Austrian walled towns
History of walled towns in Austria / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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]
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]