The Olsator gate and walls overlooking the moat in Friesach. Painting by Markus Pernhart.

The earliest Austrian walled towns started to appear in the late 11th century to the early 13th century. Their establishment was closely connected with the development of Austria as a march of the Holy Roman Empire and in particular by the Hohenstaufen emperors and their Marcher Lords, the Babenbergs.[1] In present-day Austria, there are 106 towns or cities that were walled.[2] The walls of Radstadt, Freiburg, Hainburg and Drosendorf survive almost intact, and Austria has some of the most impressive walled towns in Europe.[3]

Painting of the Turkish Siege of Vienna, showing the walls of Vienna.

Other cities or towns such as Vienna, Salzburg and St Pölten have had their defences almost obliterated. In Austria, the procedure for granting civic status or creating a Stadt was relatively simple. Initially, a local lord or official ministerialis could petition for market rights (Marktrecht), after that, the town would be laid out by a surveyor and it would have been surrounded by an earthen-banked enclosure surmounted with a vertical wooden palisade. Often a stone gatehouse (Tor) would be built for the collection of custom dues from traders coming to the market. When a town was granted a charter or borough rights (Stadtrecht), in most cases, a wall was being built or provision for its construction and financing were included in the charter.[4]

Types of town wall and layout

Towns with Roman fortifications

"Römertor" Roman gateway rebuilt in c. 1500 in Traismauer, Austria

These include towns with Roman defences that were re-fortified in the 12th and 13th centuries, which formed part of the Roman limes, which were to the south of the Danube.[5] These include the Flavian (late 1st century AD) auxiliary forts at Mautern,[6] Traismauer,[7] Tulln,[8] possibly Pochlarn,[9] and the Legionary fortress at Vienna.[10]

Town walls at Wels. Original Roman wall. Roman tile was re-used with over the medieval wall.

At Traismauer, the medieval defences almost exactly correspond with the rectangular auxiliary fort, while at Mautern the walls match the auxiliary fort[11] together with the 3rd century extension to the north side. But at Tulln and Vienna, the medieval walled area was larger than the Roman fort. The walls of Roman towns were also incorporated into later town walls at Linz, St. Pölten and Wels. The site of the Roman municipium of Luvarum (in Salzburg) underlies most of the Altstadt (old city).[12] In the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Valentinian I re-organised the Roman defences along the Danube by building a series of watchtowers or "Burgi", which were sometimes built into earlier fortifications. It is now recognised that the large bastion-shaped tower at Mautern is not medieval, but Roman. There are also similar Roman towers attached to the walls at Traismauer and Tulln.[13]

Towns with an ovoid defensive enclosure

Schwanenstadt. Illustration by Vischer.

This form of town is best illustrated by a 17th-century print by Georg Matthäus Vischer of Schwanenstadt in Upper Austria. He shows the town with a long rectangular marketplace at the ends of which stone gate-towers were set into the earthen palisaded bank. Amstetten in Lower Austria is very similar and some of the earthen bank survives, but instead of a rectangular marketplace it has the early spindle-shaped form. In Upper Austria and the Tyrol, this form of layout can be associated with the early Bavarian settlers who started to establish themselves in the 7th century. Other examples of these towns, such as Braunau and Hall, have been modified by the building of later castles. Under Charlemagne, the Bavarians moved eastwards down the Danube and into modern Hungary. The original defensive layout of Korneuburg, to the north of Vienna, is almost ovoid in plan and predates the internal street grid layout, which dates from around 1298.[14] Zistersdorf, close to the Slovakian border, also has an ovoid layout, modified by the building of the later castle. Both Schwanenstadt and Zistersdorf have large and important Germanic cemeteries that have been recently excavated, suggesting that they were early settlements.[15]

Early walled towns

Leopold III, Margrave of Austria. The margrave granted early charters to Krems, Vienna and Klosterneuberg.

