The ancient Slavs were known for building wooden fortified settlements. The reconstructed Proto-Slavic word for such a settlement is *gord, related to the Germanic *gard.

Gords were built during the late Bronze and early Iron Ages by the people of the Lusatian culture, and later in the 7th - 8th centuries CE in modern-day Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic and eastern Germany (in Lusatia). These settlements were usually founded on strategic sites such as hills, riverbanks, lake islands or peninsulas.

A typical gord was a group of wooden houses, built either in rows or in circles, surrounded by one or more rings of walls made of earth and wood, a palisade and/or moats. Some gords were ring-shaped, with a round, oval or occasionally polygonal fence or wall surrounding a hollow. Others, built on a natural hill or a man-made mound, were cone-shaped. Those with a natural defense on one side, such as a river or lake, were usually horseshoe-shaped.

Most gords were built in densely-populated areas, and situated in places which presented particular natural advantages. However, as Slavic tribes united into states, gords were also built for defense purposes in less populated border areas.

Those gords which served as a ruler's residence or lay on trade routes, quickly expanded. A suburbium (Polish: podgrodzie) formed near or below the gord. Its population served the residents of the gord and could shelter within the gord's walls in the event of danger. Eventually the suburbium would have its own fence or wall. In the High Middle Ages, the gord would normally evolve into a castle or citadel (kremlin); the suburbium – into a town.

Some other gords, which did not stand the test of time and were abandoned or destroyed, gradually turned into more or less discernible mounds or rings of earth (known in Russian as gorodische, in Polish as grodzisko, in Ukrainian as horodyshche, and in Czech as hradiště).

Evolution of the word

The Proto-Slavic word *gord means a "fenced area." It ultimately finds its root in the Proto-Indo-European language; a cognate is the English word "yard." In some modern Slavic languages, *gord has evolved into words for a "garden" (likewise a fenced area): the Bulgarian gradina, the Polish ogród, the Czech zahrada, the Russian ogorod. In some Slavic languages, *gord has evolved into a word for "town" or "city": the Russian gorod, the Kaszubian gard, the Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian grad. The Czech hrad and Slovene grad have evolved to mean "fortress" or "castle." The Polish gród and Ukrainian horod retain their original meaning of an "ancient fortified settlement."

The names of many East European cities hark back to their past as gords. Examples include: Novgorod and Gorodets (Russia); Uzhhorod (Carpathian Ukraine); Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic); Stargard Szczeciński and Grodzisk Mazowiecki (Poland); Visegrád (Hungary); Belgrade (Beograd) and Danilovgrad (Serbia and Montenegro); Blagoevgrad, Asenovgrad and many other cities in Bulgaria; Gradsko (Republic of Macedonia); Graz (local translation of Gradec, in Austria); Gartz, in Germany; and Pogradec, in Albania (a town named by the local Slav Macedonian population).

See also

• Grad - common word in some Slavic languages for town or city
• Garðaríki - Varangian name for Kievan Rus, interpreted as "cities"
• Biskupin, a life-size reconstruction of a gród in Poland.
• Fortified settlements in other cultures:
  • Kraal (South Africa);
  • Motte-and-bailey (western Europe).

External links

• Reconstruction of a gród at Grzybowo, Poland – images of a typical ancient Slavic settlement with suburbium, earth-and-wood wall and moat; by Tomek Birezowski (Polish text).

References

Fortification | Slavic culture | Archaeology of Poland | Human habitats

Hradiště | Gród __NOTOC__