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If we use our common sense, we shall see that the picture presented by the recent past is not an image we merely need to project over and over again in order to reproduce that of centuries more and more remote; what the recent past offers resembles rather the last reel of a film which we must try to unroll, resigned to the gaps we shall certainly discover, resolved to pay due regard to its sensitivity as a register of change. (Bloch 1966, p. xxx)ssss1

If, then, the landscape is in a state of perpetual change, how can we justify the use of cadastral plans, modern or contemporary maps to study ancient or medieval forms? According to A. Verhulst, these documents constitute a valid source in cases where there is no doubt in the matter of historical sequentiality (Verhulst 1995, p. 20). In order to deduct the past from the present or, conversely, the present from the past, the observed state must be precisely situated within a logical progression. The feasibility of regressive studies is thus contingent on the conceptualization of this progression or sequence.