From the 10th century, following the defeat of the Magyars at the battle of Lechfeld in 955, the Bavarians started to establish themselves around Melk and Herzogenburg in Lower Austria in the so-called "Kernland". In 976 Leopold I of Babenberg became the first margave of the "Ostmark" of the Holy Roman Empire and the first reference to "Ostarrîchi" occurs in 996, which gives Austria its name. Leopold, his son Henry I and his grandson Adalbert, expanded their territory into the Wienerwald in the east up to the Hungarian border. Under the Babenberg Ernest the Brave (1055–1075) sees the appearance of Hadmar I and the Kuenringer family, a family of imperial officials or "ministerialis" who played an important part in the colonisation of the Waldviertel. The Kuenringer worked closely with Leopold II (1075–1095) who moved his main residence from Melk to Gars am Kamp. It seems likely that the first widespread construction of stone walls for towns starts in the late 12th century or early 13th century. The Kuenringers established five towns, Dürnstein, Zwettl, Weitra, Waidhofen an der Thaya and Zistersdorf, the first four of which survive today as remarkably well preserved examples of walled towns. The Kuenringers also held Litschau from 1237 to 1297 and may have been responsible for the walls of this town as well.[16]

Promontory towns

Promontory styled walled towns can take two forms, either a wall is made across the constricted neck of a looped bend in a river, or on a raised spur of land at the point where one river enters another river at an acute angle. Towns of both types tend to be more common in the Czech Republic than in Austria, and Český Krumlov town on the Vltava is a classic example of the first type. Leoben is another example but is a rectangular town with a grid plan layout that has been placed across a bend in a river.[17] Examples of promontory forts between two rivers occur at Drosendorf on the Thaya, close to the Bohemian border and has a typical promontory layout, suggesting that it is of Slavic origin. Judenburg in Styria is another example of this type of walled town.[18]

Rectangular frontier trading towns

This is a small group of towns which were established to facilitate trade on the existing frontiers of the Holy Roman Empire or between the margraves of its marches. The walled towns form a rectangular shape, and cover a greater area than other early walled towns. An example is Wiener Neustadt, one of the earliest towns in Austria to have been granted Stadtrecht, it was a new town laid out after 1192 by the Babenberg Duke Leopold V of Austria, following his acquisition of the Duchy of Styria. Silver paid in 1194 from the ransom of Richard the Lionhart was used to finance the building of the walls.[19] The defences of Wiener Neustadt are rectangular, measuring 600 by 680 metres. Granted a charter in 1210 the town lies on the historic boundary between the Duchy of Styria and Hungarian Kingdom.[20]

Marchegg town from the Franziszeische Landesaufnahme map. 2nd Military Survey c. 1835, showing the large unoccupied area within the walls.

Other examples are Freistadt, in Upper Austria, which was on the border with Bohemia, Retz and Laa an der Thaya in Lower Austria, and Moravia. Marchegg, which was on the borders with both Moravia and Hungary, was established by the Bohemian King Ottokar II, but when he was defeated and killed in 1268 by Duke Rudolf at the nearby battle of Durnkrut, the town continued to be laid-out and walled by the Archduke. It probably covered the greatest area of any early walled towns, but Marchegg was not successful. Even today a large area of the enclosed town has never been built on.[21] Within the Hungarian Kingdom and particularly present day Slovakia, reciprocal trading towns such as Trnava, were built.[22]

Composite and double towns

Composite towns take two forms. A town may grow and show signs of being progressively extended and then being surrounded by a wall, or it may have a number of separate entities and a degree of separate governance, but is regarded as a unit and in most cases has a single charter. Examples of "double towns" are Krems and Stein. Stein has 9th-century origins as a customs collection centre on the Danube, and was probably walled in the early 13th century. It is immediately adjacent to Krems, which is equally as old. In 1305, a joint charter was granted to both towns as "Krems und Stein". Klosterneuburg and Korneuburg started as double towns on both sides of the Danube but were then split by Duke Albrecht in the late 13th century. Murau is an example of two linked settlements on either side of a river. Herzogenburg consisted of two towns with a joint charter.[23]

Smaller settlements with walled defenses

Painting of Freiherr Franz III Khevenhüller and the fortifications of Klagenfurt, 1615.

There also were smaller settlements, market towns and villages with defenses, which might collectively be described as Stadtchen. These occur particularly in Burgenland, but also in Styria, and East Tyrol. They are primarily defenses against Turkish incursions and marauding Hungarian brigands. These walled and defended settlements were mainly constructed in the period between the first siege of Vienna in 1529 and the second siege in 1683. In 1622 the Esterhazy family succeeded to the control of the area around Eisenstadt (the modern Burgenland) and in light of the threats from the Turks and the marauding Hungarian groups, started fortification of the larger villages and settlements. At Oggau am Neusiedler See, the walls may have started to be built earlier following the Bocskay rebellion in 1605, which had left the small market town devastated. Other settlements in Burgenland to be walled were Rust, (which together with the Altstadt at Eisenstadt) which were now given the special status of “Royal Free Cities” and Purbach and Donnerskirchen. The four settlements – Oggau am Neusiedler See, Purbach, Rust and Donnerskirchen – formed a defended group along the western edge of the Neusiedler See. Around 1640 probably all of these settlements had angled bastions added to the walls for mounted artillery.

Tabor and fortified villages

Salzburg with a gate tower on the right. Painting by Jakob Roedler.

At Feldbach in Styria in the 17th century, a fortified group of houses known as the Tabor were built round the church, with an outer group of houses with inset gates, to counter Hungarian brigands.[24] There were also similar Tabor buildings constructed around the church at nearby Gleisdorf, which capitulated to the Turks in 1532 and also another one at Frohnleiten.

An enclosure with a gate-tower of Tabor form also exists at Neunkirchen on the border of Lower Austria with Styria. Here the church is surrounded by a circle of houses. This was an early settlement, and the church was first mentioned in 1094.[25] In 1136, the Holy Roman Emperor Lothar II granted Neunkirchen market rights and a mint, but in 1294 these rights were transferred to the nearby newly founded Wiener Neustadt. Hallstatt, although granted Stadrecht, has a similar arrangement, with an arched entry to the marketplace, under a house. This arrangement is probably dictated by the constricted nature of the site, where walls would not have served any purpose.

Another example of a walled village is Sachsenburg in East Tyrol. These bear comparison with the fortified villages of Istria such as Hum and Boljun and also Zumberk in Bohemia. Another smaller settlement that was fortified, but at an earlier date was Friedberg, in Styria, which, in the 12th century, was fortified as a refuge point on the Wechel Strasse (Trade Road), between Wiener Neustadt and Gleisdorf.

Function and construction

Apart from those instances where town walls date from the Roman period, building walls in stone only started in Austria in the late 12th and the 13th centuries. The defence of towns was only a minor consideration, and it was castles which were highly defended and subject to sieges. The purpose of walls was to extract market and other tolls from people entering or leaving the town, to demarcate an area where craftsmen could work freely without being subject to feudal service and dues, and to provide basic security for the inhabitants. The gate-towers, which in Austria were often tall and impressive structures, were used for the collection of tolls. In many Austrian towns the gatehouses are positioned at either end of a long rectangular or spindle-shaped marketplace. In the case of the rectangular marketplaces, one or two houses will partly close off the area in front of the gatehouses, causing a constriction to funnel people through the gatehouse. The spindle-shaped marketplaces also funnelled people through the gatehouses at either end.

Little detailed work has yet been undertaken on how walls were constructed. The exception to this are the studies on the walls at Drosendorf, Zwettl, Horn and Freistadt. At Zwettl walls have been built in short sections, corresponding to adjacent burgage holdings, suggesting that particular length of wall was the responsibility of the burgage holder. The walls at Drosendorf do not appear to have been built by professional masons and there is widespread of use of Opus spicatum, a herringbone arrangement of building stones, which also occurs in Romanesque church buildings. This contrasts with the walls at Grossenzersdorf, where masons from the Stephans Dom in Vienna built 2.2 kilometers of wall between 1396 and 1399, using reclaimed stone and tile from the Roman site at Carnuntum.

Wall thickness, hoardings, crenellations and arrow slits

The earliest town walls would be built to a great height on a narrow base. The illustration of Wiener Neustadt shows the considerable height of a wall built shortly after 1092. The walls at Friesach reach about 11 metres (36 ft) in height and this seems to be normal for early walls. At Gross-Enzersdorf the walls stand to about six metres with the crenellations still largely intact and the length of standing wall at is about 2.2 kilometres (1.4 mi). The wall varies in thickness from 90 to 160 centimetres.There are two types of town wall in Austria. The first is the 'narrow' wall which could be used to mount wooden walkways or wehrgang at the back and wooden hords or hoardings at the front.[26] The second is the 'wide' wall, which is on a wider foundation and there is a solid stone wall-walk behind the merlons of the battlement.[27] The line of the supports for former wooden walkways can often be seen on narrow walls by a series of Putlog holes, as at Durnstein. Initially the Merlons are not pierced by arrow or gunshots, but as the 14th century progresses, with the increased use of light artillery, this becomes more usual.

