Prague 11 is a municipal district of the Capital City of Prague. It is located in the south to southeast of the Prague agglomeration, about 8 kilometres from the city centre. It covers an area of 979 hectares and consists of two cadastral territories, Chodov (743 ha) and Háje (236 ha).[2]
Location and administration
The elevation of the area ranges from 240 to 320 metres. The municipal district borders Praha-Křeslice, Praha-Šeberov and Praha-Újezd, and together they form the administrative district of Prague 11, covering an area of 2,185 ha. Both independent and delegated competences within it are handled by the Office of the Prague 11 Municipal District.[2] According to the municipal district's website, Prague is divided into 22 administrative districts and 57 municipal districts, administered by councils with boards and mayors.[2]
History of the area
The Slavic ancestors of the Czechs arrived in the region from the Prague Basin at the end of the Early or during the Middle Hillfort Period. The settlements were separated from the new centre by the Nusle Valley and remained predominantly an agricultural hinterland of the capital until the 20th century.[1]
The settlement of Chodov originated from a manor farm, whose inhabitants – farmers known as kmeti – are first recorded in writing in 1185. The oldest archaeological finds from the site of the fortified manor can be dated no earlier than the end of the 13th century. At some point before 1334, Chodov passed to the Order of the Knights of the Cross, Guardians of the Holy Sepulchre, whose extensive estates it remained part of.[1] The neighbouring village of Litochleby is first documented in 1326.[1] The area of present-day Háje formerly belonged to Hostivař, the settlement of Milíčov ceased to exist at the beginning of the 18th century, and Horní Roztyly was a sheepfold dating from the end of the 16th century.[1]
The landscape was dominated by farmsteads and sheepfolds with fields and meadows. Farmsteads stood in Chodov, Milíčov, Háje, Šeberov, Hrnčíře (two of them), Újezd and Křeslice, where the Štít farmstead was later established as well. Farming focused on grain growing, and in the modern era also on sugar beet cultivation, as well as on the raising of cattle, pigs and sheep. Livestock was sold at the New Town's Cattle Market, on the site of present-day Karlova Street.[1] A record from 1471 states that Magdalena Chodovská, together with butchers, defended her herd there with a sword against the burgrave's mercenaries.[1]
During the Hussite Wars, Chodov passed into the hands of Prague burghers and later of lesser noble families. During the Thirty Years' War, the estate was added to the holdings of Jiří Vilém Michna z Vacínova; the war severely damaged both the farmstead and the fortified manor, and only a handful of people survived in the village. In 1676, Chodov was acquired by the Benedictine monastery of St Nicholas in the Old Town of Prague, whose monks rebuilt the farmstead and established an efficient estate.[1]