Event: Bridging Boundaries. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environmental History of the Low Countries

Registration via https://event.ugent.be/registration/bridgingboundariesconference from 03-09-2026 13:57 until 03-11-2026 17:00

Description

Bridging Boundaries is an international and interdisciplinary conference on the environmental history of the Low Countries during the longue durée. The conference takes stock of recent research, ongoing projects, and current debates.  It explicitly also encourages exchange between scholars working in different disciplines, including environmental history, environmental archaeology, historical ecology, and historical geography. The two-day conference consists of an opening keynote, 28 papers in thematic sessions and an exciting round table on bridging the boundaries between humanities and beta sciences research. Research themes include weather and climate, woodlands, water and wetlands, landscape history, animals, vermin, food, environmental management, and biodiversity. 

The conference will take place in Ghent, in the magnificent historical city centre. Venue will be the Conference Center Sint-Baafshuis, housed in the former diocesan seminary building from the seventeenth century.

Bridging Boundaries is organised by Ghent University (Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies and Research Group Human-Environment Dynamics ), University of Antwerp (Environmental and Rural History of Urbanised Societies-research cluster), and KU Leuven (Research Group Middle Ages). Friday morning is co-organised with the Roman Society Research Center, a joint research center of Ghent University and Free University Brussels.

You can find the full programme here! 

Please take care to register per day and do not forget to register for lunch breaks and/or the reception, should you wish to join us

Questions can be directed to Prof. dr. Sander Govaerts (sander.govaerts@ugent.be ) and dr. Stefan Meysman (stefan.meysman@ugent.be ).

Register Option Description Location When? Cost in EUR Available Seats

Wednesday evening (2 December) 

For early arrivals. Subject to change the activity will be a group visit to the temporary exhibition on the Impressionist (luminist) artist Jenny Montigny (1875–1937) at the MSK – Ghent Museum of Fine Arts.

See https://www.mskgent.be/en/exhibitions/jenny-montigny 

To be confirmed

02-12-2026 17:30 - 19:00

0.00
Register Option Description Location When? Cost in EUR Available Seats

Thursday 3 December 2026

 

09.00 - Walk in with coffee and registration

09.30 - Welcome 

09.45 - Possum Pincé, Presentation of the ERC project FROST: The impact of climate changes in Western Europe during the Young Dryas

10.30 - Morning parallel sessions

Theme 1: Weather and Climate

Lise Meir, Kristof Haneca, Samuel Bodé, Pascal Boeckx, and Jan Van den Bulcke, A Climate Archive in the Attic: Reconstructing Medieval Hydroclimate in Flanders Using Oxygen Isotopes in Oak Tree Rings

Valentine Delrue, Tuning into the Atmosphere: Placing Meteorology within Early Modern Climate Theory

Louis Verschuren, Kristof Haneca, Cécile Oger, Matthieu N. Boone, Pieter De Frenne, Pascale Fraiture, Vincent Labbas, Vladimir Matskovsky, Valerie Trouet, Joris Van Acker, Anneleen Verstraeten, and Jan Van den Bulcke, Unlocking Historical and Climatological Information From Medieval Wooden Manuscript Covers Using X-ray micro-CT

Theme 2 : Woodlands

Aze Peeters en Koen Deforce, Long-Term Changes in Forest Composition and Management Revealed by (Post-)Medieval Charcoal Kiln Remains in the Sonian Forest (Belgium)

Marta Domínguez-Delmás, Forest History and Timber Supply in the Continental Euro-Atlantic region (1300-1600): Explaining Change and Redressing Biased Perspectives

Pieter Rodts, The Past is Flowering all Around Us. Wild Bluebells as Archaeological Proxies for Past Grazing in the Sonian Forest

12.00 - Lunch break 

13.30 - Early afternoon parallel sessions

Theme 3: Landscape History

Annelies Storme and Koen Deforce, Looking Down the Well: A Study of Landscape and Vegetation Evolution in Flanders Based on Pollen Analyses from Archaeological Features

Harm Jan Pierik, Jeroen Zomer, Job van Tuin, and Ronald Harting, Reconstructing Vanished Landscapes: Pristine Medieval Peatlands in the Coastal Plain of the Netherlands

Luiza Teixeira-Costa, Two Centuries of Landscape History in the Netherlands: A Plant Humanities Perspective

Theme 4: Vermin 

Anna-Luna Post, Rabid Dogs and Honeyed Beetles: Animals as Plague and Cure in the Early Modern Dutch Republic

Charlotte Meijer, “Kill them, or they will kill you”: The Changing Relationship Between Humans and their Parasites in the Netherlands, 1700-1900

