Silva Carbonaria, the "charcoal forest", was the dense old-growth forest of beech and

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

that formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

across what is now western

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...

. The Silva Carbonaria was a vast forest that stretched from the rivers

Zenne The Senne () or Zenne () is a small river that flows through Brussels, left tributary of the Dijle/Dyle. Its source is in the village of Naast near the municipality of Soignies. It is an indirect tributary of the Scheldt, through the Dijle ...

and the

Dijle The Dyle (french: Dyle ; nl, Dijle ) is a river in central Belgium, left tributary of the Rupel. It is long. It flows through the Belgian provinces of Walloon Brabant, Flemish Brabant and Antwerp. Its source is in Houtain-le-Val, near Nivelles ...

in the north to the Sambre in the south. Its northern outliers reached the then marshy site of modern

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. Further to the southeast, the higher elevation and deep river valleys were covered by the even less penetrable ancient ''Arduenna Silva'', the deeply folded Ardennes, which are still partly forested to this day. To the east, the forest was possibly considered to extend to the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

. It was there in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

in 388 CE that the ''magistri militum praesentalis'' Nannienus and Quintinus began a counter-attack against a Frankish incursion from across the Rhine, which was fought in the Silva Carbonaria.

Roman road

A great Roman road forming a "strategic axis" linked the Rhine crossing at

with

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

, where it crossed the Maas at the head of navigation. Skirting the northern edges of the Silva Carbonaria, it passed through

Tongeren Tongeren (; french: Tongres ; german: Tongern ; li, Tóngere ) is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg, in the southeastern corner of the Flemish region of Belgium. Tongeren is the oldest town in Belgium, as the onl ...

Kortrijk Kortrijk ( , ; vls, Kortryk or ''Kortrik''; french: Courtrai ; la, Cortoriacum), sometimes known in English as Courtrai or Courtray ( ), is a Belgian city and municipality in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It is the capital and large ...

and Cambrai to reach the sea at Boulogne. The highway was the main east–west route in a landscape where the river valleys, tributaries of the

Meuse The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...

and the

Scheldt The Scheldt (french: Escaut ; nl, Schelde ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to ...

, tended southwest to northeast. It remained viable through the

as the ''chaussée Brunehaut'', the "Road of Brunehaut". As a public work its scale had become unimaginable in the Middle Ages: the chronicler

Jean d'Outremeuse Jean d'Outremeuse or ''Jean des Preis'' (1338 in Liège – 1400) was a writer and historian who wrote two romanticised historical works and a lapidary. ''La Geste de Liége'' is an account of the mythical history of his native city, Liège, writt ...

solemnly related in 1398 that Brunehaut, wife of

Sigebert I Sigebert I (c. 535 – c. 575) was a Frankish king of Austrasia from the death of his father in 561 to his own death. He was the third surviving son out of four of Clotaire I and Ingund. His reign found him mostly occupied with a successful civ ...

, had built this wide paved road in 526, and that it was completed in a single night with the devil's aid.

Use as a border

There are signs that the ''Silva Carbonaria'' represented the boundary between the Roman provinces of

Gallia Belgica Gallia Belgica ("Belgic Gaul") was a province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and Germany. In 50 BC, a ...

and

Germania Inferior Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the fourth century, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Agripp ...

. In the Middle Ages, these provinces were still represented by the church dioceses of Reims and

. On a smaller level, the forest served as a boundary between the Roman '' civitates'' of the

Tungri The Tungri (or Tongri, or Tungrians) were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part of Gaul, during the times of the Roman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, their territory was called the ''Civitas Tungrorum''. They were described b ...

to the east and the

Nervii The Nervii were one of the most powerful Belgic tribes of northern Gaul at the time of its conquest by Rome. Their territory corresponds to the central part of modern Belgium, including Brussels, and stretched southwards into French Hainault. ...

to the west. This boundary continued to be used into the Middle ages as the boundary between the bishoprics of Liège and Cambrai.Ulrich Nonn, ''Pagus und Comitatus'', pp.226-234 and map. With the collapse of central Roman administration in the fourth century, Germanic

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

living along the Rhine border established kingdoms within the empire, and settled in less populated areas. The

Salian Franks The Salian Franks, also called the Salians (Latin: ''Salii''; Greek: Σάλιοι, ''Salioi''), were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Low ...

expanded their settlements from a starting point near Nijmegen until they pressed into the more populated and Romanized areas in the Silva Carbonaria and near the Maas. The Romanized population came to be known as '' *walhōz'' or "strangers" to the Germanic Franks—continued speaking a

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

, whose name survives in '' Walloon''. In the past the Romance-Germanic linguistic division that marks Belgium to this day has been perhaps too facilely linked to these geographic parameters. For a time in the sixth century, the Silva Carbonaria formed a barrier between the West Frankish kingdom of Clovis and the East Frankish kingdom of Sigebert the Lame, centred on Cologne, until he was assassinated in the forest of Buchaw by his son some time after 507, and Clovis joined the two kingdoms. The Liber Historiae Francorum mentions that the Neustrian army invaded Austrasia in the succession battle of Pepin of Herstal and the war started when Ragenfrid and his army traversed the Silva Carbonaria. The Annales Mettenses Priores inform us that the wealth of Pepin of Herstal's family was their vast territories between the Silva Carbonaria and the river Meuse. Throughout the rule of the

Merovingian dynasty The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...

