Today the second part of the story about Duke Radbod VI, written by my cousin Koop Bos.
Taxes and Common Lands
Image of medieval hunters on the Bayeaux tapestry, this picture is in the public domain
In 944 the Frankish King Otto I, gave Bishop Balderik the hunting right on the common lands in Drenthe. No doubt, Balderik was honoured to receive this important gift, but little did he know that this gift would soon get him into trouble with the free farmers, who until then had had the use of the common lands. The free farmers were also important local leaders and regional magistrates. Not really people Balderik wanted to get into trouble with. To avoid conflict, Balderik decided to make a compromise with the free farmers, which allowed Balderik’s newly acquired hunting right to exist next to the old user rights of the farmers.
In the deal made between Balderik and the farmers, the compromise reads as follows: every farmer who in 944 owned his own complete farmyard, had to pay every year 100 litres of rye to the bishop as tax for using the common lands. This tax had to be paid on the 29 November, the day our Bishop Radbod had died and who was by now declared a saint by the successor Bishop Balderik. It is important to know that this tax was placed on the farmyard, and not on the person.
As the tax was placed on the farmyard, they are easily tracked back through time, and in an old archive of 1545, all the farmyards that had to pay this tax are actually mentioned. These farmyards stayed the same for generations, so it is very likely that the yards that were mentioned in 1545, actually already existed when the tax was first set up in 944. This is why historians know that in 944, 600 farmyards existed in Drenthe, who had the hunting right and the use of the common lands.
Replica of the type of early medieval farm that might have had to pay the tax
It is interesting to know that of the list of farmyards from 1545, two areas in Drenthe didn’t have to pay the taxes. One is an area in south-west Drenthe and the other the whole village of Emmen.
The explanation can only be that Bishop Balderik, even though Emmen fell outside the jurisdiction of the Bishops of Utrecht, had property in the village of Emmen. Therefore, he didn’t need to collect taxes in Emmen itself, as it all belonged to him anyway. How was it possible that Bishop Balderik had private property in Emmen? The answer might lie with Duke Radbod and his rebellion against King Otto. Did the king give Balderik Duke Radbod’s estate in Emmen, an estate that had been in Radbod’s family for generations? It looks that way.
The conclusion can be that the descendants of King Radbod had owned the area in south-west Drenthe and the village of Emmen. Is this why our Bishop Radbod chose Emmen to build his farm estate? Did he build the estate on land he had inherited from his ancestors? This would explain why of all places, he chose this small village to build such an important building, especially as it fell outside the See of Utrecht at that time.
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