28 • Maps and Rural Land Management in Early Modern Europe Roger J. P. Kain In his textbook A Preparative to Platting of Landes day running of an estate or with the making of improve- (1596), the English surveyor Ralph Agas set out three ments such as draining and enclosing? Answers to these main advantages of survey by plan rather than by written questions are both tentative and partial. The supporting description alone: to locate land precisely, to provide evidence is mostly circumstantial. Moreover, it comes pre- tools for land management, and to serve as a permanent dominantly from England, where land mapping developed record.1 Some twenty years earlier, Valentine Leigh, in early.6 It includes contemporary didactic literature, the The Moste Profitable and Commendable Science, of Sur- maps themselves, and the documentary context in which ueying of Landes (1577), had alluded specifically to the maps are found. This last is of special importance: only by “profite” to be obtained from accurately surveyed prop- reintegrating maps and contemporary written documents erty.2 This chapter explores and explains the notion that can the role of maps in decision making be assessed prop- profit could be gained through the management of prop- erly. Otherwise, relatively little can usually be deduced erly surveyed, measured, and mapped lands. The large- from the surface content of an individual map about the scale, usually manuscript, maps resulting from surveying purposes for which it was used. That it may record the and measuring are known in England as estate maps; in state of cultivation of fields, for example, does not mean France as plans terriers, plans parcellaires, or plans de that it was used for land use management. bornage; in the German-speaking world as Flurpläne; and in Europe’s newly founded colonies as land plats. The Acknowledgments: Catherine Delano-Smith read an early draft of this chapter considers these maps not as artifacts, nor from essay, and I am grateful for her comments. Sarah A. H. Wilmot—as the point of view of their survey and construction, nor as long ago as 1983—worked with me to analyze Peter Eden’s Dictionary records of local topography, but rather as aids in decision of Land Surveyors and Local Cartographers of Great Britain and Ire- land, 1550 –1850 for a first draft of this chapter and helped compile the making, as agents of rural change, and as exemplars of data for figure 28.5. 3 rural improvement. Abbreviations used in this chapter include: Rural Images for David One of the questions that arise from thinking about Buisseret, ed., Rural Images: Estate Maps in the Old and New Worlds maps as tools in rural management has to do with the ex- (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). tent to which a map of a single property might have ex- 1. Ralph Agas, A Preparative to Platting of Landes and Tenements for Surueigh (London: Thomas Scarlet, 1596), 14 –15. See also Andrew erted an influence over an area far greater than the few McRae, God Speed the Plough: The Representation of Agrarian England, hectares it portrays by providing a model of a contempo- 1500 –1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 169–97. rary management ideal in the way that town maps may 2. Valentine Leigh, The Moste Profitable and Commendable Science, have done.4 As John Dee pointed out in his preface to of Surueying of Landes, Tenementes, and Hereditamentes (London: For Henry Billingsley’s translation of Euclid’s Elements of Andrew Maunsell, 1577), preface. Annales Geometrie, 3. Much of the first volume of the influential periodical from a “plat of a Citie, Towne, Forte, or Pal- d’Histoire Économique et Sociale (1929) was devoted to property maps lace... the Architect may furnishe him selfe, with store as historical sources: Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch, “Le plan parcel- of what patterns he liketh.” There is considerable relict laire document historique,” 60 –70; idem, “Les plans parcellaires street plan and building evidence to support Dee’s notion français: Le cas de la Savoie et du comté de Nice,” 390 –98; Svend of the “map as model” in an urban context.5 Aakjær, “Villages, cadastres et plans parcellaires au Danemark,” 562– 75; and Walther Vogel, “Les plans parcellaires: Allemagne,” 225–29. Whether the idea can be applied in the rural world and 4. See the letter from Cressey Dymock to Samuel Hartlib in Cressey to estate management is less easily documented and must Dymock, A Discoverie for Division or Setting Out of Land, as to remain largely conjectural. Why did some property own- the Best Form (London: Printed for Richard Wodenothe in Leaden- ers in the early modern period commission maps to sup- hallstreet, 1653), 1–11. plement, if not to supplant, written surveys for delineating 5. John Dee, “Mathematicall Praeface,” in The Elements of Geometrie of the Most Auncient Philosopher Evclide of Megara, by Euclid, trans. their properties? For what purpose did a landowner spend Henry Billingsley (London: Printed by Iohn Daye, 1570), a.iiij recto. not inconsiderable sums of money on having a map made? 6. Catherine Delano-Smith and R. J. P. Kain, English Maps: A His- How might a property map have assisted with the every- tory (London: British Library, 1999), 112–24. 