Poznań – a city by the Warta river. The capitol of Greater Poland, the voivodeship of Greater Poland, the archdiocese of Poznań. An important place on the Piast Route.
According to contemporary brief fordesign, in 1253, when Poznań was founded a town under the Magdeburg law, it was surrounded by the defensive walls. At the beginning the fortifications were these of earthern-wooden kind, after 1280 they became bricked.
The city walls about 1700 metres long were built on the project of a circle. They were 11 metres high and 1-1,2 metres wide. Protection of the city from the prosumptive enemy attack was possible because of the inside wooden porch and the crenellations at the end of the wall. On the whole ambit the walls were also consolidated by the bastilles opening from the inside. They were taken care of by specific craft gilds, wchich was resolved by the names of each bastille (for example tailor’s bastille or butcher’s bastille, etc.).
The entry of the city was protected by 4 gates called – Wielka, Wodna, Wroniecka and Wrocławska and in the XV-th / XVI-th century other smaller gates for pedestrians were made after driving the walls. Between 1431-33 people built second outside wall zone on the whole ambit, with east side excluded, where the natural protection was created by the Warta’s riverbed. Also the foss feeded by Bogdanka and Struga Karmelitańska was helping with the protection of Poznań in general.
Along with development of the war art in XVII-th and XVIII-th century the medieval walls have basically lost their meaning and they were eventually demolished in 1797 by the decision of the prussian administration.
Things that has survived until the modern day are: outside and inside walls on Ludgarda street, the bastille of Saint Catherine Order and a part of the bastille next to Wroniecka street. Also, from the XVII-th century, people can admire the fragments of walls on the crossroads of Wrocławska and Strzelecka street.
In 2008 a reconstraction of the walls with one bastille between Wroniecka and Masztalarska street had it’s place. That place, along with the only survived bastille of Saint Catherine Order, gives a clear vision of the defensive possibilities of a medieval city (with the wooden porch and the inside gate of a bastille, extacly like in the Middle Ages). The route for tourists leads along the walls, connected with the bastille on Wroniecka street (the entry next to the Fire-brigade) until the Gate of the same name.
The place of the old fortifications are marked because of the red specific kind of pavement.
