Zabudowa pierzei Rynku Głównego w Krakowie w okresie średniowiecza

Abstract

BUILDINGS ALONG THE FRONTAGES AT MAIN MARKET SQUARE IN KRAKOW IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Results of the archaeological surveys that have been carried out in Kraków in recent years, concentrated within the territory delineated by its boundaries set by the charter of 1257, permit a presentation of the spatial transformations of burgher houses in Main Market Square (Rynek Główny). An attempt at a spatial presentation of medieval houses surrounding the Square has been made in the context of the current works at the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków to produce models of the centrally located structures in Main Market Square and the buildings that existed along its frontages in the Middle Ages. It has been determined that the earliest structures at Kraków’s Main Market Square were basically built on the plots demarcated by the symmetrical lengthwise division of charter parcels (kuria), and located on the parts of the plots adjacent to the Square. The houses were made of brick and stone and had at least two storeys, with the ground floor used as a multipurpose clear-span entrance hall. The impossibility to ride across the hall to the back of the plot often resulted in leaving a part of the plot vacant to use it as a narrow access from the street to the back buildings; as a consequence, not all front elevations combined into a dense frontage. In the south-eastern section of the frontages at Main Market Square in the first half of the 14th century there were two narrow streets that intersected the extended blocks of buildings between Stolarska, Grodzka and Bracka Streets. On the part of the post-charter plots at the Square created by halving the charter parcels lengthwise, the earliest buildings included a front structure with a simple layout and an at least two-storey tower house built of brick and stone in the central or rear part of the elongated plot. Such houses combined the residential function with representative features and defensive elements, thus being a form of a lordly residence. The houses that were built across the plot width had the clear-span entrance halls on the ground floor divided due to the inconvenience of crossing the hall to access the back of the plot, or driving across farm animals. The division was made in different ways, depending on the accessibility of the back of the plot, the outline of the outside walls, and the location of the entrance into the ground floor of the building. That modification was being introduced even before the general development of the functional and spatial layout of the Gothic houses in Kraków which took place in the second half of the 14th century and in the early 15th century, when back spans were added to the existing buildings that adjoined the street, and the said buildings were altered and had their top fl oors expanded. At that stage some of the buildings facing Main Market Square were also provided with perrons, i.e. narrow cellars added to the front wall above the ground level and roofed with terraces accessible from the Square through a flight of steps. The structures that distinguished themselves among the buildings in the frontages at Main Market Square were corner houses with one wing adjacent to a side street entering the Square and palaces built by combining and expanding two neighbouring constructions formed at the initial stage of the process. The house at 27 Main Market Square bears the characteristics of a medieval municipal building, while the house at 17 Main Market Square displays affiliations with royal power. The presented spatial model of the earliest buildings along the frontages at Main Market Square is reconstructive to some extent due to the complete erasure of parts of the Gothic buildings during the successive building activities.