History of the cities

СITY - a special territorial-administrative, socio-economic, sociocultural form of society, a kind of universal world history, which always had stable signs that distinguished it from pre-urban settlements. These signs manifested themselves in the very early stages of urbogenesis, and then some general patterns and trends of urban development were identified.

The birth of the first urban settlements coincided with the transition "from barbarism to civilization." “The city is, as it were, Caesura, the gap, / new / fate of the world. When it arises, carrying with it writing, it opens the door to what we call history ”(F. Braudel).

For five or six millennia of its evolution, cities have gone from relatively small in number of inhabitants and occupied areas, simple in the organization and structure of formations to complex and large economic, socio-political, cultural, religious, scientific, military-strategic centers and agglomerations. That is, from tribal and tribal ritual-sacral settlements to ancient Eastern cities and ancient polises, then to medieval urban communes of Western Europe and eastern imperial capitals, trade and craft centers serving internal and external exchanges and contacts, and, finally, to modern industrial - urban complexes, giant multifunctional cities (mega-cities, megalopolises), vast metropolitan territories.

The first cities - centers of archaic urban culture and urban economy originated in the Ancient East. Already in 6 thousand BC there were Palestinian, Anatolian proto-cities - Jericho and Chatal-Hyuk in Asia Minor, in 4–3 thousand BC cities arose in the river valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt: in the Mesopotamia of the Tigris and Euphrates - Eris, Elam, Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Babylon, Lars, Kish, Dzhemdet Nasr and many others. dr., in the Nile Valley grew a famous major religious and political center - Memphis; on the shores of the Indus - Harappi and Mohenjo-Daro (2100-1750 BC); Chinese cities in the Yellow and Yangtze basins.

Cities have always had their own destiny, history and continuity, real individual traits, largely due to natural-geographical, demographic, ethnocultural and other factors, features of the socio-economic and civilizational development of countries and regions. This explains the variety of paths of the evolution of cities, their specificity and genetic heterogeneity.

At present, in their pure or combined form, only the following three theories of the genesis of the medieval city remain, and risky attempts are often made to fix one of them as a general genetic law, suitable for all countries and eras:

4) - the theory of natural development, as expressed by Maurer, developed in detail by Belov and partially supported by Keitgen and Hegel, insists on the direct origin of the city from the rural community. Defenders of the said theory argue that cities and urban systems were formed through natural growth and complication (according to Herbert Spencer’s Law of “Integration and Differentiation”). Opponents point to the much greater complexity of the urban system, to the fact that the city is formed from several heterogeneous communities as an inter-tribal organization, and, finally, to the fact that in the era of the mass formation of cities, starting from the 10th century, rural communities were already enslaved and therefore, they could not create - on their own initiative and regardless of the actions of the seigneur - the municipal structure.

5) -Theory of social protection, i.e. a look at the original city as a fortified and fenced-off point was expressed in Germany by Ratgen, in England by Matland, in Russia by A.I. Chuprov and many urbanists. According to this theory, the initial city, or fortified city, is a fenced place, fortified with a rampart and a moat (ancient settlement, Burg, bourg, borougn). “The city,” says Maurer, “is nothing but a village surrounded by a wall.” Max Weber argues that the concept of an oriental, ancient and medieval city is generally characterized by the Kremlin, or walls, and the “fortress city” in the initial stage of its development was either the “burg” itself, or enclosed the burg in itself, or was adjacent to it; in the latter case, this burg was the fortress of a king or lord, or a union of lords who lived in it or held vassals and a garrison of mercenaries there. Weber and Maurer themselves made numerous exceptions to this general rule, but radical and pure proponents of the theory considered consider the fortress or walls to be a necessary and sufficient sign of a medieval and ancient city, and the fact of building a fortress (burg) near the village, or enclosing the village with a wall was recognized by them as an act transforming this village into a city.

A lot of observations and considerations speak in favor of the given theory, starting from the etymology of the words “city” (fenced place), “Burger” (city dweller from “burg”) and Latin words “urbs” and also castrum, castellum (which also means castle and the city Advertises the theory and its apparent universality, namely, that it turns out to be applicable both to the most ancient and ancient, to the medieval era and to the vast majority of countries; the construction of burgs is mentioned in both the classical songs of China and the Vedas of India, and the legends of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, Palestine, in the Homeric epics in Greece. Finally, the undoubted sources speak of the existence of the walls and fortifications of medieval cities in Germany, England, France, Italy, Spain, Flanders, Russia.

However, with all the arguments for this theory, it is impossible to accept it in its pure form as a single genetic theory, even for the Middle Ages. It is known that neither in ancient Sparta, nor in Japan, nor in the episcopal cities of Germany and England, where the authority of the cult served as sufficient social security, nor, finally, in such large cities as Cologne and Munster, there were no walls and fortifications. Secondly, and more importantly, the very fact of enclosing a village with walls or building a “burg” did not at all predetermine the formation of a city and urban system: the city arose only later, following the economic and social development of the settlement. So, not every city was a fortress and not every fortification was a city. Nothing prevents, of course, any village surrounded by a wall from being recognized as a “city”, but in any case, such a settlement with this external attribute of it for a city in the scientific, i.e. in the economic sense it is impossible to count.

The failures of previous non-economic theories and a comparative socio-economic analysis of pre-urban and urban relations have recently led to the construction of a 6) market theory (Göteyn, Schulte, Schroeder, Ritschel), which proves the origin of the medieval town from the market and urban structure - from the market organization. According to this theory, “the market is not only the main element without which the city cannot arise; it is not only a characteristic sign of the era of urban (workshop) closed economy, where all relations between a city and a village, as well as between individual groups of urban residents, take place in a certain place, but it is a prototype that gave its appearance to the urban system: market law has turned in city law, a market court in a city court, Marktfrieden in Burgfrieden or Stadtfrieden. When temporary and transient market relations become permanent, then the market turns into a city. ”

“The emergence of the history of the cities,” says Professor I.M. Kulisher, “is determined by two points: the construction of a fortress and the construction of a market.”

With the extraordinary complexity of economic and political relations in the Middle Ages, with a variety of local conditions and existing rules, with the existence of cities for various purposes (harbors, strategic, trade, craft) and various categories, ranging from cities that are gradually forming and ending with systematically based (Fritz classification ), from the cities of purely possessive (royal, princely, episcopal) to the more free (Hanseatic in Germany, bonnes villes in France, etc.), from cities deeply rooted in their roots and in Roman antiquity, to those independent of Roman influence (Kaitgen's classification), it is necessary, at first glance, to describe the genesis of almost every city separately and, understanding hundreds of monographic descriptions of a scientific nature, completely abandon any generalizations and circuits. However, in the light of the latest combined theory, it is possible to outline such a general picture of the emergence of a typical medieval city.

The genesis of modern cities seems to be completely different. With the existing system and market mechanisms of economic development, as well as with comparative social security, cities naturally and directly form from the largest rural settlements that have received significant commercial and industrial development. The official recognition of these settlements by cities legally ends the process of urbanization.

Summarizing the above, we note that with all the richness and complexity of the material, given the presence of many competing theories in science, with the unique genetic laws that determine the formation of cities of different countries and eras, in this process one can also see something common for all cases for all times, from ancient times to modern times.