oa ‘De woelingen der Maese’

‘The Stirrings of the Meuse’. Control and Conflict along the Meuse in Limburg from Old Regime to the Modern Age

This article examines how the Meuse River and its banks in the Limburg region became a heavily contested space. Drawing on legal, administrative, and cartographic sources from the late Ancien Régime to the mid-nineteenth century, we analyze how various actors – such as local landowners, municipalities, and state authorities – sought to exert influence over the river’s course and its bank protection. We demonstrate that river management during the Ancien Régime was characterized by shared and often ambiguously defined responsibilities. Local customs and private interests played a significant role in shaping governance practices. In the nineteenth century, a shift toward centralization and technocratic oversight began to emerge. However, this development was continually hindered by entrenched rights and localized interpretations of authority. By studying the Meuse as a dynamic border space shaped by the interventions of a diverse array of stakeholders, we argue that river management did not follow a straightforward trajectory of modernization. Well into the nineteenth century, it remained a domain marked by administrative conflict, legal friction, and protracted negotiation. This article thereby contributes to the historiography of hydraulic governance, property relations, and territorial organization during the transition to modernity.