DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25050#0021
castrum. Centrally placed is a large market square (Rynek),
around which the principal public buildings are grouped, and
from which streets radiate at right angles. The carefully
though-out layout met all the social and economic needs of the
citizens. Its perfect geometrical symmetry was broken only to
accommodate the earlier-existing buildings and street pattern.
Notable relics of pre-charter times are the locations of St Mary’s
and St Adalbert’s Churches, the direction of Grodzka Street, off
the southeastern corner of the Market Square, and the bend in
Bracka Street. The chartered city of 1257 covered about 0.32
square km. The blocks, demarcated by the grid of streets, were
divided into evenly-sized building plots, parcelled out among the
citizens. Despite later urban development, and despite the subdi-
vision and clustering of plots, their original layout is still clear in
many places of the old centre. (The so-called curial plot was 20.8
by 41.6 m. in size, and the basic unit was a half-curial measuring
10.4 by 41.6 m.)
Particular sections of the city served particular functions. The
Market Square was the trading and administrative hub. Resi-
dential houses, the majority of buildings, were also workplaces for
their owners, who set workshops and merchandise stores there.
Bigger enterprises, such as flour or lumber mills, were located on
the outskirts, where many natural or manmade branches of the
Vistula and Rudawa Rivers provided water power.
In 1286, Duke Leszek the White authorized the construction
of fortifications around the city, as a reward for the support it gave
him during a rebellion of the nobles. It was probably at that time
that Cracow expanded southwards, eastwards and northwards,
reaching its medieval limit, marked today by the preserved
fragments of city walls. The original fortifications were not linked
with the castle in the Wawel: this was an established way of
emphasizing the city’s autonomy from the ruler. The 1311 mutiny
of the German burghers, though, prompted Ladislaus the Short to
repeal that privilege, to grant a new charter for the city in Okol
and to encircle the three formerly independent sections of the
18
around which the principal public buildings are grouped, and
from which streets radiate at right angles. The carefully
though-out layout met all the social and economic needs of the
citizens. Its perfect geometrical symmetry was broken only to
accommodate the earlier-existing buildings and street pattern.
Notable relics of pre-charter times are the locations of St Mary’s
and St Adalbert’s Churches, the direction of Grodzka Street, off
the southeastern corner of the Market Square, and the bend in
Bracka Street. The chartered city of 1257 covered about 0.32
square km. The blocks, demarcated by the grid of streets, were
divided into evenly-sized building plots, parcelled out among the
citizens. Despite later urban development, and despite the subdi-
vision and clustering of plots, their original layout is still clear in
many places of the old centre. (The so-called curial plot was 20.8
by 41.6 m. in size, and the basic unit was a half-curial measuring
10.4 by 41.6 m.)
Particular sections of the city served particular functions. The
Market Square was the trading and administrative hub. Resi-
dential houses, the majority of buildings, were also workplaces for
their owners, who set workshops and merchandise stores there.
Bigger enterprises, such as flour or lumber mills, were located on
the outskirts, where many natural or manmade branches of the
Vistula and Rudawa Rivers provided water power.
In 1286, Duke Leszek the White authorized the construction
of fortifications around the city, as a reward for the support it gave
him during a rebellion of the nobles. It was probably at that time
that Cracow expanded southwards, eastwards and northwards,
reaching its medieval limit, marked today by the preserved
fragments of city walls. The original fortifications were not linked
with the castle in the Wawel: this was an established way of
emphasizing the city’s autonomy from the ruler. The 1311 mutiny
of the German burghers, though, prompted Ladislaus the Short to
repeal that privilege, to grant a new charter for the city in Okol
and to encircle the three formerly independent sections of the
18