Page - 191 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

11 MeetingWaterNeedsasaMajor Challenge in anUrbanContext 191 interventionundervaryingcircumstances. ‘Water canbecontrolled, channelledandcontained, equally water runs free, wild and uncontrolled, with the ability to devastate and destroy, or otherwise trickles away and dries up, taking with it its life-sustaining powers’.62 As of late, discussionsdealingwith thematerialityof thingshave increasinglyaddressed theseconflicting interrelations. ‘Water provides a useful focus for thinking about relationships between things and persons and betweenmaterial properties andmeanings’.63 This interaction can be on a personal levelororganised incommunitysettings.Dueto the internal structuresof theiradmin- istrationandthewayinwhichtheyorganisedtheir livingtogether, towns,conventsandcastles, in particular, allow conclusions to be drawnwith reference to the interaction betweenwater and people. Examples from the region of Krems, Stein andMautern have been used above to outline various aspects of howwater was used and dealt with, aswell as to illustrate actions caused bywater. They also show ‘how the agency of water shaped peoples’ interactionswith andwithin the environment’.64 The use, management and control of water constantly led to processesofnegotiationregardingcompetenceandresponsibilitiesbetweentheactors involved. It isnotonlyabout control anddistribution,but alsoaboutprotectionagainst risksandhowto manage them, about the control of abundance or scarcity, and the evaluation of alterations in the landscape resulting fromdams, canals, etc.65Aspart of public infrastructure, the construc- tion andmaintenance of urban facilities such as bridges, wells, rainwater drainage or sewage ducts required a complex systemofplanning, coordinationand resourcemanagement, includ- ingmanpowerandacommonperceptionof communal acting. Fromthis viewpoint,water sup- ply and its communal organisation raise thequestionof the social functionofwater infrastruc- ture in anurbancontext. IllustrationCredits Fig. 1: PhotobyP.Böttcher/IMAREAL,REALonlineNo. 000343 <https://realonline.imareal. sbg.ac.at/detail/?archivnr=000343> (19.07. 2019). Fig. 2: PhotobyP.Böttcher/IMAREAL,REALonlineNo. 000341 <https://realonline.imareal. sbg.ac.at/detail/?archivnr=000341> (19.07. 2019). Fig.3: PhotobyP.Böttcher/IMAREAL,REALonlineNo. 000343 <https://realonline.imareal. sbg.ac.at/detail/?archivnr=000343> (19.07. 2019). Fig.4: PhotoElisabethGruber. Fig. 5: AugmentedRealityAppKremserHafen,NiederösterreichischeLandesregierung. Bibliography Primary sources Brugger–Wiedl 2010: E. Brugger–B.Wiedl, Regesten zurGeschichteder Juden inÖsterreich imMittelalter 2, 1339–1365 (Innsbruck2010). Brugger–Wiedl 2018: E. Brugger–B.Wiedl, Regesten zurGeschichteder Juden inÖsterreich imMittelalter 4, 1387–1404 (Innsbruck2018). Fuchs 1901a: A. F. Fuchs,UrkundenundRegesten zurGeschichtedesBenedictinerstiftesGöttweig 1, 1058–1400 (Vienna 1901). 62 Steel 2018, 6. 63 Strang 2014, 133. 64 Strang 2014, 133. 65 Cless 2014, 33f.