures. The animals reduced lower species of plants as well as the regeneration of beeches and oaks by young trees.
Traditional wood economy of complete deforestation and complete replant of determined parts of a forest enforced the tendency of beech tops to form a dense ceiling above a clear ground. (In German such forests are called Buchendom, i.e. beech cathedral.)
Modern foresters with ecological awareness prefer selective cut and natural regeneration, which has the consequence of a less dense top storey and more undergrowth.
Pollution and resulting tree illnesses have thinned out almost all tree tops.-Ulamm (talk) 11:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

comments on this article

Many of the sources I can find which truly debate where the forest was are very old. Modern books seem to make assumptions that are not deeply thought through. Does anyone know of any modern source which reviews the real evidence from the ground up? More specific concerns coming from this include the shape of the forest on the map we use, and the assertion that north of the forest of the Rhineland kingdom based in Cologne. As far as I can see these are only speculations, and not agreed by everyone, even if they are published in well-known sources? Here is an old article useful because it gives the small number of old citations in full: Freiherren von Richthofen, "Review of "Der lex Salica und der lex Anglorum et Werinorum Alter und Heimat, von Hermann Müller, ordentlichem Professor der Rechte zu Würzburg" Würzburg, 1840", Kritische Jahrbücher für deutsche Rechtswissenschaft, vol. 5, p. 1000 More details about doubts:

We know from Roman sources that the area north of this forest was where the Salii had long lived, for example in Toxandria (see our article on the Salians), and that they had only recently starting taking over the forest when our sources concerning the forest as a boundary first start. It seems to be a boundary then between old and new (Merovingian) Salian territory, not Salian and "Ripuarian" (Rhineland). Also, later it seems to have been considered a boundary between Neustria and Austrasia.
As shown in the old sources mentioning the forest, it included Tournai. Our map would therefore be completely wrong.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:46, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Further notes on this subject.

It seems the long slow academic discussion can be summed up as questioning whether the forest went mainly east-west, splitting Hainaut from Brabant, or mainly north-south, between the old Roman civitates, and medieval church archdioceses, of Cambrai (which contained most of Brabant and Hainaut) and Tongeren/Liège. Here is a source that uses BOTH definitions? (And indeed why should the forest be a thin and unbranching line?
H Vander Linden 1923 is often cited as the source of the more recent north south idea http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/rbph_0035-0818_1923_num_2_2_6224.pdf
A name often mentioned as arguing for an east-west forest is G Kurth 1896, La frontière linguistique. For example Vander Linden says Pirenne and Vanderkindere, very important in early 20th century Belgian history writing, followed him.
Vander Linden does not comment on the primary source mentioned by the 19th century source I mentioned above (Freiherren von Richthofen) that seems to suggest Tournai is touched by the forest. Here that is on the dMGH website. Looking at it I can see why later writers might not agree that "carbonarium sylvam ingressus Tornacensem urbem obtinuit" means that Tournai is in the forest as opposed to being on the other side, which would match better sources anyway.
Unlike our map, Vander Linden seems to propose no forest between Brussels and Louvain, but rather the forest stopping to the south of them? I am not seeing much evidence to support our map in this respect. In other words, although Flemish speaking Brabant lands were in the archdiocese of Cambrai, I am wondering if they were not in Salian hands very early, and then always part of Austrasia. Certainly by the Middle Ages, the whole archdiocese seems to have been considered east Frankish, with the forest included, and only the lands outside the forest being in the western kingdom?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

proposal to remove map

So after looking at both our current text and more sources, as described above, I am going to remove the map which shows the forest stretching too far north.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

primary sources

I've started a section to collect old primary sources. As there are only a few, and most are notable in themselves, it might be worth having such a section or else we can later break this section up in order to make existing footnotes etc more complete. So it might be a temporary project, but I propose that this can be decided later.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:43, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

secondary sources

Renard, Etienne (2016), "La situation et l'étendue de la Forêt Charbonnière au premier millénaire : bilan historiographique et retour aux sources", in Pauly; Pettiau (eds.), La forêt en Lotharingie médiévale. Der Wald im mittelalterlichen Lotharingien, pp. 51–75
Charruadas, Paulo (2016), "L'« ombre » de la forêt charbonnière. Environnement, exploitation et paysages forestiers aux confins du Hainaut et du Brabant, des origines à 1300", La forêt en Lotharingie médiévale/Der Wald im mittelalterlichen Lotharingien. Actes des 18e Journées Lotharingiennes (30-31 octobre 2014)

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:40, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Boundaries

