Page - 257 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

15 Human Impact onHydrology 257 Fig. 10:Mapof Geislingenwith travertine terraces, roads,mills, and the latemedieval town. Inmostvalleys, latemedieval townscanbe found,suchasGeislingen,UrachorPfullingen.The exact chronology of valley drainage and founding of the towns is still unclear. It is thus not certainwhetherwatermanagement in theAlb valleyswasa consequenceor aprecondition for urbandevelopment. At Geislingen an der Steige, wemay assume that the end of travertine deposition already predated the development of the town.32 The town itself, alongwith the earlier settlements in theGeislingenbasin,was situatedat the rimof travertine terracesproviding ratherdryground, on the onehand, and ideal locations formilling, on the other.Whereas the townwas founded sometime in the later 13th century, the earlymedieval village ofGeislingen, somekilometres to the northwest, was already related to a road crossing the SwabianAlb. In any case, there are Merovingiancemeterieswithpreciousgravegoods. In 1237,EmperorFrederic II signedacharter apudGiselingen, whenhewas onhisway fromVienna to Speyer, travelling throughUlmand Geislingen. It isnot surewhetherat that time the townofGeislingenalreadyexisted.Therewas probably already anaccess yard, somemills andprobably someother small-scale settlements, as indicated by high medieval pottery sherds. Certainly, by then there was some settlement activity in theRohrachvalley,which todayhasgivenway to the roadand the railway (Fig. 10). Oral tradition, at least, remembered the landscape of the Rohrach valley as characterized by lakes,whereoneof the childrenof a localnoble familywas said tohavedrowned.Excavations within the townofGeislingenhave revealed the remainsof fences, representinga first phaseof occupation,maybe the remainsof pre-urban landuse for husbandry in a ratherwet area.33 However, mills, water regulation, irrigated meadows, flooded urban fortification ditches and thechannellingof theRohrach, flowingpartially through the town,were important factors 32 Schreg 2009b. 33 Lang–Schreg 1997.