On The Early Cities In Slovakia
(author: Tatiana Štefanovičová)
By the end of late antiquity, as well as the beginning of the Middle Ages, the development in Slovakia was to a significant degree influenced by the overall geopolitical situation. Its territory was located right next to the Roman Empire, which had in its final four centuries its borders directly on the Danube and reached even to the lands of so-called barbaricum, i.e. north of the river.
The development of the Roman Empire in the period in question was also progressive on the territory of provinces which reached to the Danube, in Pannonia and Noricum, where settlements of urban character began to spring up in close vicinity to Slovakia. Within the borders of Noricum, these were for example Vindobona, later Vienna, Carnuntum, which eventually lost its urban character, or Aquincum in Pannonia, later a part of today's Budapest, and other smaller sites. However, all of these left their mark on the development of the population in Slovakia in their own way. Although it wouldn't be correct to speak of direct continuity, they undoubtedly had their share of influence on the development on its population.
BRATISLAVA ON THE BORDERS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
From this point of view, the middle Danube area might've been even more significant, that is, in the era immediately preceding the aforementioned Roman settlement at the time the borders of the Roman Empire - the Limes Romanus were being built. A particularly important role in this was played by Bratislava. In the area of today's Old Town sprang up a Celtic fortified settlement, taking the shape of an agglomeration whose functions also met the criteria for the later medieval towns. The settlement agglomeration was made up of several parts. In a dominant possition at the top of the today's castle hill stood the acropolis, on which, according to the findings of archeological research, stood a complex of architectonically highly developed buildings. These were massive structures, likely of palace type, especially on top of the castle hill, where floors decorated with tiles were preserved. Thus far, their dimensions haven't been reconstructed. The research has been concluded only recently, but judging by the nature of the brickwork, plaster and tiled floors, which were analogous to those found on sites in Italy, it can be surmised that they were the products of Roman builders. Placing them in time is made possible by the findings of Celtic coins, especially of the hoard which was found in the upper portion of the area of the eventual contemporary amphitheater, north of the northern tract of the medieval palace.
Aside from the aforementioned structures at the top, a portion of the settlement complex was made up of the oppidum itself, approximately in the area of the eventual medieval Old Town. The research located its fortifications on the western side of the aforementioned Old Town, basically in a line which was later followed by the eventual city walls, for example south of the St. Martin's Cathedral or in the western part of the later church of the Poor Clares. It was mainly pottery making which was concentrated in the area thus fortified, attested by a couple of kilns under the building of the Old Town Hall, the Franciscan church, as well as the town square near the future so-called Fountain of Roland. Likewise, ironmaking has been attested trough several finds from various parts of the city, the most important of which comes from today's Námestie slobody (Freedom Square). The outskirts of the fortified oppidum are located at the southern hillside of the castle hill on the banks of Danube. Because as it happens, a ford trough the Danube has been located there since the prehistoric times, making up a significant point of connection on the way between the southern and northern portion of the basin of the Danube. The ford, which was a part of an important far-reaching road, possibly none other than the Amber Road, played a significant role in the city's development, not only in the era of the Celtic settlement, but also later, especially in the Early Middle Ages.
Celtic oppida are generally considered to be precursors to the later towns and the aforementioned settlement in Bratislava at the very least possessed important traits, held by the future towns. It had its own fortifications, concentrated craft industries and, considering the important long-distance route which ran trough it, also the conditions necessary for the development of trade. This is also attested by the minting of coins, which can be observed on several places within the oppidum.
So far, we cannot say exactly for how long could've the Bratislava oppidum been meeting these conditions. The research which has revealed them has been done in a relatively recent period and hasn't been complexly evaluated. Researchers thus aren't entirely unified concerning the timing of the destruction of the oppidum. It is likely that it was the seat of the Celtic warlords controlling the area of the middle Danube at the turn of the Common Era. The demise of their rule might not have been spurned on only by Roman activity, which has since the 1st century AD manifested in the construction of a fortified border on the Danube, but also by the movements of Germanic tribes, who attempted to create their own polity in the first third of the 1st century AD. At its head stood the warlord Vannius, hence it is refered to as regnum Vannianum, however, it was by all accounts dependant on the Roman Empire. Its exact location is not known, so the attempt to transpose it onto the Bratislava Castle remains a mere hypothesis, which cannot be verified.
The Romans did not directly continue the citybuilding activity of the Celts. To a large extent due to the fact that north of the Danube lived, aside from the ones already mentioned, various Germanic tribes. Their situation was impossible to make sense of and it changed over time. It was thus in the interest of the Roman Empire to have a securely fortified border, which would've protected them from the denizens of the "barbaricum", and to in turn build remote outposts on their territory. The role of these laid more in commercial activity and creation of fulcrum points for the potential expansion of their sphere of influence. After all, the Marcomanic wars in the 2nd century AD were a testament to the justifiable caution of the Romans. At the end of the 2nd and in the 3rd and 4th centuries, Romans built more and more outposts on the barbarian territory, not only on the Danube line (Devín, Celemantia near Komárno, Stupava, Bratislava - Dúbravka), but also more to the north, such as Milanovce, and the northermost one was Trenčín. However, these did not have the character of an urban concentration of settlements, so we can hardly speak of continuity between the Celtic and Roman-type settlements. The following so-called Migration Period was utterly unsuitable for building concentrated settlements of urban character. Slovak territory was crossed in different directions by various, mostly Germanic tribes, which did not settle here.
ARRIVAL OF THE SLAVS
It was only the Slavic tribes in the 6th century who did. However, their culture at the time of their arrival on our territory was too simple for the sophisticated creation of settlement agglomerations of urban character. However, in a highly developed enviroment they found here after the Romans and Celts, they were soon able to capitalize on it to the highest possible degree and adapt. That's why, after approximately two hundred years, we encounter among them the creation of concentrated settlements preceding the future Early Medieval towns.
From the 9th century onward, concentrated settlements, which are usually called hillfort towns, are springing up on the territory of Slovakia and Moravia. They have a slightly different character from their Celtic and Roman predecessors. Their centre is made up of a fortified castle, on a higher or lower ground, depending on the nature of the terrain. The fortifications in this period weren't made out of brickwork, consisting instead of a wood and earthworks wall with an optional front wall made of stone. The fortified castle was often expanded with a fortified courtyard, sometimes separate smaller fortified hamlets could've also been part of the agglomeration. This type of concentrated settlements is characteristic for the low-lying portion of southern Moravia, where it is represented by Pohansko u Břeclavi, Mikulčice, Staré Město u Uherského Hradiště, to the north potentially by Olomouc as the most important castles of Great Moravia.
In Slovakia, with its different, more hilly terrain, castles were being built on a higher ground, possessing widened fortified baileys similar to Bratislava, or separate smaller fortified hamlets around the main castle like Nitra. In the 9th and early 10th century, these ticked all the boxes for developing into early medieval towns. They were fortified, located on important trade communications, at the top of their societal organization stood aristocrats and warlords, who had their residences there. They also included a for this period very significant representation of the arising ecclesiastical organization. However, their further development was influenced by the overall political situation, therefore their fates diverged.
The tenth century was a turbulent period, which brought quite a few changes to the lands in the area of central Danube. Conquests of the Frankish Empire and its satellites from the west, incursions of the warlike Magyar tribes from the east and disunity of the Moravia itself following the death of Svätopluk (894) caused the fall of the polity. In southern Moravia, certain locations saw their demise, such as Pohansko u Břeclavi and Mikulčice, the Staré Město u Uherského Hradiště also lost its significance, with the centre of local life moving into Uherské Hradiště, the most well-preserved was probably Olomouc. On the other hand, in Slovakia, the life in the area of Bratislava and Nitra still continued. Despite the Magyar invansion, their conquest of these lands and eventual creation of the Kingdom of Hungary, these originally Great Moravian castle agglomerations became the basis for the first medieval towns on the territory of Slovakia. Quite interesting was the situation south of the Danube, in Pannonia. In Koceľ's princedom in Zalavár, west of Lake Balaton, a similar aggomeration of settlements to the ones in Slovakia survived into the mid-10th century. After that, the leading possition was taken up by Székesfehérvár.
