The origins of western and eastern Slav towns
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4806087 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Witold Hensel (0000-0003-1786-3622, University of Warsaw, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1969 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 51-60 |
| Publication date | 1969-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | World Archaeology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-8243 • E-ISSN: 1470-1375 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00438243.1969.9979426 |
| OpenAlex | W2004140605 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
One of the most controversial problems exercising historians in the period between the two world wars was the origin of the towns of Central and Eastern Europe, especially those of Poland and Ruthenia.1 Research into this question continued for many years to be exclusively the domain of historians, to be joined towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth by historians of law. For some time these last managed to impose their opinions on many of the current investigators. Starting from the assumptions of their own discipline, they claimed that the initial birth of towns in the region under discussion might be determined by establishing the date of the assigning of so-called 'town rights' to well-defined centres. Thus, for example, in Polish conditions this moment might in many cases have been the date of the investing of a rural settlement centre with the code known as the Magdeburg Law. The conclusion followed that the origins of the Polish towns could date back no further than the middle of the thirteenth century, resulting from German colonization, and first inhabited chiefly by settlers attracted to Poland from Germany by Polish sovereigns. This legal and dogmatic opinion concerning the origin of medieval towns was already opposed as early as 1893 by J. Flach, to be followed early in the 'twenties of our century by K. Tymieniecki. Among western scholars the eminent Belgian historian H. Pirenne expressed a similar view regarding the Slav towns. But the scarcity of written sources concerning the Slav towns in the period before the thirteenth century made a wider discussion of their beginnings impossible. Only with the development of archaeological research, growing considerably in the 'thirties of this century and particularly intensified during the last twenty years, could a new outlook on this exceedingly interesting problem become possible, opening new perspectives both in the history of early medieval Europe in general and in the development of Poland and the eastern Slavs in particular. Excavations carried out on many sites in
Ancient history · Archaeology · Ethnology · German · Period (music · Political science · Settlement (finance · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Historical and Archaeological Studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 1970 - 2022 (53) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |