ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOWN OF VILJANDI IN THE LIGHT OF EARLIEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND COMPLEXES

Abstract

Introduction Among the nine medieval towns in the territory of the present-day Estonia, Viljandi was one of the four members of the Hanseatic League. The inland town of Viljandi was situated next to the castle of the Livonian Order, one of the mightiest in Livonia, and it has widely been suggested that the development of the town was heavily dependant on the castle. However, the traces of the Medieval Period still visible in Viljandi today are all but numerous. In addition to the castle ruins, only the church of St. John, and the location of the main streets within the medieval town date back to the Middle Ages. The medieval town was fully destroyed during the Livonian War (1558-1583) and the following Polish-Swedish Wars (1600-1622/23), and town privileges were granted anew to Viljandi only in 1783. A few remains of buildings dating from the Middle Ages have been recorded during archaeological investigations, but it is impossible to reconstruct the town structure solely on that basis. Written sources concerning medieval Viljandi are also far from abundant (see the following chapter). Thus, investigators have turned to other sources. A long-established tradition for research is the analysis of town plans (Neumann 1911; for Viljandi: Alttoa 1978). Other sources for studying the medieval period in Viljandi and especially the formation of the medieval town are the finds collected during archaeological excavations. These have also been discussed in regard to Viljandi (Valk 1993; 1995; 2005; Haak 2005 (1)), but a detailed analysis of the finds from the early contexts needs another research. A great share of archaeological finds from Viljandi, although originating from rescue investigations, has been collected from stratified contexts, thus making context-based analysis possible. As usual, the strata that have deposited just upon the virgin soil have been better preserved than those originating from the periods of well-established urban life. In the case of Viljandi, strata from the 13th-14th centuries and those connected to the destructions caused by the Livonian War (from 1560 onwards) have yielded most of the finds. In the present study, we concentrate on the former contexts, in an attempt to reconstruct the pattern of town formation in Viljandi. As mentioned above, the data concerning buildings from that period are extremely scarce, most likely due to the fact that wood and other organic materials survive only in certain circumstances in Viljandi, namely in waterlogged contexts, which are not very numerous. Thus, in most cases we have little if any clue from where the strata unearthed during archaeological investigations actually originated. Taking this into account, our main objective was the reinvestigation of the collected finds, and the drawing of conclusions on that basis. Investigation of the genesis of Viljandi on the basis of written sources As the medieval town archives of Viljandi have not been preserved, there exist only limited data about medieval Viljandi in the written sources. In addition to the beginning of construction works at the castle of the Livonian Order in 1224 (Wartberge 1863, 4), there exists a note that the master of the Livonian order, Willekinus de Endorpe, had confirmed the town privileges and established the borders of the town mark in 1283 (LGU I, 40). The letters of confirmation of the privileges from 1481 (Freymann 1918, No. 1) and from 1533 (Freymann 1918, No. 3) have been preserved. In connection with the former, the destruction of the town of Viljandi by the Russian troops in 1480 has been mentioned (Russow 1993, 60 f.; Kelch 2004, 114), as the town privileges were burnt during that event (Freymann 1918, No. 1). During the Livonian War, the town was totally demolished, so that only five (Russow 1993, 127) or six (Renner 1995, 145) houses survived. (2) This was followed by a fire in 1591 (Bergengrun 1897, 37). There are some sources regarding the appearance of medieval Viljandi. …