Saer, Saert: een Zuid-Nederlandse veldnaam van onzekere oorsprong

Samenvatting

This article offers a study of the southern-Dutch field name saer(t) and provides an etymology that  accounts for its spelling variation and geographical distribution. The study catalogues the saer/saert names occurring in the medieval records of the seigneury of Roosendaal but also touches on its distribution in the wider duchy of Brabant and its neighbouring regions. It will be argued that these field names are best understood as a borrowed Old French designation sart(e) for newly exploited terrain that was introduced by the bilingual chancelleries of the medieval Brabantine lords who often also had landholdings in the francophone regions of medieval Belgium.