“The name “Duffelt” 

The conception that the name is derived from the Roman Duofluvius, two rivers, because of the branching of the Rhine near Kleve, is outdated.
Linguistically it is nearly certain that the radical word already in 1100 was Duofl and in the 14^th and 15^th century Dufel was Duijffel (devil). The ‘f’ ‘has been doubled. Locally the pronunciation is “ Düffel”. In Dutch it became Duffel, but really it is illogical, it should have been ‘ Duiffel ‘, like Hüssen became Huissen in Dutch. 

In this region we still find places with uprooted forest names connected with Duffel, such as Raaijdüffel and Riesdüffel and Riesdüffelstreet and Düffelfielt. Düffel can bee looked upon as a name for a forest, the so called Devil’s forest, the name of which was about 700 Duvlelo or Dubello and which was used as a “common forest” by the settlements along the edge of the forest: Rinderen, Donsbrüggen, Mehr, Niel, Kekerdom, Bimmen, Keeken and Düffelward.
The central situation of the “ Heimstadt” (literally home town, where the population used to assemble for e.g. Lawsuits) in the center of the Düffel shows the connection between the name of the forest and this public function.
With this the name itself has not yet been explained. We still think of duvel or duivel (devil). There is in the neighborhood a Duivelsberg (devil’s mountain), but there is not sufficient evidence, no more than the derivation from ‘duif  ‘(dove, pigeon) like in the word of a Dutch township “ Duivevoorde”.  

Dikes and polders.

From the agricultural settlements on the heightened side ridges of the Rhine, ring-dikes were built as protection from the ever-changing riverbeds. This happened in the upper part of the Rhine delta- the future “ Kleefsland”  - already in the 9^th century. Such private rings grew into complete “ islands”, the so-called “ warde” between two or more river branches. 
(cf. the use of the word ward in Düffelward and the name of the brickworks Lunenburgerwaard)

In the 12^th and 13^th century the care of building and upkeep of these dikes rested with the local villages, hamlets, polder-boards, marches and parishes, before - in the 14^th century – regional polder-boards came into being with the power of ruling and levying taxes. The local court was in charge. 

A special category of local polder-boards were the so called “ reclaiming of wetlands” (11^th , 12^th, 14^th cent.) (broekland = wetland) Especially the experts from Holland.
( prov.), so called “ broekers” have played an important role. This was no “ protection work”, but reclaiming ( draining), and this mostly was done in the boggy and swampy low grounds, where hardly any clay was found and which belonged to the sovereign lord. So his concession was necessary. For the lords of Gelre and Klein this was an important source of income.
( broekcijnsen). Most of the time it was an agreement between the lord and the board in question.
In the region of Kleve we still find the Kranenburgerbroek, the Appeldornerbroek and the Uedemerbroek, Holländerbruch, bisected by Holländerstege. In 1343 there is some talk of land as far as the transverse canal to Holländerbruch near Tulese. ( usque ad fossam......)
So the subdividing of the wetlands into farmsteads and manors of 16 Dutch acres is quite understandable. 

The eldest known written law to build dikes ( dijkrecht = laws for diking) is to be found in a letter from Duke Edouard of Gelre ( 1361-1371) who was then sovereign of the Duffelt. This means the beginning of the known “ Duffeltse Dijkrecht”, but not, we already know, the beginning of the maintenance of dikes, ditches etc. This letter was an affirmation of the already existing water-management. The reader meets with all kinds of known terms, such as dike-grave, dike-boards, electoral districts, landholders, cleaning and inspecting, sanctions, jurisdiction of grave and lord, right of draining etc. All kind of expressions and terms for water-management with which every Dutchman nowadays is familiar. 