Brick walls

Traismauer-Restored brick walls with keyhole gunports

Walls constructed of brick are very common in Northern Europe and are associated with the Hanseatic towns, and in Poland with the German Knights. They do spread into the Czech Republic and Nymburk has remarkably well preserved brick walls and towers of the 12th century AD. Often brick walls are mounted on top of a low stone base. Frequently the bricks will have been robbed, leaving a low stone basal wall. This appears to have happened at Wilhelmsburg in Lower Austria. From the 16th century, brick was more widely used because it did not shatter so easily when hit by cannon fire. In Austria, Traismauer is an excellent example of a brick wall on a stone base. The Italian defences built at Radkersburg in south-eastern Styria used large quantities of brick in the 17th-century defences. The defences of Vienna, which were built in the later 17th century to resist the Turk, were of brick. The Italian architect Santino Solari also extensively used brick in the Salzburg defences.

Gate towers (Torturm)

The earliest gate towers of the late 12th and 13th centuries are squat, square-shaped structures. A good example of an early gate is the "Obere Tor" at Weitra, with a later Renaissance decorated parapet. Also in the 13th century, the squat towers have hipped roof added and grow in height. The east gate at Stein is an example. In the later 13th century, a "double drum" gate, with a gate between two towers, was built at Hainburg, which echoes other imperial gateways, as at Aachen. It is also in the style of earlier Roman gateways, and at Traismauer the Roman gate was rebuilt in 1504 in this form. Even taller gate towers were built in the 14th century and gate-towers at Freistadt, Wels, Vöcklabruck and Retz are examples.

Later gates in the 16th century were built to impress. At Krems, the Emperor Maximillian built an elaborate barbican gate directly in front of the old city gate, though the upper part of the tower is 18th century. The Prince-Bishop of Salzburg employed the Italian architect and military engineer Santini to rebuild the gates such as the Linzer Tor at Salzburg, in a classical style. Similar classical gates were built at Klagenfurt and Vienna, but have now been demolished. Elsewhere more massive early Baroque gates, such as Gmünd, or with double carriageways as at Gmünden, were constructed.[28] In the later 18th century, during the Napoleonic Wars and until about 1890, there was widespread destruction of gates to ease the flow of traffic. As a result, there are fewer good examples of surviving gates in Austria, than elsewhere in central Europe.

Wall towers (Turm)

Watchtowers (Wachturm)

These tend to be a feature of the later 15th and 16th century. In some stadt, tall and impressive watch towers were built either in or adjacent to the marketplace. A watchman would be employed continuously to survey the town walls and the surrounding countryside. Churches and the tall towers of the defences could also be permanent watch towers. Examples of these watchtowers are at Enns, 1554–68; Retz, where the tower is adjacent to the Rathaus; and Innsbruck of 1358.

Artillery and modification (14th–15th century)

Siege of Kufstein in 1504.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, modification were made to the town walls of many towns with the introduction of gun ports and the addition of further wall with square towers or bastions on the outer side of the surrounding ditch.[29] The siege of Krems in 1477 by Matthew Corvinus was one of the first times that cannon were effectively used to batter down a town wall. This incident seems to have resulted in many of the Austria town walls being strengthened or re-designed. The siege of Kufstein by Emperor Maximilian in 1504, who floated his Artillery Train down the river Inn exposed the weakness of having fortified houses along a river bank as part of the wall.

With the development of wall towers for mounting artillery, it was necessary to construct them with open backs or "Schalenturm", as the fumes from the gunpowder needed to be dispersed. One or more strengthened wooden floors would be inserted in the tower to take the often heavy guns.[30] Many open back or 'towers with an open gorge' have subsequently been walled, to make them into usable buildings, but the tower at Friesach is a good example of an open back tower. Some gate-towers were also open-backed. A good example is the Böhmertor at Freistadt in Upper Austria. Here three levels of gun embrasures[31] or openings can be seen, with those at the corner angled to cover the moat. The vertical slits for the drawbridge over the moat can also be seen.

Curtain walls (Kurtine)

In Austria (and also at the Hussite towns in Bohemia and Moravia such as Tábor, but especially Jihlava) lower secondary walls (curtain walls) occur surrounding the main wall.

