The influence of environmental and non-environmental factors on the development of settlement in a mountain catchment

The population began to enter the Polish Carpathians from the upland area as early as the late Neolithic (Ralska-Jasiewiczowa 1980). Intensive changes in the natural environment in the Carpathians, caused by humans, are associated only with the population of the late Roman period. The introduction of agricultural land to the forest led to the creation of an agricultural landscape (Godłowski & Kozłowski 1985). It is assumed that, around AD 1000, settlements near Krakow covered up to 30% of the area, including farmland and buildings (Maruszczak 1984). According to Łowmiański, there were approximately four hectares of agricultural land per inhabitant of the settlement, which was a sufficient size for food provision (Łowmiański 1967). According to Kozacki (2007), settlement developed in the valleys, starting from coastal areas, to terraces, and continued upstream of the rivers. Settlement, the rule of which was to occupy new areas, also underwent regressive changes when natural disasters or armed conflicts led to their depopulation (Maruszczak 1999). An important issue from the point of view of the history of settlement is the analysis of the impact of environmental and non-environmental factors on the decision about the location (Ao et al. 2010). In the literature on this subject, both for Poland and other countries, there is a lack of studies discussing the development of settlements in mountainous regions at different scales – for example, at the level of catchment areas or mountain ranges. On the other hand, this issue has been studied from a regional perspective in the foreland of the Carpathians, in historical Lesser Poland – for example, in works on the Brzesko region (Sikora 2006) and the area of the Krakow-Częstochowa Upland (Laberschek 2019). The most monumental works on settlement issues, however, focused mainly on historical aspects and dealt, for example, with settlements in the whole of historical Malopolska (Bujak 2001 – a reprint of a book published in 1905) or the Sanok region, covering mountainous and foothill areas in Eastern Poland (Fastnacht 1962).

The aim of the research presented in this article is to indicate how the factors determining the location of settlements in the Skawa catchment changed. Did settlements spread according to the generally accepted principle of gradual and consistent occupation of neighbouring areas? Were the earliest locations determined solely by environmental factors? The answer to these questions will not only allow us to recognize the regional history of settlement but will also provide a voice in the discussion on the origins and directions of anthropopression in the Carpathians. Although it is impossible to reconstruct the area occupied by settlements in the past, before the precise maps of the 19th century, an analysis of the location of settlements allows us to see where they were concentrated and how they spread in the region. This spread shows the directions of anthropopression and allows us to answer the question of whether anthropopression did indeed gradually move up the catchment area, affecting mountainous areas only in the early modern period. This research is part of an environmental history approach, in which the interdependence of socio-economic and natural conditions determines the direction of change in the geographical environment (Ashmore 2015).

The research area covers the river catchment, which comprises the area from the southern border of Poland, including Babia Góra (1,725 m above sea level), to the Oświęcim Basin and the Upper Vistula Valley. The Skawa River and its tributaries drains an area of 1,160 km², including the Beskid Żywiecki, Makowski and Mały (middle mountains) and the Carpathian Foothills – namely, the Silesian and Wieliczka foothills. According to the modern administrative division, the Skawa catchment area is located in Lesser Poland (Fig. 1).

Figure 1.

Development of settlements in the Skawa catchment area against the background of the physical–geographical division. The numbers of the settlements refer to the numbering in Appendix 1

Source: own elaboration. The shaded relief model was obtained from OpenTopography High-Resolution Topography Data and Tools (Hengl et al. 2022)

In order to solve the research problem, the development of settlements in the Skawa catchment area in the period from the 7th to the 18th century was examined. The information on the first and last locations in the catchment area determined the time range. Based on an analysis of sources, including, among others, the Liber Beneficiorum (Przeździecki 1864), royal surveys (Małecki 1962, 1964; Falniowska-Gradowska 1973; Falniowska-Gradowska & Leśniak 2005) and the Historical–Geographical Dictionary of the Polish Lands in the Middle Ages (HGDP) (Leszczyńska-Skrętowa & Sikora 1980), as well as the literature on the subject, approximate dates for the foundation of individual towns and villages were determined. An invaluable source of information was the HGDP, which contains information on the first source references for every village founded in Malopolska up to and including the 16th century. Volumes ‘A’ to ‘N’ have been published so far. Information on settlements starting with the letter ‘O’ can be found in the index of settlements in the Section for the Historical–Geographical Dictionary of Lesser Poland (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences) in Krakow, where the research was carried out. The Historical Atlas of Poland (Rutkowski 2008) was used to check which settlements were founded in the second half of the 16th century at the latest. A detailed bibliography of the sources used to determine the date of foundation of all settlements can be found in Appendix 1. The most important historical events that influenced border changes in the studied area were analysed. The development of the parish networks and the course of trade routes were examined. A simplification was made, adopting contemporary borders for the range of villages.

The altitude of the centre of each village was also determined. The heights were obtained from the digital terrain model (geoportal.gov.pl). The village centre was considered to be the area around the old church. In the absence of such an object, the centre was considered to be of the part of the village with the highest density of buildings. The location in the mesoregion was also assigned to the village centres according to the regionalization of Solon et al. (2018). The relationship between the altitude of the village centre and the date of the location was tested using Spearman’s non-parametric correlation test, as the input data did not have a normal distribution.

From the early Middle Ages, two colonization currents can be observed in the Skawa catchment area: the northern one, from the river mouth with the settlement of Grodzisko and the alleged stronghold in Rudze; and the southern one, near Dąbrówka and Zembrzyce, with a probable settlement in Zagórze (Reyniak 1980). Settlement traffic moved up the river. It can be assumed that the development of settlements also progressed from Krakow up the Vistula. This led to the colonization of the settlement emptiness between Lesser Poland and Silesia in the estuary section of the Skawa (Zator, Grodzisko) and the Soła rivers (Oświęcim) (Koźbiał 2014). Archaeological research confirms that establishing strongholds, around which settlements were built, was associated with conditions favourable for farming. At the same time, their location on steep-walled hills provided natural protection from the side of the Skawa River. The settlements did not have any natural defensive elements on the side of the upper parts of the catchment area, which confirms that the river valley was treated as a route for the potential arrival of new settlers or invaders (Reyniak 1980). There is no evidence of continuity of settlement between the gord period and the later foundations. For this reason, the villages appear in the following analysis according to the first source records.

During the reign of the first Polish dynasty of kings – the Piasts – the area in question was an integral part of the Polish state; after the so-called division into districts, it fell within the borders of the Duchy of Krakow and was directly subordinate to the Oświęcim castellany (Nowakowski 1985). Until the end of the 12th century, the peripheral nature of the Skawa catchment was the cause of the settlement emptiness in this area (Rajman 2000).

In studies on the history of the region and individual settlements (e.g. Siemionow 1984), information about the beginnings of some settlements in the 12th century can be found (Zator, Rudze, Woźniki, Mucharz). However, there is no evidence for this either in the sources or in toponymic interpretations (Rymut, Czopek-Kopciuch & Bijak 2015). According to Kiryk (1985), due to its proximity to Oświęcim, only the beginnings of settlements in the vicinity of Zator were possible, but this is only speculation.

In the 13th century, the natural conditions for the foundation of settlements ceased to be the basic factor determining their formation. The settlement action in the Skawa catchment area took place then from two directions – namely, from the West (the Dukes of Opole) and the East (the Dukes of Krakow). Until the second half of the 13th century, the Skawa River was an approximate border between the duchies, characterized by the variable position of the multi-thread channel (Baczkowski 2009; Witkowski 2021). It should be noted that, in the Middle Ages, the borders usually ran through uninhabited mountainous areas. This shows that the Skawa Valley was the scene of intense competition between the two principalities, which led to the establishment of a temporary border along the river. The Benedictine and Norbertine orders took part in the colonization (Rajman 2000).

In the 13th century, ten settlements were founded in the Skawa catchment area, eight of which were established on areas rising above the valley bottoms (Fig. 2). Zator is located on a high terrace near the junction of the Skawa and Vistula valleys. Thanks to its position, it has natural defensive elements, namely steep slopes that limit access to the town from the north and east. The neighbouring village of Rudze was founded on the Skawa terrace – also on a steep slope. The village of Woźniki, located upstream from Zator, was founded at the mouth of the Zygodówka stream. The settlement was established at the mouth of the valley, using its V-shaped cross-section as a natural defensive element. To the west, the village opens into the Skawa valley. Mucharz was founded in the upper reaches of the Skawa, in its gorge section, on the Upalenisko hill.

Figure 2.

The development of settlements in the Skawa catchment area in the 13th–18th centuries

Source: own elaboration

The main settlement movement, initiated by the duke and the neighbouring families, was concentrated in the lower course of the Skawa valley (Zator and its neighbourhood). The second area was the foreground of the Little Beskids, where Wadowice and nearby Roków were founded. Wadowice, as a settlement founded by the duke, was settled on an impulse on the threshold of the mountains, in the southernmost, relatively flat part of the foothills. At that time, Zator was the centre of a developing economy in the Skawa catchment area, based on agriculture, fishery and pond farming, and benefited from being in the vicinity of the commercial route to Silesia (Koźbiał 1999).

The last part of the catchment, colonized in the 13th century, was its headwater area. The only village that was settled at that time was Spytkowice, while the neighbouring villages in the catchment area under study were established 200 years later. Although Spytkowice was situated in the highest part of the catchment area, it was easily accessible through the low watershed line from the Raba and Orawa catchment areas (the Danube basin). As a result, this area was in the zone of influence of the nobility of Nowotarska Land and was colonized by, among others, the Cistercian Order.

The division of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz, and the subsequent separation of the Duchy of Cieszyn, changed the map of the borderland. Around 1315, the Duchy of Oświęcim was divided among the heirs of Mieszko Cieszyński; it covered the middle and lower parts of the Skawa River catchment to the east. During that period, thirty settlements were established in total. With the foundation of new villages, the parish network developed.

On the slopes of the foothills and in the valleys of small tributaries near the bottom of the Skawa Valley, new villages were founded to fill the gap between Wadowice and Zator (Radocza, Tomice, Witanowice and Babica). The great importance of Wadowice at that time is evidenced by the location of the villages on its southern side – Chocznia, Gorzeń and Jaroszowice. The Wieprzówka Valley was also an important direction of settlement expansion. Settlements were established up along the catchment area from Gierałtowice to Andrychów, with Inwałd – the most important village in the microregion at that time – as the seat of the parish (Fig. 2). Another valley along which new villages were founded was the Kleczówka river valley, which joined the Skawa River at Wadowice. Here, Barwałd Średni, Klecza Dolna and Barwałd Górny were founded one after the other.

The second group of 14th century settlements was established around Mucharz, the importance of which, at that time, is proved by the fact that there was a parish in this village, extending over a considerable area that stretched at various times from Tomice, Roków and Wadowice to Skawica (Fig. 1). The greatest distance between the villages of this parish was as much as 75 km. The settlement around Mucharz occupied the valleys of the Skawa mountain tributaries, which meant that these villages had natural defensive values. However, this was not a decisive factor when choosing a place to settle; rather, the available free areas near Mucharz were chosen.

Zakrzów and Stronie, which were founded at that time, were situated on the Stryszówka; they were located in the Barwałd Starosty, where Barwałd Castle sat on the Skawa and Skawinka watershed, guarding the borders of the Duchy of Oświęcim, which required economic support in the form of local settlements. On the other side of the watershed, in the Kleczanka valley, the village of Barwałd was founded, which was the seat of the starosty. The next microregion of the Skawa catchment area that was settled in the 14th century was the Paleczka valley, where the settlement movement progressed from Zembrzyce up the valley (Budzów).

In addition to groups of settlements, single, hard-to-reach settlements also emerged in the 14th century – namely, Zygodowice, belonging to the Cistercian order, in the upper part of the Zygodówka valley. The village of Wysoka, located within the Wieliczka Foothills, was not related to the settlement movement in the Skawa catchment area. The settlement belonged to the Paszkowski family, whose family village was located to the east of the Skawa catchment, in Paszkówka. This resulted in the foundation of Wysoka in the less accessible watershed part of the Foothills.

At the end of the 14th century, Maków (now Maków Podhalański) was founded. The village was established above the Skawa River valley at the foot of the steep slopes of the Myślenice Beskid. This location gave the settlers access to new mountainous parts of the Skawa catchment area within the Lanckorona Starosty.

The political changes in the 15th century, the creation of the Duchy of Zator (1445), the feudal homage paid to the Polish king by John IV and the sale of two towns, two castles and forty-five villages to Casimir Jagiellon in the mid-1450s did not have a decisive influence on the settlement of the Skawa catchment (Prokop 2002).

In the 15th century, intensive colonization of the upper part of the Skawa catchment began. Sucha (then a village, now the town of Sucha Beskidzka) was founded under the privilege of Duke John II of Oświęcim. On the mountain ridge ending at the forks of the Skawa and Stryszawka, Stryszawa was established – probably the first Wallachian village in the Skawa catchment area. These villages became the nucleus of the so-called Sucha State, an extensive estate belonging to the Komorowski family from Żywiec.

At the same time, in the vicinity of Maków and up the Paleczka River, settlement activities continued in the Lanckorona Starosty. Grzechynia, Kojszówka and Juszczyn were founded near the mouths of the Skawa tributaries. In contrast, five villages in the Paleczka catchment were founded much higher up in mountain stream valleys (Fig. 1, 2).

