Fredric L. Cheyette

The Origins of European Villages and the First European Expansion

The countryside of Europe in the Roman period was one of dispersed villas and farmsteads placed in a regular grid. That of post-Roman Europe was one of nucleated villages surrounded by irregular fields and “spiders web†tracks. The change occurred between the sixth and the ninth centuries, when the countryside was largely emptied of its population. The reasons for this change should be explored, for this reconstruction of the countryside was the start of the medieval economic expansion that gave Europe a density of population and intensity of land exploitation it had never before achieved.

Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America: Bernard Guenée

Our colleague Bernard Guenee, Corresponding Fellow of the Academy since 1982, was born in Rennes on February 6, 1927, and died in Paris on September 25, 2010.