There was a new town here. Traces of the identity of new-town communities after their abolishment

Abstract

The article discusses the situation in an urban commune after abolishing a separate unit of New Town. The existence of separate urban structures in the past did not necessarily produce heterogeneity. On the other hand, in towns where a well-developed and relatively unified urban commune was divided (as, for instance, in Głogów/Glogau), the resultant parts could later develop very differently. The former division into separate communes could leave its traces in the functioning of a former New-Town centre, for example a market square or the cross in Świdnica/Schweidnitz. Usually, some separate legal regulations and the economic characteristics of the former parts remained unchanged; sometimes guilds stayed separate (except of textile merchants) if they were separate before, which was not necessarily the case. The full unification of urban space after combining communes was often hindered by a former borderline, such as town walls or a river. Such a barrier also had a symbolic significance and unification was accompanied with acts of breaking it.