ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects upon the urban development on the central Danube – the section from Regensburg (Castra Regina) to Budapest (Aquincum) – between AD 100 and 1600. In so doing I shall consider five stages of development or decline:
Roman municipia or coloniae, succeeding the initial military bases and representing Mediterranean culture and achievements; they came into existence between the first and second centuries AD, often replacing earlier Celtic settlements.
At the end of the Roman period these cities lost most of their population and their urban functions, but the physical sites had been established and remained as the nuclei for later development of proto-urban settlements in the early Middle Ages.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries increasing trade and growing population in the countries along the Danube valley saw the revival of urban functions. This process is documented in the constitutional developments of town charters, but also in the growing size of settlements. In terms of the physical structure of towns and town planning this is the period when the layout of cities was firmly established with new market squares being laid out. This phase lasted to the middle of the thirteenth century.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the cities reached their climax, politically and economically. They did not expand, however, and so the formation of the townscape came to an end.
Decline came mainly in the sixteenth century. Early capitalism changed the customs of trade and the patterns of commerce so that new trade routes became important; the Reformation caused social conflict in communities; the Turks conquered large parts of Hungary and became dangerous neighbours to the Holy Roman Empire.
