Entstehung und Entwicklung kleinerer Städte

108 M. Richter und T. Velimsky
Summary
Archaeological studies of the deserted towns of the 13th century in Bohemia
The first problem discussed in this paper is the definition of the term small or
smaller town in medieval Bohemia . In fact, there was only one large town in
Bohemia at this time - Prague . On the Central European scale we must order
in this group all socalled free regal towns (about 37 from more than 150 towns
in Bohemia that were mentioned in the written-sources till 1306) . Archaeology
was more interested in these larger towns . The problematic of the smaller
localities was studied on several deserted medieval towns only.
The first of them was the monastic town of Ostrov by Davle, founded about
1240 and destroyed between 1278-1283 . This dating was established only by
the results of archaeological study, because there is no mention of this town in
the written-sources .
On the contrary for Zd'är nad Sdzavou, the foundation of the monastery of
the same name, we have relatively extensive information from the monastery's
chronicle . The town was built about 1254-1255 and after 15 years was
transposed to the new place .
For the foundation of the town in Kynsperk nad Ohri there is one
important charter from 1232, but only new archaeological study discovered
the remains of this site which existed for no more than about 20-30 years .
The site of Stare Myto by Tisovä was the predecessor of the town Vysoke
Myto . It is known only thanks to archaeological studies and existed perhaps
between the years 1235-1260 .
The last example is the deserted town in Decin, a foundation of King
Premysl Otakar II after 1265 . This town existed about 100 years and was then
translated to the new place .
All these deserted towns looked similar : they were characterised by simple
wooden or timber constructions of undercarved huts, typical for the layout of
colonists from Germany coming to Bohemia at this time . We can not forget
that the transformation of these firsts provisional sites in the rich and
developed towns of High Middle Ages was a long durating and difficult
process .
Literatur
Archaeologica Pragensia 1984 : Sbornik prispevkü z XV.celostätni konference archeologü
stredoveku »Pocätky a vyvoj rane stredoveke Prahy