I still don't understand the limits described in the article of this forest to even understand the general shape. Was it longer than it was wide? Wider than it was long? Can someone please offer a description in the article that would actually make sense? Criticalthinker (talk) 11:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I actually don't think anyone is sure about exact dimensions or even shape. Most of the records we have are from places near main roads or other well-known places. More isolated areas are unlikely to have been recorded. We can't just make stuff up if it is uncertain though.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that it's regularly described as a natural boundary between the Franks and the Gallo-Romans. So I imagine that there should be some kind of description if this was a boundary that stretched west to east or north to south, at least. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to describe it as a boundary. Criticalthinker (talk) 09:39, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and it had presumably been a boundary between Germania Inferior and Belgica. It probably also influenced the eventual definitions of the bishoprics of Cambrai and Liège. We know roughly where it lay, as explained in the article. (More or less between Mons, Brussels and Namur.) However, I don't think medieval boundaries in this period were always necessary clearly defined, as lines that we could draw on a map. In any case, even if it was, the exact definition does not seem to have survived. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:38, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"(More or less between Mons, Brussels and Namur.)" What does this mean'?' That's three points, which two points were separated from the other? Was it a line separating Mons from the other two? Namur from the other two? Criticalthinker (talk) 01:45, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A forest is not a line, and I was describing where the forest was (or at least part of it was) in early medieval records. I have already said that we do not have evidence for a well-defined "line", and there might never have been one in a less inhabited area like this. (I imagine there may have been a point somewhere along the Roman road which was defined as a boundary during Roman times, but a point is not a line.) Putting aside the question of the location of the forest itself though, the old boundaries between Germania Inferior and Belgica, and later between the bishoprics of Cambrai and Liège, can be conceived of at least roughly as north-south lines in this region. Mons was certainly on the western Cambrai/Belgica side. Namur was on the eastern Germania/Liège side. Going further north it is much more difficult to say for example which side Brussels and Louvain lay on. The line may have run between them, or even through one of them. For the medieval period I think most scholarly guesses tend towards a line based on the later bishoprics, running a bit west of both Charleroi and Louvain. This was a line that was probably near the eastern edge of the forest at some point. (See Nonn and Deru, both cited in our Pagus of Brabant article. Note that the line might be affected by medieval politics in the area around the important abbey at Nivelles) FWIW there is a theory that Chlodio's castle of Disparg was Duisburg, Tervuren (right between Brussels and Louvain, in an area where forest still meets farmland), and Gregory of Tours seems to locate this near the forest boundary. Concerning Roman boundaries, you can see this website for a reasonable guess: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b38db47e08ca40f3a409c455ebb688db (It runs the boundary through Brussels, and does not have the bend out towards Louvain. However, I don't think we really have any evidence about Roman administration near Louvain?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:09, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It appears were now just shooting-the-sh%t as the saying goes, but I'm enjoying it. Anyway, this is all interesting given how often this forest comes up as a boundary, and it really does kind of matter its general length or width as it relates to that. I've seen some people draw it extending longitudinally west from the Ardenne, while you see depictions of it stretching latitudinally from about where the Rupple meets the Schelde southeast to south of the Ardennes. I'd bet this second description is probably more the reality. Anyway, wasn't the border of the empire the Rhine? In that case, I'd imagine you'd find Roman settlement on both "sides" of the forest, southwest and northeast. Criticalthinker (talk) 05:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course, there were Romans on both sides, Germania Inferior was originally a Roman province. Even when the Franks took over there are believed to have still been substantial Roman populations in the richer agricultural areas like the Hesbaye and Condroz. I also agree the border you've been asking about probably lay closer to north-south in direction, rather than east-west.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd only brought up the border because you were asking about Louvain. I guess the point was that it wouldn't really be relevant if there was evidence of Roman administration there if both sides of this provincial border were Roman-settled territory. Criticalthinker (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't asking about Louvain, and we didn't mention Roman administration, only Roman (culturally Roman, Romanized) populations. I am not sure what you mean by administration, but the governmental situation obviously changed over time. According to Gregory of Tours, Frankish kinglets took over the administrative districts (civitati) of Germania Inferior first, which apparently brought them to the edge of the forest. Franks ruled over Romanized populations in this area. Chlodio then made the move through the forest into another Roman province which was still being administered by Romanized people at the time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 04:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"However, I don't think we really have any evidence about Roman administration near Louvain?" Criticalthinker (talk) 04:58, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK. What I meant in this case is that I don't think we really know the Roman era administrative boundaries in this area. In fact I am not sure there is much evidence of Roman settlement at Louvain at all. My question mark is because I am not certain about this. However, in the period of Chlodio I am more confident that the region around Louvain had become relatively uninhabited, and come under Frankish influence. It was on the northern border of the more Romanized population in the fertile region of Hesbaye, which had been within Germania, and already come under Frankish influence already before his time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:32, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, can someone check my question on the talk page for Gallo-Roman culture? There is a paragraph in the opening that doesn't read clearly to me, and I was curious if it did to anyone else, and if there is a way to make it more clear? Criticalthinker (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]