SITUATION FOLLOWING THE CREATION OF HUNGARY
From the creation of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th century onward, Slovakia was slowly integrating into its organization. Due to the complex terrain of the central and northern portion of the country, this process had been occurring there more slowly than in the flatlands of southern Slovakia and nearby regions of today's Hungary. The citybuilding process had had its roots as early as the 11th century, its wider development began in the 12th and especially in the 13th century, when the rise of the cities is even visible in written sources. It has to be understood that in the traditional view of our culture, settlement complexes or agglomerations were considered to be towns if they had, from the second third of the 13th century onward, town privileges bestowed upon them. However, in practice, they often had achieved the level of urban settlements earlier than it was confirmed trough an official document.
Written documents, or more exactly town privileges, enabled and eased their life compared to other inhabitated areas, ensured their prosperity and development. Among the priviledges were counted for example the permission to build fortifications, which protected them from the attacks from the outside, permission to organize markets, which allowed them to grow their wealth, the elections of their administration - burgomaster and his council, who did not fall directly under the authority of the comes [1], the right to their own urban court of law and others. These privileges had to be in effect simultaneously, in so doing creating the conditions for the town's status. Because the written sources don't always document the conditions of this sort the particullar locations fulfilled, they are combined with the testimony provided by relics obtained trough archeological, or else architectonic research. For example, Bratislava was meeting the criteria for an urban settlement as early as the 12th century and only obtained the town bill of rights in 1291.
According to the historical documentation, too, our oldest city is Nitra. Although its bill of rights dates to 1248, it is mentioned in written sources as early as 828-830 under the name Nitrava, wherein Adalram, archbishop of Salzburg, dedicated a church for prince Pribina. Later, it has also been mentioned in several 12th century chronicles. In the 11th century, it was one of the two main seats of the Árpád dynasty dukes - heirs to the throne. At the time the town rights were bestowed upon it by Béla IV., several administrative settlement units had their centre on the territory of Nitra. Outside the royal free city there was also the Castle with the Castle Town (later Horné Mesto), a hamlet belonging to the chapter and Párovce, a feudal property. Another portion of the territory of Nitra belonged to the Benedictine abbey at Zobor, which was the wealthiest one in Slovakia.
The importance of Nitra is also demonstrated by the many religious buildings on its territory. Aside from the 11th century cathedral, it is apparent from a preserved list of parishes, dated to the first third of the 14th century, that there were around 3-5 parish districts in Nitra at the time, around which should be traced the population. The oldest known documentation of the existence of a school in Slovakia is likewise from Nitra. The construction of a Franciscan church as early as the second quarter of the 13th century shows that it was an important settlement conglomeration. The town bill of rights mentions a curia or a palace (palatium), which was undoubtedly a stone building and this mention can be considered trustworthy.
Written documentation pertaining to Bratislava dates to the 10th century in the form of a mention of a horrible battle in 907 between the allied Frankish armies and the units of Magyar tribes by the Annals of Salzburg, with the Magyar tribes emerging victorious and opening a door to a campaign into Western Europe. After 955, Magyars returned to the Carpathian Basin and the situation stabilized. However, Bratislava remained a border town. This kind of location caused it to be mentioned quite frequently in the 11th and 12th century sources in relation to military events. It is likely that it had become the seat of a comitate as early as the 11th century, although the documentation of this fact comes only from 1135. The Bratislava Castle also became a seat of Hungarian dukes during the succession struggles for the Hungarian throne.
It was likely the tumultous situation surrounding it that caused it to only be granted city rights in 1291, although there is direct documentation of markets being regularly set up there from as early as the 12th century. As early as the 11th century, Bratislava had the parish Church of the Holy Savior, which was located at the Castle, at the place of the original Great Moravian church. Later, a provostship was created there, which was trough the first third of the 13th century for safety purposes moved to the developing city (1204) along with the church (1221). Bratislava was also a settlement agglomeration, aside from the Castle, it also had a Castle Town on the eastern as well as southern side, and adjacent to it were three settlements concentrated around the churches of Saint Andrew, Lawrence and Michael, and a hamlet on the eastern side, the Széplak - Schöndorf - Krásna Ves [2]. Before 1241, a church of the Cistercian nuns, and in the second half of the 13th century a Franciscan church were founded in the city.