Claire Weeda and Nina Witteman, Knowing Pests: Ecological Literacy and Pest Control in the Low Countries, 1500-1700

Theme 5: Food

  Kristian Mennen, From Field Crop to Bread and Beer in Belgium

Maarten Zwiers, Fenland Frontiers: Cultivation Efforts in the Nineteenth-Century Northern Netherlands

  Shira Huizing Lemstra, Water and Land Management along the Roman Lower Rhine

15.00 - Break

15.30 - Late afternoon parallel sessions

Theme 6: Water and Wetlands 

              Bob Pierik, Water, Space and Environmental Inequality in Early Modern Amsterdam

Ailish Lalor, Building the Empire of Mud and Clay: Labor Relations and Environmental Change in Oostelijk Flevoland, the Netherlands and Wageningen, Suriname (1949-1960)

Caroline Kreysel, Nutrients on the Move: Peatlands on the Rise (1950s-1990): A More-Than-Human-History of Raised Bog in the Peel Region, the Netherlands

Theme 7: Environmental Management 

Paulien Daelman and Elene Vernaeve, Controlling Wildlife: Cattle Farming and Environmental Management in Belgium and Congo (19th-20th century) 

Ditte Rens, A Life in the Woods. The Sonian Forest in the Fifteenth Century

Daan Jansen, Of Rats and Men: Rats and Their Catchers in the Early Modern Urban Netherlands

17.00 - 18.00 : Reception

Sint-Baafshuis Conference Centre Ghent (Biezekapelstraat 2, 9000 Gent)

03-12-2026 09:00 - 18:00

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7

Sandwich lunch catering day 1 (vegetarian)

Sint-Baafshuis Conference Centre Ghent (Biezekapelstraat 2, 9000 Gent)

03-12-2026 12:00 - 13:30

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13

Bridging Boundaries networking reception at end of first day.

Sint-Baafshuis Conference Centre Ghent (Biezekapelstraat 2, 9000 Gent)

03-12-2026 17:00 - 18:00

0.00

19
Register Option Description Location When? Cost in EUR Available Seats

Friday 4 December 2026

 

09.00 - Walk in with coffee

09.30 - Plenary Session 1: Landscape History (in cooperation with the Roman Society Research Center)

Kristof Haneca, Sjoerd van Daalen, Marta Domínguez-Delmás,, and Yardeni Vorst, How the Roman Empire Reshaped the Woodlands of Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior: A Millennium of Dendrochronological Data

Roy van Beek, Cindy Quik, Harm Jan Pierik, Elizabeth L. Chamberlain, and Eva Kaptijn, Artificial Dwelling Mounds in Dutch Wetlands: Regional Archives of Human-Landscape Interactions (500 BCE-present)

10.30 - Break 

11.00 - Plenary session 2: Animals (in cooperation with the Roman Society Research Center)

Anton Ervynck, Bea De Cupere, Quentin Goffette, and Wim Wouters, The(Bio)Diversity of Archaeological Animal Remains: Evaluating a Source of Information for Environmental History

Margreet Brandsma, Sander Govaerts, and Samuel Turvey, The Cultural and Ecological Environment of Real and Imagined Pelicans in Medieval Europe

12.00 - Lunch break

13.00 - Plenary session 3: Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Approaches

Pieter-Jan Reynaert and Seb Verlinden, Ditchscapes: Interdisciplinary Reconstruction of Historical Landscape Interventions in the Southern Campine, 1750-1850

Joeri Aerts, Sophie Barbaix, Christophe De Coster, Janne Nys, Arnoud Jensen, Iason Jongepier, Tim Soens and Reinoud Vermoesen, Ecologies of Fear or Amphibious Landscapes? Mapping Water-Related Hazards in Town and Countryside Before 1900

Sander Govaerts, Biodiversity and Ecological Entanglements in the World of the German Hanse, 1400-1600

14.30 - Break

15.00 - Roundtable on bridging boundaries between humanities and beta sciences research

with Rob Lenders (Radboud University), Maïka De Keyzer (KU Leuven), Tim Soens (University of Antwerp), Thijs Lambrecht (Ghent University), and Inge van der Jagt (Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency)

16.00 - Concluding remarks

Sint-Baafshuis Conference Centre Ghent (Biezekapelstraat 2, 9000 Gent)

04-12-2026 09:00 - 17:00

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8

Sandwich lunch break catering day 2 (vegetarian)

Sint-Baafshuis Conference Centre Ghent (Biezekapelstraat 2, 9000 Gent)

04-12-2026 12:00 - 13:00

0.00

12

Additional Questions