ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the ways in which written sources, archaeological evidence and modern plans have been—and can be—used to reveal the symbolic and pragmatic impact of medieval town planning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It focuses on the new towns ascribed to the dukes of Zahringen in the south-west of the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps. The chapter examines explanations for the specific and apparently innovative form of the new towns and archaeological traditions concerning the concrete planning and construction processes on the ground. The urban shape of the new towns of the Zahringer has attracted the interest of scholars in various disciplines and, accordingly, has been studied with different interests and methods, in terms of functionality of symbolic meaning. The concept of the eternal order of the apocalyptic New Jerusalem was a major influence on ideas of the town as a built entity in the times when the Zahringer built their towns.
