Communication Networks of Late Medieval Silesian Towns – between Cooperation and Competition Cover Image

Komunikační sítě pozdně středověkých slezských měst mezi kooperací a konkurencí
Communication Networks of Late Medieval Silesian Towns – between Cooperation and Competition

Author(s): Martin Čapský
Subject(s): Regional Geography, Communication studies, Economic history, 15th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika
Keywords: Communication Networks; Late Medieval Silesian Towns;

Summary/Abstract: The study makes use of the concept of urban networks to analyse the mutual communication of Silesian towns. The author draws on the results of one segment of the German urban historiography which explores the inner ties of the so called Städtelandschaften. The urban network is conceived of as a hierarchically organized structure whose knots were formed by the central towns of individual Silesian principalities. In these towns the reports from hierarchically subordinated towns converged and were further transmitted to the central towns of other principalities. Similarly to the situation in the economic sphere in which every principality represented a separate economic unit, in the sphere of information dissemination every principality represented a hierarchical unit with stable knots of message gathering, processing and dissemination. A special position within the network of Silesian towns was held by Wroclaw which was used as an important communication knot by the kings of Bohemia.

  • Issue Year: 23/2012
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 73-88
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish