Origin and Development of Slovene Urban Settlements –Successors of Fortifications against Turks (Part One)

(Part One)

Abstract

Sv. Kri‘, a small town in the Vipavsko region, was founded on the basis of the provincial princely privileges from 1532. Kostel, Vinica and Pobre‘je are three walled boroughs built adjacent to castles, along the boundary of the Kolpa river. Among the towns and borroughs of Slovenia, these four settlements have a rather unique position. Their common characteristics are the fact that originally they had been built as a special type of a walled fortification settlement (shelter) against the Turks, and also that despite their title the life-style in them had never been the same as in other medieval towns or borroughs.