705 706 The History of Renaissance Cartography: Interpretive Essays Maps and Property Disputes 1530 by “François Dubois, peintre,” on the occasion of a dispute between the commandeur of Launay and A relatively small proportion of extant premodern maps François Leclerc, capitaine of Sens.17 Between 1564 and come from the Middle Ages, but they are of interest in 1586, there were a series of disputes between the lords of highlighting the use of maps in property disputes.7 An the Buckinghamshire manors of Wotton Underwood and early example is a map copied into the English Kirkstead Ludgershall over rights to tithes and common on “Wot- Psalter (1224 – 49) depicting nine vaccaria (cow pastures) ton Lawnd” and other parcels of land lying between the in Wildmore Fen, Lincolnshire, disputed by the sokes of two villages. An anonymous, undated map portrays the Bolingbroke, Horncastle, and Scrivelsby.8 Points in dis- villages, fields, woods, and pastures of this area and bears pute between the bishop of Albi and the seigneur of Puy- the names of all but one of the places mentioned in asso- gouzon in the department of Tarn in France concerning the boundary between the two communities were set out 7. P. D. A. Harvey, “Medieval Maps: An Introduction” and “Local and in a perspective view of the property about 1314 (fig. Regional Cartography in Medieval Europe,” in HC 1:283–85 and 464 – 28.1).9 In 1358, a map was made of lands near Oostburg 501; idem, The History of Topographical Maps: Symbols, Pictures and and IJzendijke, the tithes of which were disputed by the Surveys (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), 84 –103; idem, Medieval 10 Maps (London: British Library, 1991); idem, Maps in Tudor England bishop of Courtrai and the abbot of St. Pieter at Ghent. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), esp. 79–81; Numa Broc, Around the mid-sixteenth century, the use of maps to La géographie de la Renaissance (1420 –1620) (Paris: Bibliothèque Na- marshal evidence relating to disputes about ownership or tionale, 1980), 12; and R. A. Skelton and P. D. A. Harvey, eds., Local rights to particular pieces of land increased, and from Maps and Plans from Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986). ϫ then it continued to be important throughout the early 8. H. E. Hallam, “Wildmore Fen, Lincolnshire, 1224 1249,” in Lo- 11 cal Maps and Plans from Medieval England, ed. R. A. Skelton and modern period. In his influential textbook Les quatre P. D. A. Harvey (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 71–81; Derek J. de Solla livres des institutions forenses, ou autreme[n]t, Practique Price, “Medieval Land Surveying and Topographical Maps,” Geograph- judiciaire (1550 and editions to 1641), the lawyer Jean ical Journal 121 (1955): 1–10; R. A. Skelton and P. D. A. Harvey, “Lo- Imbert advised judges to enlist the services of a peintre to cal Maps and Plans before 1500,” Journal of the Society of Archivists 3 produce a figure. Then the judge “should enquire of the (1969): 496 –97; and Harvey, History of Topographical Maps, 89–90. 9. Maurice Greslé-Bouignol, Les plans de villes et de villages notables parties if the picture was well done, and if it is agreed, the du Département du Tarn, conservés dans divers dépôts (Albi: Archives judge should question the parties to determine the dis- Départementales, 1973), 8; the map, “La carta pentha et vehuta de puted territory and the respective boundaries claimed.” 12 la sonhoria dalby depart dessa lo pont et fazen division am Puyggozo Imbert’s advice was still being followed, it would seem, in et autras parta,” is also reproduced in Roger Allaire, Albi à travers the seventeenth century, when Jean L’Hoste noted that les siècles (Albi, [1933]; reprinted Paris: Office d’Édition du Livre d’Histoire, 1997), 9. judges often called for a map of disputed territory to as- 10. M. K. Elisabeth Gottschalk, “De oudste kartografische weergave 13 sist them with framing a fair decision. van een deel van Zeeuwsch-Vlaanderen,” Archief: Vroegere en Latere That some early modern property maps originated in Mededelingen Voornamelijk in Betrekking tot Zeeland Uitgegeven door connection with disputes can sometimes be deduced from het Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen (1948): 30 –39, and associated written documents. A drawing of the Étang de Johannes Keuning, “XVIth Century Cartography in the Netherlands (Mainly in the Northern Provinces),” Imago Mundi 9 (1952): 35–63.