In 1231 the Teutonic Knights set up a stronghold and a town
near the crossing on the Vistula, where the village of Stary Torun is nowadays.
These were, however, flood lands, which soon resulted in moving the town and
the castle to their present locations. The main road of a newly established
town was the street of St Ann (today ul. Kopernika). On the central square
market facilities were built as well as a parish church, which was located on
the area of the chancel of today’s church of St John’s. in 1239 the
representatives of the Franciscan order came to Torun. Soon, they started the
construction of their monastery in the northern-west part of the town. At the
beginning of the second half of the 13th century the idea of the
town layout changed. Where the market square is today the merchants house was
erected the earliest (1259), acting as cloth stalls, and later on bread stalls,
the tower of the Town Hall, the house of weight, the building of the proper
Town Hall, where the town council met. After the seat of jury court had been
erected all of these buildings made a four-wing construction with a closed yard
and two passages. In 1391 (the privilege from 1393) they began the construction
of the new Town Hall. In 1399 the keys to the new Town Hall were passed to the
mayor. From the side of the land the town was moated, with the double defense
walls (low and high) and 4 gates and towers; from the side on the Vistula it
was protected by a single high wall and 4 gates.
In the 50s of the 13th century east of the town,
on the post-Slavic site, the Teutonic Knights started to erect a castle. The
walls surrounding it were in an unusual shape of a horseshoe, whose arms were
directed towards the Vistula. Northwards of a stronghold was a forecastle, and
eastwards was so called wola zamkowa, where firewood was piled, household
animals were kept, and servants of the Order lived.
On 13th August 1264, next to a fast developing
town, the Teutonic Knights set up the New Town of Torun, surrounded with
defense walls, with six gates leading to it. The regular line of buildings was
disturbed by the Dominicans, who came to Torun in 1263 and erected their
monastery in the northern-west part of the New Town of Torun. Similarly, the
street called Wielkie Garbary was set according to the important trade route towards Dobrzyn.
Most probably not later than in 1309 the construction of a
parish church of St. John began in the eastern part of the town. New Town had
remained separated by 1454, when it got incorporated in the Old Town.
Patrimonium (land possessions) of the Old Town of Torun were
determined in the charter. Primarily these were only five islands with a joint
area of 10 łany, yet already in the renewed charter of Torun from 1st
October 1251 the Teutonic Knights Order had significantly expanded the lands of
the town, which made a strip of land 1,6 km long down the Vistula from the
lands belonging to the bishop of Włocławek, and 0,5 km wide from the river
bank. Its area was 180 łany, which means 30 square kilometers. The extension of
the land remuneration resulted from the dynamic development of the town, as
well as from renewing its chart. In the following years the area of patrimonium
had changed many times as a result of the negotiations between the citizens and
the Order, and it was only at the beginning of the 14th century that
its limits had finally been fixed. The land possessions of the town covered the
area of 335 łany, which is around 56 square kilometers. Part of this area was
occupied by the suburbs.
The oldest of the suburbs of the Old Town, called the harbor
suburb, stretched on the Vistula, along the town walls, and included Kępa
Bazarowa. From the eastern as well as the western side it was limited by the
branches of Postolsko channel. The development of this suburbs was strictly
connected with the needs of the harbor
of the town. There were port facilities, cloth stalls, several granaries, baths,
a tavern and hospital of Holy Spirit. The area was inhabited mainly by
fishermen, sailors, porters, and shipwrights. To the west and north of this
suburb, along the Vistula, were hardly inhabited areas. There were mostly
vegetable gardens, limestone site, and shipyard and brickyard, around which a
settlement of port makers, attic makers, and stone-workers arose.
The most
important suburb, when it comes to population and economy, was on the north of
the walls of both Old and New Towns of Torun, along the road to Chełmno. It was
already in the first half of the 14th century that in Chełmińskie
suburb a lot of craftsmen settled down. The area was most densely populated
around two churches: of St. Laurance and St. George. On the northern east of
this suburb two ponds were made, on which watermills, a sawmill and a copper
mill were built. At the Chełmińska gate two markets were located: horse and
cattle and numerous stalls. There was also a second brickyard in Toruń.
To the
north and northern east of the suburb there was so called Wielkie and Małe
Mokre, including mainly vegetable gardens, vineyards as well as farmlands.
To
the east of the New Town of Torun a small suburb of St. Catherine appeared.
Life focused there around the chapel of St. Catherine, erected around 1360 and
around a slaughterhouse. Eastwards, along the Vistula, a scarcely populated
suburb called Jakubskie arose. There timber was piled and a shipyard and
carpenter’s shop were set up. Around in there were gardens and vineyards.
