They didn’t know about the Netherlands
Had the Netherlands already started getting land back from water in the 16th century?
How’d that get its name? It sounds almost like a corruption of French “acheter mer” (“to buy sea”).
Achter means in a local sense ‘at the back’ or ‘behind’ and meer means either ‘more’ or means ‘sea’ (e.g. IJsselmeer).
So it referrs to either “more land behind” the city of Alkmaar or or a sea behind the city.
Lake, meer means lake. Achtermeer is best translated as back lake, or behind lake. Assuming achter in this case is used as this. It could also mean the lake of Acht. Since Acht could also be the name of a location. See Markermeer.
TY. Funny how German and Dutch switch meaning here:
- meer – der See
- zee – das Meer, die See.
Quite accurate about the land they ruled over and the Mediterranean as a whole.