Seite - 269 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

16 Water asanEconomicResourceandasanEnvironmental Challenge 269 strophic incidents related to water have to be mentioned here as well: besides earthquakes, fires, droughts, storms and so forth, there are alsoplenty of references to thehazards ofwater in the chronicles of theUpper Rhine in the LateMiddleAges.21 Leaving aside the aspect of ice jams,22 I want to point to the regularly occurring floodings by the rivers Rhine and Ill and the damage done not least to bridges – with an often huge loss of human life. Another equally interesting instance is reported inapassageof theAnnalesColmariensesmaiores relating to the year 1281,whichhadsupposedlybeenparticularly coldandhumidnotonly inAlsace, butwell beyond.As theAnnales tellus, the torrents flowingdowntheslopesof theoutliersof theVosges mountain range flooded and ravaged the entire small town of Sulz in Upper Alsace, filling it with sediment. At the same time, the close-by town of Gebweiler was hit by a huge landslide causedby the sameevent.23 So,waternotonlyhelped inbuildingneworgrowing towns,but– as we know from other regions and traditions, too – might also destroy urban life. The re- buildingof townsafter catastrophic incidences,of ‘StädteausTrümmern’,24 is another interest- ingaspect, veryapt for inter-epochal and inter-disciplinary research. Interestingly, the remarks onarid years, inwhich shippingon theRhinewasvery limited, is enrichedby the chronicler’s report that therewas plenty ofwine inAlsacewhich could not be shipped and exported, and was thus abundant andcheapat home.25As sooften inmedieval accounts, therehad tobean upside to extremeoccurrences. Conclusion With these remarks, theoutlineofwhich ‘aquatic’ aspectsanexaminationof theearlymedieval urbanisationof theRhineValleymayprovideshouldbeclear.Theyshouldalsostress thatwater is–or rather shouldbemoreof–a coreaspect of premodernUrbanHistory, too, andwhy this is so. Admittedly, it is mostly ‘snapshots’ that are presented here, which are in any case the empiric normality for historians of theHighMiddleAges, butwhich are also– ever so small – windows into that time, that still grant us important hints of the contemporaries’ perception and handling of water and town. Aswe could see in the presented documents and episodes, therewasoftena link incontentbetweenwaters andwalls, bridgesandmills, andso forth.All considered, water was not only a matter of biological and economic livelihood, but also an eminentlypoliticalaspectofurbandevelopmentandtownlifewithin thedecadescoveredhere. Water certainlywas a regularmatter of concern, often a conflictedmatter in the fluid interac- tionsbetweenthesocialandpoliticalactors intowns.Waterwasthusnotonlyanaturalelement and economic transmitter, but also a frequently negotiated, occasionally embattled,matter. In thisway, researchonwaterandtownis rightat the interfaceofEnvironmentalHistory,Econom- ic andSocialHistory, PoliticalHistory,Archaeology,ArtHistory, andevenLimnology. Bibliography Primary sources CAOU5: F.Wilhelm–R.Newald–H.deBoor–D.Haacke (eds.), Corpusder altdeutschenOriginalurkundenbis zum Jahr 1300, 5 (Lahr 2004). Pertz 1861:G.H. Pertz (ed.), Annalesaevi Suevici,MonumentaGermaniaehistorica. Scriptores 17 (Hannover 1861). 21 Cf. Schenk 2012; Fouquet–Zeilinger 2011, 20–34. 22 SeeRohr, this volume. 23 Pertz 1861, 207. 24 Ranft –Selzer 2004. 25 Pertz 1861, 231 (for the year 1304e.g.).