TRENČÍN AND TRNAVA
Trenčín is another location in Slovakia directly attested in the 11th century chronicles. Historian R. Marsina supposes that in the early 11th century, Trenčín could've been the seat of Prokui, relative of the Hungarian king from Transsylvania. So according to this, as early as the turn of the 10th-11th century, Trenčín was the town seat of the Vag (Považie) province at the borderlands of the Hungarian, Bohemian and Polish state, and it had also maintained its notable status as an important border fort further on. Although in this regard, an important function was alotted to the castle, the castle town of Trenčín must've existed even then. It could've laid at the top of the castle hill, or on an elevation to the southwest of the castle in the area now known as Breziny.
The importance of Trečín, whose main portion - the tower, belongs among very old architecture, later, in the 13th century, covered with brickwork, is also underscored by a religious building to the southwest of the tower discovered trough archeology. The unexpected find of a rotunda, which included blind niches, adds to the picture of the status Trenčín held in the ecclesiastical organization of the time. It's likely that in the period in question, Trenčín had a sizeable area where, among others, the properties of both of our oldest ecclesiastical institutions (the Zobor Abbey and the diocese of Nitra) could be found. Trenčín obtained its town privileges relatively late, likely for similar reasons as Bratislava. Those reasons being, it was located in the borderlands, where it often had to face military incursions.
Likewise one of the oldest cities in Slovakia is Trnava, which also posseses a basic bill of rights with the earliest date (1238). However, the document is also merely a confirmation of a state which arose earlier. That's because it was preceded by the information that in 1211, the tithes from the Saint Nicholas Church helped salvage the Esztergom chapterhouse. The dedication to Saint Nicholas hints at it being a market settlement of tradesmen, which formed there in early 12th - late 13th century at the latest. This conclusion is bolstered by the name the city has in the Hungarian language, which is Nagyszombat, from the Slovak sobota (Saturday). Similar names, which are testaments to the commercial activity of settlements, are also known in Slovak, such as Spišský Štvrtok, Plavecký Štvrtok, Dunajská Streda [3] and others. The dedication to Saint Nicholas also suggests that German settlers too participated on its formation. The German colonization is visible to a significant extent in the 12th century material culture of both Bratislava and Trnava.
One of the oldest mining towns in Slovakia is Banská Štiavnica, which held massive economic significance as early as the late 12th century, but at the latest in the first decade of the 13th century. Concrete data concerning silver mining and production are also already known from this period.
In the first third of the 13th century at the latest, there existed a settlement agglomeration of an urban character with a large parish and a Dominican church. The Banská Štiavnica bill of rights has not been preserved, but there is documentation from 1255 showing that Banská Štiavnica bestowed the rights upon Banská Bystrica. Štiavnica had two town squares, five towers and a fortification wall with a moat.
In the Spiš region, the local population centre was Levoča, the seat of the Zipser Saxon count. Much like in Štiavnica, here too the matter is the German colonization, which quite significantly marked the entire Spiš region. Written documentation of the origins of medieval Levoča is very patchy, because in the 16th century, a massive fire burned, among others, the town archive. If the arrival of the Saxons is assumed during the reign of the Hungarian king Géza II., so around the mid-12th century, it is likely that Levoča was the centre of the Zipser Saxons even then. In all likelyhood, the older urban type settlement was the Stará Levoča, which was placed at a different location than the later medieval town. The placename being kept suggests that it must've been created somewhere near the older Slavic settlement. Archaelogical research, here led by F. Javorský, brought new knowledge on this topic, however, it wasn't definitively evaluated. It found mainly abundant mineral resources, which could've facilitated the birth of a mining town.
In the eastern Slovakia, one of the oldest cities is Košice, which obtained basic town rights before 1249. Later, a document was found, pushing the oldest written documentation to the year 1230. However, at the time, there had already been a developed settlement with its own church. It was likely founded even before the arrival of German colonists into Košice in 1247. In the 13th century, the Dominican order settled in Košice, which suggests that it was a notable agglomeration of urban character. It consisted of at least two settlement units, the original settlement of the local inhabitants and the new one, where the German immigrants lived. However, to find the answer to the question, further archeological research is necessary. The suggested population structure confirms the thesis of Hungarian historian E. Fugedi, who was working on the question of the origin of cities in more detail, that the German colonization didn't necessarily have to be decisive, but that it was an element which along with the local populace, or else other immigrants, made up the basis of the population.
