Medieval Town Planning

Armand Baeriswyl, Stadt, Vorstadt und Stadterweiterung im Mittelalter. Archäologische und historische Studien zum Wachstum der drei Zähringerstädte Burgdorf, Bern und Freiburg im Breisgau (Schweizer Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Archäologie des Mittelalters 30), Basel 2003.

The area of Tallinn, situated on the southern shore of the Finnish Gulf, appears for the first time in the written sources in June 1219 when King Valdemar II of Denmark began armed mission with the aim to christianise northern Estonia. To achieve this, the hill of Toompea was chosen as a first centre and soon after the landing a new castle was built to replace the old prehistoric one belonging to native Estonians. It is possible that there were simultaneous plans to begin with the building of the town but so far neither written nor archaeological data can securely confirm this. The genesis of the medieval town during the first few decades lies much in darkness. Based on the analysis of written sources it is possible to say that the urban settlement dates back at least to the 1230s and is first mentioned as civitas in 1238. The first firm date stating Tallinn as a town is from 1248 when the Danish King Eric IV gave to the local settlers the town charter. The archaeological traces of the first phase of the medieval town are scarce. It is possible to show some kind of activities from the 1220s onwards around the town area but these are too fragmented to show purposeful town planning. This is first visible around mid-13th century when the street network, properties and first churches have been created. Both dwellings as well as churches show influences coming from different regions, notably from northern Germany, less from Scandinavia. In some cases it is also possible to suggest the contribution of native Estonians, both in housing culture as well in general material culture. //published in: M. Schneider, M. Gläser (Hrsg.), Lübecker Kolloquium zur Stadtarchäologie im Hanseraum, X. Lübeck 2016, 537–558//

Rhodes boasts a great number of significant archaeological and cultural monuments. The citadel of Rhodes, built by the Knights Hospitaller, is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe and in 1988 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has been occupied since the Classical period and reached the peak of its glory during medieval times. Today, most of the city is well preserved and several buildings have been reused in order to promote the cultural heritage of the island. Nevertheless, there are many monuments that remain untapped due to financial matters, lack of creativity, or simply because they have been neglected. This research will concentrate on the importance of the reuse of monuments and historical buildings in ways that enhances the cultural heritage of the island. The use of advanced models of exhibitions, the creation of new museum spaces and themes, as well the organization of events proposed through this research will help raise cultural awareness among both locals and visitors to Rhodes, increase the cultural value of the city, and improve its economy through increased tourism and historical interest.

Wim Boerefijn, New towns of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries and the grid plan.
The collapse of the western Roman empire led to a long period of urban decline in western Europe. From about the 10th century onwards, however,  urban life revived.  Initially, this happened particularly in existing settlements – often in remnants of Roman cities, towns and
fortresses – that grew and were gradually promoted to towns and cities. But towns were also created anew, almost from scratch, in short periods of time. This became more and more usual as more and more landlords sought to profit from the urban boom. Unfortunately, little is known of how this was done. In the following chapter, various aspects of these new urban creations will be outlined in the perspective of the heritage of the ancient colonial city, beginning with a short introduction of the phenomenon and subsequently focusing on spatial planning and the grid plan in particular.

This paper takes as its starting point a definition of islands that goes beyond geographical isolation to consider islands as social constructs insofar as they reflect feelings of isolation, separateness, distinctiveness and otherness. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the ‘dry’ island, an island that although once surrounded by water has long since lost its physical isolation due to changes in sea level and drainage patterns. Taking the Isle of Ely in the fens of East Anglia in the United Kingdom between AD 1200-1600 as a case study, and utilising archaeological evidence for diet and for the local Ely ware pottery, it is possible to reconstruct a cognitive mappa, which describes the perception of islandness amongst the island’s medieval inhabitants.

In Bove Town, just above the medieval town of Glastonbury, settlement began in the Dark Ages with a sequence of 4 round houses on the same site. This was followed by a high status Saxon period site with a large hall. Following this was a previously unlocated medieval tilery producing high quality encaustic floor tiles used in high status buildings throughout the South West, including at Glastonbury Abbey,  Wells Cathedral, Bath Abbey, Cleeve Abbey and Chepstow Castle. The tilery appears to have closed at around the time of the Black Death.
Finds include a coin of King Roger II of Sicily .