Even after the Duffelt came into the hands of the Duke of Kleve in the 15^th century, the letter of 1364 remained fundamental law.
The “Dijcken-Ordnung” of July 7, 1575 by Willem van Kleve did not apply to the “ dike inspection” of the Duffelt.
The detailed regulation of the water-management in the Dukedom of Kleve dd. February 24, 1767 put an end to the validity of the old letter of 1634. In this way an original Gelders right held for centuries even after incorporation of the Gelders part of the Duffelt into the Dukedom Kleve. (In the course of the 15^th century.) 

History of the Duffelt.

The first description of the land on the Lower Rhine we find in “ De Bello Gallico”, a report of the campaign of Julius Caesar during the Gaul war of 58-51 BC. In 55 BC the Roman forces reached the Rhine and they were to stay there for over four centuries. But their influence reached much farther in time, because the Germanic tribes, who invaded the region afterwards or settled down there after their military service in the Roman legions, remained for ages under the influence of the Roman culture. Until in the 16^th century all kinds of building materials of the Roman buildings were used for new buildings. Originally the Romans wanted to conquer much more and intended to incorporate the land between Rhine and Elbe so in the meantime they built many garrisons along the Rhine to serve as bases of operations: Noviomagus (Nijmegen), Castera Vetera (Xanten) etc.
The crossing of the Rhine was a success under Drusus and then under Tiberius, but in 9 AD three Roman legions under Varus were completely defeated by the German peoples in the Teutonic Forest. That was the end of extension schemes and the Rhine became definitely the frontier, the limit (the so called ‘limes’). (Think of the name of the region “ Liemers” across the Waal). The mentioned Tiberius ruled from 14 BC to 37 AD and is the same emperor under whom Pontius Pilatus was governor of Judea. In 12 AD he came back from his campaign in Germania. 

Apart from quite a row of new garrisons along the frontier civilian settlements appeared in their neighborhood of which Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), Castera Vetera (Xanten) and Noviomagum (Nijmegen) is the best known. Retired soldiers, amongst many subjected Germanic tribes could settle down there. They lived by agriculture but they also traded with the whole Roman Empire.  

Peace did not last long for in 69, 70 AD the Batavians rebelled. They took advantage of the leaving of the Roman Rhine army to Rome, to help Vitellius, who had been proclaimed emperor in Cologne, to the throne. At first it meant a great loss of territory, parts of Gaul: Nijmegen, Xanten, Cologne and Mainz. But the Germanic and Gaul rebels were strongly divided and that is why Claudius Civilis, the leader of the rebels, was defeated near Trier and once again near Xanten. In 70 AD the Batavians, who had retreated in the Betuwe (West from Arnhem and Nijmegen), had to subject themselves. The Roman author Tacitus writes: the Gauls fought for freedom, the Batavians for honor, and the Germanics for plundering.” 

For a long time, to be true till halfway the third century, it remained very quiet in the region. But north and east of the Rhine the Germanic tribes grew together under the name Franks and in 253 and 275 AD they crossed the state frontier (Rhine) Both times they were thrown back by the Romans, but great groups stayed in the area and were allowed to settle permanently. Particularly in the northern (lower) part of the Rhine region, so our region.
The Romans had the factual power in the cities, but these Germanics further colonized the areas in between. (Franks)
This is important to know in connection with the development of language in this region. (The Low Countries) I’ll come back to this later on.
In 360 AD the Franks crossed the Rhine again, but now Julianus, who even chased them on the other side of the river, defeated them.In 388 AD they again came back, but the definite settlement was New Years Eve 406 AD, when the Burgundians invaded Gaul. This meant the end of the Roman authority on the Lower Rhine, which had lasted as long as 450 years! (55 BC-406 AD) 

What happened next in the Duffelt?
The Ripuarian Franks settled down in the neighborhood of Keulen (Cologne) and in our region of the Lower Rhine- between Xanten and Emmerik- the Hatwarian Franks (Hattuariërs). Father on the Saxons had their land and in the north the Frisians. (All of them Germanic tribes)
The new rulers settled on the abandoned rural estates of the Romans, but the native people kept the greater part of the land. The Roman cities deteriorated because the trade contacts with the Romans got lost.