URBANISM OF THE CITIES
What was the internal organization of these earliest cities like is in many cases difficult to ascertain, because later construction often covered the appearance and the research in terrain isn't always viable for various reasons. Aside from that, the geomorphological situation was often quite varied depending on the location. Perhaps one of the most systematically researched medieval cities in Slovakia is Bratislava, so we'll try, using it as a case study, to sketch out the picture of its construction and also point to certain notable traits in the case of other locations. An important role in its development was played by the ford over Danube, which could be observed since the time of the Celtic settlement. It also held some importance in creating communication routes, the road from the ford lead under the southern foot of the castle hill into the western part of the eventual city. There, under the elevation on which the parish church was later build, arose a fork which continued to the east towards the later St. Lawrence Gate and to the north towards the St. Michael Gate.
On the eastern slope of the castle hill grew an undercastle settlement, which also had a religious building, around which they were also burrying the dead. Later, it also served as a charnel house - funerary chapel, when the bones from older disturbed graves were being laid in its lower portion. This type of funerary chapel was quite common in the Bratislava area in the 13th century. Among those that were built before the 13th century is also a smaller charnel house near the Church of Saint Salvator at the Bratislava Castle. The most beautiful example is a romanesque charnel house in Petronel, Austria [4], in Bratislava, one was also found under the St. Martin's Cathedral, or rather under its Chapel of Saint Anne, another one in the area of the later Church of Saint Lawrence. A similar one was also detected at a burial ground in Jarovce. Slovak charnel houses are also known from Banská Štiavnica and from the town fort in Kremnica, however, there they exist merely as rare buildings. Following the demise of the charnel house, the already gothic St. Nicholas' Church was built in its vicinity. The dedication points to German colonization, which likely contributed to the development of trade in the arising city.
On the elevation where the St. Martin's Cathedral is now located, a more sizeable charnel house was built sometime in the late 12th - early 13th century. The Church of Saint Salvator originally arose near it, originally as a parish church, which was in 1221 functionally moved out of the castle. It was likely rebuilt, from its Late Romanesque phase, it was only possible to uncover a plinth of a column. Its dedication changed over time into the Church of Saint Salvator and Martin and beyond that, it is mentioned solely as the St. Martin. Its dimensions likely weren't sufficient for the developing city, and besides that, at the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century comes the construction of the city walls, as that's when the church vanished and a wall of city fortifications was build trough its western part.
At the place where the demolished church stood, a new church, today's St. Martin's Church, was then build in such a way that both the southern and northern (visible to this day) portion of the city walls was connected with it, and its western end with a tower was adjusted, so that, as part of the fortifications, it'd have a defensive character. City fortifications, along with its protruding bastions, are very well-preserved in this western portion. In the north, it turned eastwards, and a right-angled bastion was preserved at the corner. From the outside western side, a wall was connected to it, which was destroyed by later construction, but up on the castle hill, its western end was connected to the castle walls of the so-called Luginsland Bastion and thus closed off the area of the castle hamlet from the northern side.
The inner area of the city was structured trough the aforementioned streets, which forked under the cathedral hill. It is likely in these places that we can also assume the oldest town square laid. The contemporary high density of buildings in the city makes it impossible to more consistently uncover the oldest accomodations, which were in the 12th century probably still made out of wood or combined with clay. The way of building common housing conservatively persisted up until the 13th century. The fulcrum of the arising city was placed somewhere between the today's Kapitulská ulica (Chapter Street), which follows the configuration of the terrain, and prior to the finalization of the city walls could've led trough a spiral road towards the castle. Its southern boundaries were made up of approximately today's Panská ulica (Lord Street), leading towards the Lawrence Gate. The origins of the earliest centre in the western portion of today's Bratislava is also attested trough objects of monumental stone architecture. These were mainly the aforementioned St. Martin's Cathedral, whose prepositure likely settled on the Kapitulská ulica. The second building of note, which arose shortly after its construction, was the monastery and church of the Cistercian nuns, whose properties are mentioned as early as 1233. Its function temporarily ceased during the wars between Ladislaus IV. and Ottokar II. in 1271-1273, but it was restarted by the order of the Poor Clares in 1297, and so survives to this day. At the northern bounds of the city from the inner side of the later city walls later arose the Franciscan monastery and church.
