Large marshes are found along the Atlantic coast of all western European countries and beginning in the 13th century these wetlands underwent, as described in the following quote, extensives changes.

"It was in the 13th century that marsh diking became widely employed along virtually all of the Atlantic coastline of western Europe. During that epoch (c. 1050-1250), mounting demographic pressure on arable land led to an unprecedented era of agricultural expansion. This augmentation included not only the massive clearing of forest land, but also extensive marshland diking in a movement led by the great religious houses of the day. Examples are the coastal monasteries of the Benedictine and Cistercian monks, who, writes Étienne Clouzot, prescribed work for the body as part of monastic life, attacking the marshes in the same manner that inland monasteries were clearing the forests. As research points out, these diking efforts were part of a general European response to the environmental problem of mounting demographic pressure and a lack of easily arable land. The solution was widespread forest clearance and the concurrent development of marsh-diking activity throughout today’s British Isles, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France" (Hatvany, 2002, p.132 to 133). It is interesting to note that the 13th century is in the so called Medieval Climate Optimum, an epoch also known as the Medieval Warm Period."

Significent dyking and drainage activities took place between the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning in the 13th century. However, "it is difficult to reconstruct an exact chronological narrative of the development of modern marsh drainage after the fall of Rome. Nevertheless , between 476 and the end of the Middle Ages, research indicates that noteworthy dyking took place across much of western Europe". (Hatvany, 2003, p.31)

Prior to 476, the date that marks the end of the Western Roman Empire, the Romans were involved in the utilization of wet lands for agriculture purposes. And "it was the Romans..wholeft behind the most extensive documentation of their intererst in marsh drainage and water management. (Hatvany, 2003, p.31); Rippon, 2000: p 54 – 137).

The Marshlands of England

The above image (taken from Martin, Rob. "The Commission of Sewers" [cited 2 April 2011 Available from http://www.btinternet.com/~rob.martin1/bem/sewer.htm.) shows the location of England’s main areas of marshland.

The Marshlands of France

A depiction of an early form of the L'abbaye royale de St-Michel-en-l'Herm once located on the Marais Poitevin and featured in the museum located in Coulon, France.

Reference Books in French.

Bleakney, J. S. (2004). Sods, soil, and spades: the Acadians at Grand Pré and their dykeland legacy. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Butzer, Karl W. (2002) French Wetland Agriculture in Atlantic Canada and Its European Roots: Different Avenues to Historical Diffusion. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92, no. 3 .

Hatvany, Matthew G. (2002). The Origins of the Acadian Aboiteau: An Environmental-Historical Geography of the Northeast. Historical Geography 30, Also available at http://www.historical-geography.net/volume_30_2002/hatvany.pdf.

Hatvany, Matthew George. 2003. Marshlands : four centuries of environmental change on the shores of the St. Lawrence, Aboiteaux of Kamouraska. Sainte-Foy, Quebec : Presses de l'Université Laval.

Nixon, Scott W. (1982). The Ecology of New England High Salt Marshes: A Community Profile. Fish and Wildlife Service, US Department of the Interior [cited 15 March 2011]. Available from http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/techrpt/81-55.pdf. p 47

Rippon, Stephen. 2000. The transformation of coastal wetlands : exploitation and management of marshland landscapes in North West Europe during the Roman and medieval periods, British Academy postdoctoral fellowship monograph. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Rippon, Stephen, Nigel Cameron, and Council for British Archaeology. 2006. Landscape, community and colonisation : the north Somerset levels during the 1st to 2nd millennia AD. York: Council for British Archaeology.

Russell, Howard S. (1976). A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England: University Press of New England, Hanover, N.H. .

Sebold, Kimberly R. (1992) FROM MARSH TO FARM: The Landscape Transformation of Coastal New Jersey. National Park Service, [cited 7 July 2010. Available from http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/nj3/contents.htm.

Wynn, Graeme. (1979) Late Eighteenth-Century Agriculture on the Bay of Fundy Marshlands. Acadiensis, Volume 8 Issue 2 [cited 15 March 2011. Available from http://www.google.ca/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&sour ce=hp&q=Late+Eighteenth-Century+Agriculture+on+the+Bay+of+Fundy+Marshlands&meta=&btnG=Google+Search.