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reclaimed collectively, justly among the associates. The division was by no
means spontaneous, but was designed according to a fixed scheme. In the
areas of strip division without farmhouses sited on the strips, the meadows
are usually similarly divided.
Between the dispersion of vacant strip 'division and commons a substan
tial though not full conformity is noticeable. This statement does not imply
that the evolution of commons and of strip division is closely associated, both
can be considered as a reaction on the changed attitude with respect to the
titles on land, resulting from modifications in the social structure.
The type of settlement related to this division of land can vary (Keuning,
1938) though concentration of population in villages and hamlets predomi
nates. Vacant strip division of arable and grassland, later on more or less
intermixed with individual enclosures on the common wastes is mainly to be
found on the sandy soils of the east and south of the Netherlands and also
in the western section of the river clay area in the province of Guelderland.
III. Strip division, with farm houses sited on the strips, evolved in a
society where the rights to the land already developed from a matter
of kinship interest into an individual affair. This type of division
started from a definite prefined width of the lots to be reclaimed, but of a
length that might vary, according to the boundaries of the village, parish or
"polder". This system of land division usually prevails in areas where either
the land was reclaimed relatively late, or where it was possibly taken into
cultivation for a second time. It was issued for reclamation to groups of
colonists.
These groups consisted of people who were already accustomed to live in
a society founded on a territorial base implying that members of different
kinship groups lived together in the same village. Consequently these people
had got used to defend their individual land titles and the same attitude
was adopted when they arrived as colonists in an undeveloped region. In
case of a new colonization a system was adopted which made certain that
every person got proportionally an equal area of land of the same type and
quality. The leading principles were that every one settled on the strip
allotted to him, that demarcation ditches were dug in collaboration with the
neighbours and that every settler had the right to reclaim any land extending
behind his strip within the lines of the demarcation ditches to the boundary
of his parish (Hofstee, 1935). As the natural condition of the region, such
as diluvial sand ridges, levées, watercourses, etc. were duly taken into
account with the system of land division, the settlement adopted the type of
a line-village. This kind of land division, predominates particularly on the
low lying peat and clay soils in the west and north of the country but it is
also to be found, though less frequently on other types of soil.
IV. The modern rational method of land division evolved since the 17th
century when the reclamation of the bottoms of drained lakes was started
and new polders were enclosed in Holland and Zeeland, but also when large
areas of excavated peat soils were reclaimed in Groningen and Drente.
Economic profitability became the decisive factor in designing the shape and
sizes of the farm-units and fields.
LITERATUUR
Acher Stratingh, G.. 1865: Marken in Friesland. Amsterdam.
Andreae, A. 1881: De Lauwerszee.