BUILDING FORTIFIED OBJECTS
The 13th century was the period when further construction, including secular buildings, underwent a marked transformation. Wood or wood and earthworks dwellings were slowly being replaced by stone buildings, which had not only ground level, but in some cases also an additional floor (Uršulínska, Panská or Prepoštská ulica). A breaktrough came especially in the second half of the 13th century, following the 1240-1241 Mongol invasion. While it hasn't afflicted Bratislava directly, it did cause fears of potential further incursions, and so the Hungarian monarch Béla IV. decided to support to the construction of fortified stone objects.
Perhaps one of the first such buildings was a large keep built at the top of the castle hill after clearing out the 9th-12th century palace objects. The building material of the keep covered up both objects. The king, who lent his support to the building, rewarded the castle iogabiones Lek and Peter and their sons with a 1245 decree bestowing upon them properties east of the city. Sometime later, at the time Roland was in office, a protruding defensive tower was built on a ridge to its southwest, which has been preserved to this day, because over the course of the construction of the Sigmundian palace, it has been included in the object. However, the castle fortifications weren't made up solely by the aforementioned towers. The owners at the time also utilized the earlier wood and earthworks fortifications and at several points placed into it square towers of equal dimensions and floor plan as the protruding defensive tower at the top of the hill had. The building of keeps has its origins in Western Europe, especially in Britain, Ireland and France, and since as early on as the 11th century. It reached our territory in the 13th century, when it appears individually particularly in relation to defense against the Mongols at fortified objects - castles, such as the Spiš or Trenčín Castle. In comtemporary Slovak cities, it does not appear in higher numbers, an exception to this being mainly Bratislava, where keep became a favourite building type for the contemporary lower nobility - the knights.
The tower of the Old Town Hall was originally also a keep, preserved into the height of almost 15 m, and was a part of a fortified courtyard. It's considered to have been the house of James, the mayor at the time. Practically opposite the house, at the Hlavné námestie (Main Square street) no.2, another keep was discovered by the archeological research, at present, its bossaged stone corners are covered in baroque plaster. Over the course of the research, similar houses were also discovered on the Zelená (Green Street), Biela (White Street), Michalská (Michael Street) and Sedlárska (Saddlemaker Street) ulica, characterizing Bratislava as a medieval city exceptional in Slovakia. Since Bratislava was located on the borderlands of more western countries, the construction of its keeps could've been inspired by cities such as Regensburg in today's Austria or San Gimignano in Italy, known for its tower houses. Bratislava had lively commercial ties with both countries, as other material culture relics, such as pottery or glass, also attest.
It could be said that all cities in Slovakia also had an important role in further development. Slovakia was a country with mineral resources, capitalized on chiefly by the mining towns, and it was located in an area trough which in the Middle Ages ran highly frequented trade route, so a common basis for the development of cities was also commerce. These weren't just ancient routes, the one trough Danube or the Amber Road, though of course they continued to play an important role, but also the Bohemian Route [5], trade also flowed into Poland, onto the territory of today's Hungary and Transsylvania, but that would've necessitated special evaluation. All the while, it needs to be mentioned that several towns which lost their importance have not kept the status of a city into the Modern Era.
[1] - Slovak "župan" or Hungarian "ispán"
[2] - now an unidentified location within modern Bratislava, not to be confused with a village in northwestern Slovakia of the same name
[3] - mid-sized towns in modern Slovakia; "štvrtok" means Thursday, "streda" Wednesday
[4] - probably the village of Petronell-Carnuntum
[5] - a famous medieval trade route in Central Europe, known in Latin as Via Bohemica; it seems to not be discussed in English language sources very often, hence me using a direct translation (the original Slovak of course uses the Slovak term "česká cesta")