Earth was banked between the two walls to take the impact of cannon fire and this meant that the destructive effect of a cannon being fired at point blank range at the base of the main wall could be avoided. Secondary walls often have round towers set into them to fire on attackers entering the ‘dead’ areas between the walls. Outside the secondary wall there would be a wide moat or ditch and sometimes there would be a further low wall surrounding the moat. In Austria these double circuits are shown on early prints of St Pölten, Krems, Enns, Freistadt, St Veit an Glan, Bruck an der Leitha, Tulln and Vienna. Merian's print of Villach provides a good illustration of multiple walls. At Friesach in Carinthia the double walls still exist on the eastern side and the outer wall is still surrounded by a wide water filled moat.

Italian and German defensive systems

Albrecht Dürer's Roundel Tower 1527.

In the early 16th century, large round blockhouse or ‘roundel’ towers start to be added to some of the town walls in response to the growing Turkish threat (the first siege of Vienna in 1529). These roundels are described in 1527 by the artist and military engineer Albrecht Dürer in treatise on fortification Etliche Underricht zur Befestigung der Stett Schloss und Flecken, published in 1527. The main purpose of these roundels was to act as a platform for cannons, but lower gun-ports also provided gun-loops for smaller artillery pieces. Roundels were normally placed at the corners of walled towns as at Linz and St Veit an Glan.

Raabs an der Thaya. Open backed Roundel Tower.

At Melk, a roundel was placed at the southeast corner of the monastery, where it meets the town wall, while at Kufstein a roundel is placed adjacent to the castle -which occupies a citadel position-, so that its cannons would fire over the walls. The need to store gunpowder safely led to the building of special towers such as the Pulverturm at Krems, and at Bludenz and elsewhere.

The need to protect towns from the Swedish onslaught into Habsburg territories during the Thirty Years' War, particularly under Tortennson at the end of the Thirty Years, must have led to the strengthening of the defences of walled towns, particularly in Lower Austria. This can be seen at Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Linz, Melk, and Weiner Neustadt.[32]

From the 1520s onwards, the Habsburg Emperors Ferdinand I and Maximilian II started to employ Italian Military Architects for the refortification of towns and creation of fortresses in the face of the Turkish treat. In 1520 Martino Allio, was appointed Maurermeister in Radkersburg and he was followed about 1530 by his son Domenico dell'Allio(1505–1563). Thickened walls with bastions, ravelins and merlons make their appearance. Vienna, Klagenfurt and Radkersburg now presented an almost impregnable appearance. The D'Allios are seen as the founders of the ‘Grazer School of Architecture’. This group of architects who specialised in military work were of Italian origin but worked mainly from Graz. Their main task was the renewal and strengthening of fortifications along the Hungarian border, parts of which are now in modern Croatia. In the Styrian region at this time, following forts were built, or newly renovated: Graz and the fortress on the Schlossberg (1545–1589, 1597–1639), Marburg / Maribor (1545–1562), Radkersburg (1546–1607), Pettau / Ptuj (1549–1570), Rann / Brežice (1554–1600), Fürstenfeld (1547–1600) and Feldbach (1621–1626).[33] With the growing Turkish threat, which culminated in the siege of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs took over the construction of the defences of strategic towns from the local citizens, often using the leading Italian military engineers. Other military architects, some of Italian and some of Swiss /German origin such as Boniface Wolmuet were employed, particularly on the very extensive works at Vienna.[34]

Vienna refortified.

It is noticeable that the Italian style of military architecture did not extend to Upper Austria and apart from Vienna was only employed in a very limited way in Lower Austria. Merian shows that ravelins were added to the corners of the defences of Krems, and the Merian ground plan of Korneuburg shows angle bastions added to the medieval defences. A massive trace bastion was added to the northwest corner of the Obere Stadt at Klosterneuburg, probably as part of a more extensive scheme. This scheme presumably was not required after the withdrawal of the Turks following the siege of Klosterneuburg in 1683 (which took place at the same time as the siege of Vienna).[35] The Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg were slow to adopt the new Italian fashion. At Radstadt their response to the Turkish threat was to use more conventional strengthening of the fortifications, but at Salzburg between 1620 and 1646, the Archbishop Paris von Lodron, under the threat of the Thirty Years' War and the Swedes under Tortennson, commissioned Santino Solari, a Swiss/Italian from Ticino, to expand the defences of Salzburg. In particular four massive trace bastions with ravelins were built around the Mirabell Palace. In 1646 Solari started work at Neumarkt am Wallersee for the Archbishop, but his scheme was probably not completed.[36]