Bergen emerged as a town during the 11th century. This presentation of the origin, founding and development of the town covers the centuries before and after the first regulation of the land took place by the Vågen bay. With 150 years of excavations the archaeological sources are rather abundant, whereas contemporary written sources are sparse prior to the 12th century. The paper is based on a broad study of early Bergen, where archaeological sources dating to between the 9th century and c. 1170 – as well as topographical and contemporary historic sources were drawn upon (Hansen 2005).  Data from 46 sites, including monuments and churches were studied. Here results from this study are presented within a chronological framework of five horizons; horizon 1: c. 800 – c. 1020/30, horizon 2: c. 1020/30 – c. 1070, horizon 3: c. 1070 – c. 1100, horizon 4: c. 1100 – 1120s, and finally horizon 5 that covers the period between the 1120s and c. 1170. An actor perspective is applied throughout the presentation and the origin, founding and development of Bergen is presented with a view to ‘top-down’ royal initiatives on one hand and ‘bottom-up’ activities carried out by townspeople on the other.

Il monastero di Ognissanti di Treviso nacque come comunita ospedaliera, maschile e femminile, all’inizio del Duecento. L’ente, che non aderiva ad una regola precisa, si trovava subito fuori le mura della citta, nello spazio comunemente definito come suburbium. All’inizio del Trecento questo istituto divenne monastero benedettino femminile, senza perdere del tutto le sue caratteristiche di ospedale : l’area su cui sorgeva era, infatti, interessata dal transito e dallo stanziamento di molti forestieri. La vita del monastero procedette tranquilla, sotto la tutela del vescovo, fino allo scoppio delle guerre trecentesche che interessarono Treviso a piu riprese tra il 1337 e il 1389. Ognissanti, insieme ad una serie di altre case religiose trevigiane, venne a trovarsi allora in uno spazio regolarmente sconvolto dalle operazioni belliche. Nel suburbium, infatti, venivano praticati i cosiddetti « guasti », ovvero le distruzioni degli edifici operate dagli assediati allo scopo di tenere sgombro lo spazio attorno alla citta. Le monache furono costrette a trasferire la loro residenza dapprima a Venezia, e poi in case di proprieta o appositamente fatte costruire, all’interno delle mura cittadine di Treviso, anche se la « sede legale », e probabilmente la chiesa, del monastero rimanevano prope et extra Tarvisium. Infine, dovettero trasferirsi definitivamente in citta, costruendo un nuovo monastero e una chiesa. In seguito a questi eventi, dunque, il nucleo cittadino fini per attrarre entro i suoi confini quegli enti che avevano cercato di sopravvivere per quasi duecento anni nell’area « grigia » sospesa tra citta e contado a ridosso delle mura urbane. L’ingresso, pressoche obbligato, in citta dei monasteri del suburbio ha il sapore di una scelta netta. Cosi come, a causa della nuova strategia dei guasti, ormai netta si presenta la discontinuita urbanistica e paesaggistica tra citta e campagna, due realta che le guerre trecentesche a Treviso finirono per separare come forse mai era accaduto in precedenza.

[Maribo Abbey and town - The relation between monastery and town in Maribo with comparative views to other urban monasteries on Lolland-Falster and southern Sjælland]

Although medieval Denmark as a whole was a predominantly rural society, its monasticism was for the greater part an urban phenomenon: 80 (or 60 per cent) out of the 134 Danish monasteries were situated in towns and cities. Especially in the period 1050-1250, urban monasteries were founded in already well-established cities, while those following from around 1250 to 1500 more often were placed in newly established towns, apparently partly to help securing the young and growing towns their urban status. A third sub-group within urban monasteries in medieval Scandinavia, distinct from all others, was the houses belonging to the Brigittine Order. The convent foundations in Vadstena (1384), Maribo (1416), Nådendal/Naantali (1441-43) and Mariager (1440-46) all took place in originally rural sites, but after Queen Margrethe I in 1400 ordered the foundation of an actual town with urban privileges outside the Abbey of Vadstena, the establishing of similar urban settlements seem to have become an integrated part of the subsequent monastic foundations in Maribo, Nådendal and Mariager right from the beginning (only for Munkeliv in Bergen, where the Brigittines took over a former Benedictine house, there was obviously no need to found a new town). The reason for this apparently systematic foundation of towns adjacent to new Brigittine monasteries has, to my knowledge, never received any scholarly attention. Based on a case study of the foundation in Maribo, with comparative use of evidence from the other Scandinavian houses, this article presents the suggestion that the towns first and foremost were meant to facilitate the extensive pilgrimage, which the Brigittine churches could be expected to attract - a traffic that not least Queen Margrethe and her successor Erik ‘the Pomeranian’ were inclined to endorse, as they eagerly aimed to promote St. Brigitte as the great pilgrim saint for the United Kingdoms of Scandinavia.

The article, which is written in Danish, is published in the jubilee anthology “Maribo Domkirke : Kloster-, by- og domkirke gennem 600 år”, ed. Henrik B. Frederickson (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2016), pp. 22-33. The book (with ISBN 9788776749590) can be purchased from Syddansk Universitetsforlag/University Press of Southern Denmark for DKK 299 (or currently DKK 239 online): http://www.universitypress.dk/shop/maribo-domkirke-3518p.html.