To the Retrospective Identification of Locator´s Measuring Systems in the Ground Plans of Towns and Villages
Abstract: Analyzing regular ground plans of urban structures has always been a great challenge for the researchers. Nearly everybody who analyzed regular urban structures managed more or less successfully to find an applicable module. Let us commemorate, for example, the research of Svidna by Zdeněk Smetánka or The New Town of Prague by Vilém Lorenc and the research by Klaus Humpert. The issue of urban foundation ways came intensively to the forefront of professional public 10 years ago. The measuring systems of villages nearby Rakovník were successfully described, the other interesting localities like villages founded by the locator Hirzo or the locality of Broumov have been analysed. The research is based on Stable Cadastral Maps - the oldest accurate map for Czech countries and ideally on the archive information about the number of lots in Emphyteusis foundation times. If the original information about the number of lots is not available, it is possible to use the data from The Tax Gneiss (1654). The research of measuring systems is based on hypothesis: if the village or the town was established for tax collection, it had to be done by the measurement which was logically mirrored in the urban structure. As many examples proved, it is possible to identify measuring systems or systems in urban structures from ground plans and it is also possible to define the basic unit of the length and the module which correspond with a high probability to the top medieval unit called ligament. The dating of identified structures is more problematic. Naturally there is the relation to the Emphyteusis foundation, but in most examples it is not possible to specify the described measure system of the same age as the original foundation. With certainty we can only state that we have found an application of High Middle Ages measuring system having a characteristic layout of most Czech towns and villages. Fragments of original lots are fixed in parcels up today. Therefore during preparing a new strategy of a town or village these historical values should be accepted.
