Description

• Title:
  The heterogeneity of space of the salt production towns of Bochnia and Wieliczka in the pre-industrial era
• Creator:
  Krasnowolski, Bogusław
• Description:
  In Bochnia and Wieliczka, mining influenced the shape and organization of urban space as well as the formation of social groups. The incorporation of both towns under German law was a consequence of the discovery and commencement of the exploitation of rock salt. Urbanistic analysis of the plan of Bochnia (1253) allows for two interpretative possibilities (figs. 1, 2, 5, 6), but the second of them – with the square oriented transverse to the axis of the system, concentrating religious functions and public utility facilities – would be a repetition of layout of the Legnica that was incorporated a little earlier, from where the first locator came. Wieliczka incorporated later (1290) operates a finer plan, with a rectangular market square in the centre, concentrating on public functions. The extreme part of the arrangement was occupied by spaces of power (salt mine castle) and sacrum (church and cemetery) (figs. 3, 4, 7, 8). In Bochnia, we can only guess about the early origins of the salt mine castle outside of the urban system. The town along with the two mayor’s villages was established within an extremely large mayor’s salary, defined as 1/5 of the surface 260 Franconian łan (fig. 9); the remaining 4/5’s was to concentrate on rural settlement in the future. Within the mayor’s village – Podedworze – there probably was an earlier developed fortified mayor’s seat, apparently evident on archive plans (fig. 10). Much smaller was the agricultural salary of Wieliczka. Apart from four mayor’s łan, it is possible to determine six urban ones (fig. 11); as a result in the 14th and the 15th century, the town gradually expanded. The significant urban transformations of Bochnia, with the identification of the new urban system, in accordance with Greater Poland’s standards, should be placed in Casimir the Great’s era (fig. 12). The separation of the western part of the incorporation system by a new defensive line left the suburb outside of it, within which Casimir the Great founded the miners’ hospital with a church (1357). An analogous royal foundation in Wieliczka (1363) was also situated in a suburb (fig. 13). An important element for the country’s economy was royal investment, such as the construction of the canal linking Krakow and Bochnia as described by Jan Długosz, and should be probably understood as the regulation of the Vistula River’s tributary (Babica) in order to transport Bochnia salt to Vistula’s salt port – Uście Solne (incorporation in 1360) (fig. 14 ). The development of both towns in the late Middle Ages and in the early Post-Medieval period (the 15th – the beginning of the 17th century), which is a consequence of the extension of the salt mines, resulted in the shaping of suburbs and new settlements. Distinct analogies can be seen between the spatial arrangement of Oracka Street in Bochnia (fig. 15) and located on the east side of Wieliczka Mierżączka settlement (fig. 16). The latter in 1628 was granted town rights as a private town associated with the Lubomirski family estates. Probably due to their action at the border of Wieliczka, in Siercza, a Jewish ’town’ developed (fig. 18). Its counterpart in the area of Bochnia – after the removal of the Jewish district in the 15th century – was the Jewish part of Nowy Wiśnicz. The development of sacred space at the cost of residential ones had early beginnings in Bochnia, where already in 1375 at a little earlier determined market square was situated the Dominican complex. From the 17th century, it gave the cult of the image of Our Lady Bocheńska great prominence. In 1623, in the place of the miners’ hospital the Bernardines complex was built (fig. 17). In the same year, in a suburb of Wieliczka, the Franciscans monastery was founded and the Jesuits made an attempt to settle there too. The Austrian authorities imposed significant changes in the management of urban space after the first partition of Poland. These included the construction of a new road network (fig. 19), architectural transformation that related, amongst others, to eliminating the risk of fires. They instigated a new organization of the salt mines’ authorities, the elimination of the majority of monastery complexes with the transformation of buildings for secular purposes, the development of rural colonization within salt mine estates confiscated by the new authorities (figs. 10, 20). An important element defining the boundaries of Wieliczka was the Austrian field fortress from 1778–1779 (fig. 3).;
  Zróżnicowanie przestrzeni obu miast salinarnych miało wielorakie uwarunkowania. Zasadnicze funkcje – między innymi mieszkalne, komunikacyjne, handlowe, sakralne, obronne i tak istotne tutaj, związane z eksploatacją soli – wpisano w XIII-wieczne plany lokacyjne (w Bochni skorygowany w XIV wieku). Późniejsze modyfikacje wiązały się z rozwojem miast i żupy w późnym średniowieczu oraz na progu nowożytności. Kryzys zarysowujący się od XVII wieku owocował poszerzeniem przestrzeni sacrum kosztem własności miejskich, w Wieliczce także powstawaniem osad konkurencyjnych wobec miasta. Istotne zmiany w gospodarowaniu przestrzenią narzucił austriacki zaborca po 1772 roku, w okresie stanowiącym wstęp do epoki industrialnej.
• Object availability:
  free access
• Rights:
  Prawa autorskie (c) 2016 Archaeologia Historica Polona
• Date:
  2016.06.29
• Type:
  info:eu-repo/semantics/article;
  info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
• Language:
  Polish
• Source:
  Archaeologia Historica Polona; Vol. 23 (2015); 229-258;
  Archaeologia Historica Polona; Tom 23 (2015); 229-258;
  1425-3534
• Format:
  application/pdf
• Publisher:
  Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
• Relation: https://apcz.umk.pl/AHP/article/view/AHP.2015.010/10181
• Subject:
  Bochnia;
  Wieliczka;
  późne średniowiecze
• Identifier: https://apcz.umk.pl/AHP/article/view/AHP.2015.010
• Data provider:
  Akademicka Platforma Czasopism
• Can I use it?:
  seek permission
• Type:
  text