Old Town is a historic part of Prague that arose from the merging of several settlements and was surrounded by walls.
Old Town is a historic part of Prague. According to the description by the Prague 1 municipal district, it is the first Prague town, which arose in the area between Prague Castle and Vyšehrad.[1]
Early settlement
The area of today's Old Town is in some sources called Mezigrady. It was settlement outside the princely seat, possibly older than is usually assumed. Buildings took shape along natural routes, which included the Vltava and its tributaries, and along artificial ones: paths, streets, fords and eventually bridges.[1] At first it was scattered wooden building with isolated small stone churches, manors, hamlets and villages, until the settlement acquired a firm shape in the form of town walls.[1]
Old Town arose from the merging of haphazard buildings and an ethnically diverse population. Besides the Slavic settlement there were foreign settlements: Germans lived in the settlement of Poříč around the Church of St Peter, Romance-speaking people between the churches of St Michael and St Linhart, and Jewish settlements stood near today's U staré školy street and later around the Old New Synagogue.[1]
Havelské Město and the walls
The only deliberately founded part of Old Town was the settlement around St Gall's Church, called Havelské Město. It was founded by Eberhard, the first reeve and master of the mint of King Wenceslaus I (1230 to 1250). At the same time walls were built along the line of today's Národní, 28. října, Na příkopě and Revoluční streets. The wall of Havelské Město was five hundred metres long and ran straight.[1] According to the text of the municipal district, it is only the walls that make a settlement a town, since they represented not only protection but also a privilege that only the king could grant.[1]
Prague in a wider context
The municipal district's text also recalls an account from the years 965 to 966, when the Arab-Jewish merchant Ibrahim ibn Yaqub al-Tartushi visited Prague as a member of an embassy of the caliph of Córdoba. It survives only in later copies, according to which Prague was built of stone and lime and was the centre of extensive trade.[1] According to the calendar of Daniel Adam of Veleslavín, Prague was founded on 2 November 723.[1] The municipal district describes Old Town as the capital of Prague.[1]