Maintenance and decline of town defences

The granting of a charter (Stadtrecht) would place responsibility on the inhabitants to maintain the walls and defences and also provide a force of citizens (Bürgergarde) to defend the town when necessary, The uniformed Bürgergarde survived in some Austrian towns until they were forced to disband in 1920, but they have been re-established in Radstadt, Murau and Eggenburg. The Bürgergarde were often granted a larger tower on the wall for their musters and other towers may have been granted to craftsmens’ gilds. By the end of the 17th century, evidence from prints suggest that some town walls were starting to fall into decay and in the 18th Century Maria Theresa and Joseph II encouraged the removal of gates to encourage economic growth. But it was the French forces of Napoleon who may have done most to demolish and flatten major fortresses as at Klagenfurt.

Houses were now being built against the walls and in the ditches or moats of many towns and new ring roads started to appear. In Vienna, Mayor Karl Luger undertook the massive demolition task of removing the highly fortified bastions and replacing them with the Ringstrasse. Demolition of walls and towers continued into the 20th century, but now there was growing feeling that they should be preserved for their historic interest. Possibly the first instance of the deliberate conservation of a town wall was in 1909 when the Imperial Ministry of Culture and Education granted Drosendorf 3,000 crowns to undertake a repair programme. At Radkersburg, a start was made on the preservation and display of the elaborate fortifications as early as the 1920s. Hitler, whose birthplace was Braunau am Inn, was aware of the demolition of the north gate-tower of the town in 1893 and had plans prepared (unexecuted) to rebuild it. More recently there has been widespread conservation work undertaken on the town defences of towns such as Weitra, Zwettl, Hainburg, Drosendorf, and Radstadt.

Topographical prints

Early pictures of Austrian walled towns often occur in the most unexpected places. From the 15th century recognisable depictions of walled towns occur as the background to the biblical pictures of the altars of Austrian churches and monasteries. Most notable are views of Vienna and Krems c. 1390–1400 incorporated into the Shottenstift altar in the Scottish Monastery in Vienna. The Abbeys of Zwettl and Klosterneuburg have important manuscripts illustrating the families of their founders, the Kuenringer and the Babenbergs. The picture of Leopold III at Klosternueberg shows both the Abbey and the ‘stadt’ of Klosterneuburg around 1480. Churches and Abbeys often had wall paintings of towns. Amongst these is a detailed view of the ‘stadt’ at Scheibbs in Gaming abbey. The noted artist Albrecht Dürer, who was also a military engineer, visited Innsbruck around 1490, and produced a splendid early watercolour of the ‘stadt’s’ defences. Slightly later the Khevenhüller family commissioned a series of watercolours to illustrate the defences the towns of which they were lords. From the 17th century onwards there are many oil paintings of towns and cities which show their defences. Views of Vienna, Salzberg and Klagenfurt, where the defences have been demolished, are particularly useful for giving an idea of their original condition.[37]

Early printed maps

Schedel's view of Vienna in the Nuremberg Chronicles 1493.

The major source for the appearance of walled town in Austria comes from the panoramic prints of towns and cities that were published by various topographical artists.[38] The earliest were by Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514) who published the Nuremberg Chronicle in 1493. This included views of Salzburg and Vienna. He was followed by Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) who included Feldkirch and Vienna in his Cosmographia, published in 1550.[39] Between 1572 and 1617 the six volumes of Civitates Orbis Terrarum by Georg Braun (1541–1622) and Franz Hogenberg (1535–1590) appeared.[40] The five Austrian maps in this were of Salzburg, Vienna, Gmünden, Linz and St Pölten.

Engravers

Georg Matthaus Vischer, Austrian Cartographer, mezzotint from 1684.

Between 1642 and 1654 Matthäus Merian, published 16 volumes of engravings and descriptions of towns in Topographia Germaniae.[41] The ninth volume, "Provinciarum Austriacarum", published in Frankfurt am Main in 1649 covered Austria[42] and includes 56 engravings of walled towns. This volume was re-issued in 1679. Merian was followed by Georg Matthäus Vischer who published three works covering the castles, monasteries and fortified towns of Lower Austria in 1672,[43] Upper Austria in 1674[44] and Styria, which also includes parts of Slovenia in 1681.[45] Often Vischer copied or updated Merian's earlier views, but many of Vischer's works include smaller towns which had not previously been illustrated.

Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, historian and topographical artist.

Johann Weikhard von Valvasor (1641–1693) was the counterpart to Vischer, producing topographical prints of the Duchy of Carniola in 1679, which comprises part of modern Slovenia and Carinthia in 1688.[46][47] Amongst the Carinthian views are the walled towns of Oberdrauburg, Sachsenburg, St. Veit an der Glan and a view of Klagenfurt showing the Italian style defences constructed by Domenico dell'Allio.

Other sources

Other important sources are the Josephinische Landesaufnahme and the Franziszeische Landesaufnahme, which were large-scale maps prepared for Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Frederick in the 18th century. The Josephinische Landesaufnahme was a secret cartographic venture compiled between 1764 and 1787, of which only two handcoloured versions were initially kept, while the Franziszeische Landesaufnahme was a revised version (1807–1869), which was printed. The Josephinische Landesaufnahme which are to the scale of 1:28,800 often show the layout of towns with some evidence for walls, gates and bastions, while the Franziszeische Landesaufnahme often provides information on gates and other features of walled towns.

Research on town walls

August Ottmar Essenwein.

A pioneering study of Austerian town walls was commenced by August Essenwein (1831–1892), who in the 1870s published a study of the town walls of Friesach in Carinthia.[48] Essenwein was a medieval historian and architect, and was largely responsible for a monumental work on medieval architect and building techniques. His reconstruction drawing of the Frisach fortifications give considerable insight into the appearance of Austrian walled towns.

The research being undertaken since 1982 for the Österreichischer Städteatlas which is part the International Commission for the History of Towns[49] is providing additional information about walled towns and their layout. This provides maps for the specific periods and gives details of early prints and maps as well as other source material. So far 54 town atlases have appeared, most of which are for walled towns.

With the availability of GIS imagery through Google Earth and the Austrian Landes websites it is now possible to bring together with documentary prints and historical sources, a far more detailed picture of existing remains and the former appearance of the walled towns. The Landes sites for Upper and Lower Austria[50] Styria and the Tyrol provide more detailed aerial photographs on which present day property boundaries can be overlaid, often revealing remarkable details of town walls, which may be missed on the ground, The Styrian site also reproduces the large scale map of the province in 1778 and the Upper Austrian site the Franz Josef Kataster of the 1830s, which provides many details, particular the existence of gate-towers, which have been subsequently removed. On the Vienna site there is a series of large scale historic maps showing in great detail the fortifications of at various periods, together with a commentary on the work of the Military engineers who were involved in this work.

Town walls in Austria

Burgenland

Oggau town wall

Carinthia (Kärnten)

Strassburg Stone relief on the city wall with the portrait of bishop Walther von Vatz 1200–1213

Lower Austria (Niederösterreich)

Baden Lower Austria Georg Mätthaus Vischer 1672
Gmünd, Lower Austria by Georg Mätthaus Vischer in 1672
Kirchschlag, Lower Austria by Vischer in 1672
Litshau, Lower Austria by Georg Mätthaus Vischer in 1672
Melk in Merian's Topographia 1679
Wilhelmsburg Stadtmauer

Salzburg state (Land Salzburg)

Styria (Steiermark)

Source[119][120]

Feldback Grazer
Stainach Stadtmauer

Tyrol (Tirol)

Upper Austria (Oberösterreich)

Source[143][144]

Leonfelden, Upper Austria. 'Franziszeische Landesaufnahme' 2nd Military Survey c. 1835

Vienna

Vorarlberg

Source[163]

References

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Sources

External links

  1. Burgenkunde Castles and some walled towns in Austria
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20140223042209/http://walledtowns.com/category/towns/austria/
  3. de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Denkmalpflege/Österreich/Projekt Dehio
  4. de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Denkmalpflege/Österreich
  5. http://www.stadtmauerstaedte.at Walled Towns in Lower Austria
  6. http://geschichte.landesmuseum.net/ Historic Settlements and archive of early illustrations for Lower Austria.
  7. http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/historic_cities.html Archived 2022-03-25 at the Wayback Machine Early maps of historic cities
  8. Topographia Austriae superioris modernae: das ist Contrafee und Abbildung aller Stätt, Clöster... des Ertz-Herzogthumbs Österreich ob der Ennß: E-Book from the Library of the University of Vienna. Vischer's illustrations for Upper and Lower Austria.
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