Varied spatial. Arrangements in Mediaeval Silesian towns. Confronting written and iconographic sources

Abstract

A mediaeval town is often viewed as a conceptual and architectural whole, a walled town-planning unit. This idealized holistic image of mediaeval urban landscape is, however, largely simplified. The structures enclosed within town walls could be greatly diversified, due to the following factors: 1). Even in small towns separate areas were allocated for the church, parsonage and cem-etery (e.g. Niemcza/Nimptsch). The area allocated for the church and cemetery in Niemcza in 1295 interfered with the natural delineation of the street going along the town walls and has not been properly developed until now. 2). Towns developed in phases and were surrounded with new and new circles of walls (e.g. Środa Śląska/Neumarkt in Schlesien, Wrocław/Breslau, Legnica/Liegnitz). Subsequent phases of development are usually inconsistent with the area of the initial foundation in terms of com-munication routes and of division into blocks of housing. Town-planning and socio-topo graphic analyses of some towns (e.g. Legnica) indicate that this process usually finished before a mediaeval town gained a more integrated spatial and social structure. 3). Towns had enclaves inhabited by ethnic or religious minorities (e.g. Jewish quarters in Wrocław, Legnica and Świdnica/Schweidnitz). The most characteristic example was the Jewish quarter in Wrocław, with very irregular building plots. This is confirmed by both written and iconographic sources. 4). Towns also had jurydykas — enclaves independent of municipal jurisdiction, inhabited by people connected with monasteries or the duke’s court (e.g. Ząbkowice/Frankenstein). The Ząbkowice jurydyka, situated between the castle and the parish church, since the late Middle Ages has been characterized with larger garden plots and monumental detached buildings. 5). In smaller towns significant areas near the walls were occupied by the vogt’s „household” (e.g. Bystrzyca Kłodzka/Habelschwerdt, Gluchołazy/Ziegenhals). Such enclaves differed largely from other parts of the walled towns in parcelling and in the forms of housing. 6). Some towns were divided into two parts administered by two owners (e.g. Góra Śląska/Gurhau). In such cases documents concerning the legal status and property rights did not affect the principle of the mediaeval town’s integrity. All the above-mentioned cases indicate that the walled area of the mediaeval town in Silesia was far from the ideal image of „the heavenly Jerusalem”, being closer to the reality of the mediaeval Rome, which within the impressive 20-kilometer-long antique walls was divided into the abitatio and disabitatio areas.