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Drained at the end of the 13th century, the Montady pond, located between Béziers and Narbonne, at the foot of the oppidum of Ensérune, is remarkable because of its network of radiating canals. A multidisciplinary research program including archeologists, geoarcheologists, historians and geographers has been launched to study it, and we present the first results here, on the lacustrine history of the old pond and the population dynamics around it from the High Middle Ages until it was drained. The paths taken through this evolution are recontextualized with the larger social and political background of the era. Combining textual archives with the data drawn from ground digs allowed us to specify the edaphic situation at the time the ditchwork network was created as well as the frequency and modes of its maintenance. The cultivation system combining grains, pastures, and later on, vine is described on the basis of leasing out contracts. The elaborate hydraulic architecture of the Montady pond required social and collective management of its components, made all the more necessary to ensure the resilience of the whole arrangement in view of the temporary malfunctions affecting it.