RurLand
Rural Landscape in north-eastern Roman Gaul
Part of the ERC Advanced Grant that takes place from February 2014 to April 2018.
Michel Reddé
He is a director of studies emeritus at the Historical and Philological Sciences Section of the EPHE-PSL.
Project summary
The objective of the project is to study the rural space in northern and eastern Gaul from the beginning of La Tène D1 to the end of the fifth century AD. Focusing on the Roman period, it proposes to examine the evolution of the rural world with its protohistoric antecedents and its mutations from Late Antiquity, over the long term and in a vast area where recent research, although active, has not given rise to any overview.
It concerns the entire north-eastern quarter of Roman Gaul, from the Seine to the Germanic Limes, from the North Sea to the Swiss plateau, i.e. the ancient provinces of Belgium, the two Germanies and a small part of the Lyonnaise. It therefore extends over six modern states (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland) in which the study of the Roman countryside is uneven for reasons that have to do with the history of ancient research, current methodologies, or linguistic and bibliographical barriers, but also with the very diversity of the natural landscapes that form the entire hinterland of the Roman border of Germania.