Page - 182 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

182 ElisabethGruber it from the north to the south or vice-versa.9 Since sturdywooden or even stone bridgeswere rarely tobe found,numerous ferry lineswereoperatedtoconnectoppositesettlementsbycross- ing the river. Thenumerousdepictionsof runningwater and their utilisationagainst theback- groundof theBabenberg family genealogyposes anumber of questions that address the issue ofhowwaterwasperceivedanddealtwith in latemedieval townson theDanube.Thedevelop- mentof anurbancommunity requirednot onlyactivepeopleand institutions, but alsoawork- ing infrastructure. This included the construction andmaintenance of roads, squares, bridges, fortifications and public buildings like town halls and burgher hospitals, but also systems of water supply and sewage disposal, the cleaning ofwells ormeasures to prevent flooding. The construction and maintenance of such installations not only offered town lords or wealthy townspeople the opportunity to position themselves through appropriate commitments to the town,but alsobelonged to the fundamental tasks of anurbancommunity. With the following considerations, Iwill, on theonehand,place the focuson some funda- mentalaspectsofwatermanagement inanurbancontext intheDanuberegion.Access towater, usingandregulating thepowerofwater,bridging thewaterandharvesting fromthe river seem tobe important issues,as theyregularlyappearas tasksor incidents inwrittensources,causing costs or keeping townspeople busy in a variety ofways. On the other hand, I will try to show whichactionswereprovokedbydealingwith andbeing close towater. Whatdoes themediumofwatermean for latemedieval townsand their protagonists? Inhis contribution to ‘Water as substance andmeaning’,HansPeterHahnanalysed themani- fold interdependencies and entanglements regarding water with his ‘concept of material cul- ture’ inmind,10 stating that ‘Water is everywhere. It is part of nature, […] but it is also part of culture […]’.11 Starting from this reflection, it seemsappropriate todirect our attention towater as a medium and investigate the influence water had on urban communities in the Middle Ages.Howdidwater shapepeople’s interactionswith landscape? Inwhatwaydid thematerial propertiesofwateraffect theirworkingpractices?Whichpropertiesofwaterneededtobe ‘man- aged’ forwhatpurposes?Withthenecessityof interactingwithwater inorder toensurenecessa- ry supplies, to use it as a driving force, or to prevent the destruction of buildings, facilities or livingquarters,water appears as apowerful and influentialmedium ina tight networkof rela- tionsbetweenhumanactionandthematerialworld,withcompleximpacts.12 Interestingly,most activities in the context of water relate to its economic or everyday use or control. Even if archaeological findings repeatedly reveal indications of systematicwater supply, flood protec- tionor embankments, theseappear tobe in the scopeof everydayuse. The sameapplies to the written records of the local administration. The case study of the aqueducts of Syracuse, sketched by Sophie Bouffier, shows a different point of view. Prestigious hydraulic structures, such as the swimming pool and fishpondbuilt by the inhabitants of Acragas, refer to another aspect ofwateruse: that of the representativedemonstrationof power,wealthand influence.13 9 Fromtheperspectiveof environmentalhistory,VerenaWiniwarter’s interdisciplinary research teamapproached thehistoryof theVienneseDanubebasin, starting fromits firstphaseof regulationat thebeginningof the16thcen- tury. For their long-term study on rivermanagement they also evaluated administrative records, but their focus wasontheModernPeriodstarting in1500andlastinguntil the1890s.Winiwarteretal. 2013;esp.Hohensinneretal. 2013; Sonnlechner etal. 2013. 10 Hahn2005; Cless 2014, 21. 11 Hahn2012, 23. 12 Knoll 2014, 196f. 13 SeeBouffier, this volume.