Târguri şi mici oraşe medievale din sud-vestul României şi relaţia lor cu mediul natural
Commercial Settlements in the South-West of Romania and their Relationship with the Natural Environment

Summary/Abstract: The fact that the “spontaneously” developed rural settlements are in a perfect “symbiosis” with the chosen site and the reference space, has long been proved by various studies. Those settlements that rose above this status and gained in time commercial or zonal concentration functions, or the ones founded with these purposes (let’s call them “commercial towns”), seem to have been governed by other rules: road system, economic and financial opportunities, concentration of population etc. This study tries to offer a new perspective over this phenomenon, taking a closer look at those settlements that are shifting back and forth between rural and urban status and prove to have carefully chosen locations in relation with the natural environment: landscape, terrain, vegetation, water resources, sunlight, mineral resources. The selected case studies are for either small towns with rural-urban shifting status (Lipova, Cenad, Oravita), or villages that achieved a commercial settlement status, where market places were permanently established (Faget, Ciacova, Sannicolau Mare, Pecica, Ineu, Sebis, Pancota). One of the conclusions is that the great majority of the medieval settlements (some of them incorporating ottoman influences) were carefully located in relation with and adapted to the natural environment, with very few exceptions, most of which being subsequently corrected. The approach is based on a comparative study of historical documents and the first topographical maps from the 18th century, which provide reasonably accurate information on the late medieval urban morphology, prior to possible modernization programs from the Habsburg Empire era. The study also follows the way in which this relation with the natural environment is preserved in the later development of these settlements, including a look at more recent trends.

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