, founded by Clovis, the ''Silva Carbonaria'' thus became the boundary between their two kingdoms of Austrasia and

Neustria Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks. Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It late ...

. The Silva Carbonaria is mentioned in the Salic Law of the Franks, where it marked "the boundary of the territories occupied by the Frankish people". The Liber Historiae Francorum mentions that the war of succession after the death of Pepin of Herstal started when the Neustrian army, under the command of Ragenfrid (mayor of the palace), traversed the Silva Carbonaria

Medieval monasteries

Extensive tracts of the untamed woodlands belonged to monasteries. The Benedictine

Abbey of Lobbes Lobbes Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Wallonia in the municipality of Lobbes, Hainaut, Belgium. The abbey played an important role in the religious, political and religious life of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, especially around the year 1 ...

lay in the Silva Carbonaria and that of Saint Foillan, in the present-day

Sonian Forest The Sonian Forest or Sonian Wood ( nl, Zoniënwoud, french: Forêt de Soignes, ) is a forest at the southeast edge of Brussels, Belgium. The Sonian Forest was a favorite hunting ground of the Habsburg Imperial family, and as such features promi ...

(Forêt de Soignes/Zoniënwoud) not far from

Nivelles Nivelles (; nl, Nijvel, ; wa, Nivele; vls, Neyvel) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. The Nivelles municipality includes the former municipalities of Baulers, Bornival, Thines, and Monst ...

. From the 8th cnetury onwards, parts of the Silva Carbonaria were cleared for agriculture, eventually subdividing it in several smaller isolated forests like the Sonian forest today.

Economic importance

The charcoal—which gave the forest its name and into which the once seeming inexhaustible woods were slowly converted—was required to fuel the scattered smelting furnaces that forged the plentiful iron found in outcroppings laid bare by riverside erosion. Even before the Romans arrived, iron weapons forged in the Silva Carbonaria were traded by the Belgae to their cousins in the southeast of

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. In the High Middle Ages further woodlands were cleared. Today the most significant remnant of the Silva Carbonaria is the

,De Vries 2003:13; Hofmann, in the late seventeenth century, noted this remnant in writings of Gotefridus Wendelinus and also remarked on remnants in the ''Forêt de Mormaux'' or ''Mormal'', the ''Bois de Cirau'', and the woodland called ''Die Leu'' that stretched from Leuven to the gates of

Diest Diest () is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant. Situated in the northeast of the Hageland region, Diest neighbours the provinces of Antwerp to its North, and Limburg to the East and is situated around ...

, the forest-covered ''

Hageland The Hageland is a landscape in the Flemish Region of Belgium, situated in the eastern part of the Province of Flemish Brabant. It is mainly comprised between the cities of Aarschot, Leuven, Tienen and Diest, and probably coincides to some extent w ...

'' or Hagelanden''. preserved because it had been set aside as a noble hunt. At the start of the nineteenth century the area of this remnant of the primeval forest still covered about 100 square kilometres, but due to timber cutting its area has diminished to its current protected area of 44.21 km².

Notes

References

*Hofmann, Johann Jacob. ''Lexicon Universale, Historiam Sacram Et Profanam Omnis aevi...'' (Leiden) 1698
on-line facsimile text
*Duvivier, Charles, "La forêt charbonnière: Silva Carbonaria", in ''Revue d'histoire et d'archéologie'' 3 (1862:1-26). * (includes list of early references to the Silva Carbonaria) * * *Van Durme (2010
Genesis and Evolution of the Romance-Germanic Language Border in Europe
h1>

Primary sources

*Mentioned as a boundary in the ''Lex Salica''. Various versions can be compare

and ttp://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/context/bsb00000856_meta:titlePage.html?sort=score&order=desc&divisionTitle_str=&hl=false&fulltext=carbonaria&sortIndex=020:020:0004:010:02:00&context=carbonaria hereon the dMGH.de ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica) collection. *The

Liber Historiae Francorum ''Liber Historiae Francorum'' ( en, link=no, "The Book of the History of the Franks") is a chronicle written anonymously during the 8th century. The first sections served as a secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, giving a ...

repeats the story found in Gregory of Chlodio going through the forest to take Tournai. Latin i
here
on the dMGH.de collection. {{coord missing, Belgium Forests of Belgium Geography of Belgium

Silva Carbonaria Silva Carbonaria, the "charcoal forest", was the dense old-growth forest of beech and oak that formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the Early Middle Ages across what is now western Wallonia. The Silva Carbonar ...

Former forests