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Dealing with drainage: state regulation of drainage projects in the D utch R epublic, F rance, and E ngland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Author(s) -
Cruyningen Piet
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/ehr.12082
Subject(s) - drainage , state (computer science) , drainage system (geomorphology) , political science , scale (ratio) , compensation (psychology) , law , geography , ecology , psychology , cartography , algorithm , computer science , psychoanalysis , biology
In the early modern period the viability of large‐scale drainage projects implemented by courtiers, officials, or merchants could be endangered by litigation or violent conflicts with landlords, commoners, cities, or water boards whose interests were harmed by the implementation of such projects. A comparison between the D utch R epublic, E ngland, and F rance shows that the D utch had developed institutions to deal with this efficiently. State patents for drainage granted compensation to all parties involved and precluded long drawn‐out lawsuits. When large‐scale drainage began in E ngland and F rance from c. 1600 onwards, these states had no experience with drainage regulation. They had to find their way by trial and error. In E ngland this led to lawsuits and riots by commoners that ruined several drainage schemes. The decentralized nature of the D utch state turned out to be an advantage. D utch politicians and entrepreneurs were used to compromises, and solutions could be adapted to local circumstances. In more centralized E ngland and F rance this was more difficult to achieve. The D utch also profited from the fact that territorial lords had already abolished common rights of usage in the coastal provinces in the late middle ages, thus removing an important source of conflict.