Yesse’s voorganger. Oud akkerland onder kloosterterrein in Essen (Haren, Gr.)

Samenvatting

Before Yesse. Old farmland under the convent at Essen (near Haren) (province of Groningen). The Cistercian convent of Yesse, occupied from 1215 until about 1580, was laid out on a cover-sand dune between the morainic Hondsrug ridge and the river Hunze. Beneath the monastic remains lay an older, man-made soil. Pollen and landscape analyses suggest that land reclamation started here at the end of the Early Middle Ages or the beginning of the High Middle Ages. The monastic buildings protected the older reclamation from erosion. It is plausible that the descendants of the earlier medieval crofters donated their property to the Cistercian order.