16th International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology

82 16 th International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology Jeroen Vermeersch University of Ghent, Belgium Ships and shipping in medieval Flanders, the case of Hulst This paper reveals the results of a research which started in 2011 and has been going on and off during the past years and is now in its concluding phase. It is part of a PhD project at the university of Ghent (Belgium) that focusses on the ships and shipping in late medieval Flanders (Belgium). During a watching brief in the Dutch town of Hulst in 2011 several remains of shipwrecks have been found as part of the medieval harbour quay. In just a few days the structures had to be recorded. No funding was present for further den- drochronological study, for the analysis of the caulking or for an in-depth study of the construction. Only in the years to follow budget was made available to study these finds in more detail. These re-used ship timbers represent four different ships with various construction features, dates and places of origin. They date between first quarter of the 13 th century and the early 14 th century and have their origin either in the Low Countries or the Baltic. For the first time a trade link was thought to be found between this modest town at the river Scheldt and the Baltic since two wrecks could be linked to the region of Lübeck (Hulst 2, c. 1223) and Gdansk (Hulst 3, c. 1302-1315). Repairs on the former vessel showed that it had repairs done in southern Scandinavia. At a second glance the ship timbers might represent the growing number of recycled ship timbers known in the Scheldt estuary during the late medieval period and might even be linked to the ship graveyard where the Doel cogs were found. Hence these boats could have traded with Antwerp rather than with Hulst. In this paper the research since 2011 will be presented and comparisons will be made with similar wrecks in the Low Countries and the Baltic and an in- sight will be given into the framework of recycling ship timbers in late medieval Flanders.