Also, between Mucharz and Stronie, other areas in the valleys of small streams, off the main routes (including Łękawica), were settled at that time. At the southern end of the catchment area (i.e. Skawa), three villages were established in the 15th century, the foundation of which was associated, like the previously described Spytkowice, with the settlement activities carried out in Nowy Targ Land.

From the middle of the 16th century, when the study area was once again entirely within the borders of the Kingdom of Poland, the colonization of the V-shaped mountain valleys dominated (Fig. 3). At that time, the Skawica and Ponikiewka valleys and the upper reaches of the Bystrzanka, Choczenka and Wieprzówka rivers were settled. The settlement of mountain valleys is clearly visible in Figure 2, where the boundary of 14th and 16th century settlements clearly marks the threshold of the Beskid Mały in the northern part of the Skawa catchment. On the other hand, in the central-western part of the catchment, close to the watershed, the boundary between the Suski (17th century villages) and Ślemień manors – the villages of Las, Kurów and Pewelka – is clearly visible. Only these three villages of the Ślemień Manor crossed the watershed of the Soła and Skawa rivers.

Figure 3.

The dependence of the date of the location of villages on their altitude. The Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.61 indicates a strong positive relationship and the p-value = 4.08 × 10⁻¹⁰ indicates that the result is statistically significant. The regression line is upward sloping with R² = 0.29

Source: own elaboration

Settlements were also formed on easily accessible ridges, such as Przybradz, Koziniec and Jordanów. The latter was founded as a town on the land of the village of Malejowa (Appendix 1; Kiryk 1985). The most inaccessible areas (including Rzyki, Kaczyna and Skawica) were inhabited by people of Wallachian origin who dealt in the herding and breeding of goats, sheep and pigs. A reference to the settlement of a village in the so-called cruda radice – after logging the forest – is the name of the village – Toporzysko, meaning axe (Koźbiał & Nowakowski 2010). The development of settlements towards the south was determined by the local trade route leading along the Skawa – from Zator through Wadowice to Sucha. This trail existed from at least the second half of the 16th century (Wyrozumska 1977).

In the 17th century, as a result of settlement pressure, the last free areas of the Carpathian primeval forest were settled: the upper course of the Skawica – Zawoja; the upper course of the Wieprzczanka – Wieprzec; and four villages of the Sucha estate – Tarnawa Górna, Targoszów, Kuków and Lachowice. Some of the new villages were built on the site of former timber hamlets – Targoszów, for example, was a hamlet of Krzeszów (Siemionow 1984).

In the 18th century, the two most recent villages in the Skawa catchment were founded. Targanice was separated from the land of Sułkowice as a result of a sale, and Łowiczki was founded on the basis of a fishing settlement in the Zator pond complex. The name Łowiczki comes from the Polish word ‘łowić’, meaning ‘to fish’ (Nobis 2005).

In the 7th–18th centuries, the factors determining the settlement of the Skawa catchment area changed. The initially peripheral nature of this area influenced the settlement emptiness, except for a few fortified towns, the names of which indicate their defensive functions. The steep hills above the Skawa floodplains were used for their foundation. In two out of four cases, the settlements were located near the mouths of the more important tributaries of the Skawa River, which could be owing to the arrival of settlers in the valley through the low passes from the east and not from the north of the Skawa estuary to the Vistula. Thus, in the early Middle Ages, settlements did not spread in the usual direction up the main river, as was the case in the neighbouring Soła Valley (Koźbiał 2014). The main factor in the foundation of Carpathian settlements, both in the early Middle Ages and in prehistoric times, was defensive (Reyniak 1980), as in northern and central Poland (Hildebrandt-Radke, Czebreszuk & Makowiecki 2009; Janiak 2009).

In the 13th century, settlements were founded on terraces above steep slopes, in the mouth of V-shaped valleys or on isolated hills. Non-environmental conditions – political changes that took place on the Silesian-Lesser Poland border and economic considerations – clearly featured at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. The best example of the economic conditions of settlement is the foundation of Zator at the junction of the Vistula and Skawa valleys, which made multidirectional trade contact possible. Similar non-environmental reasons for the founding of villages can be found in the Lublin settlement complex (Kociuba 2009).

At the end of the 13th century, the settlement movement from the western, Lesser Poland direction was to secure the Krakow rulership against Silesia, which was under Czech influence. Religious orders, to which villages were granted, played an important role in the development of settlements (Rajman 1993; Mischkle 1995; Dobosz 1999). In the 13th century, the relationship between the location of a village with natural protection and the performance of prestigious functions (Zator, Wadowice, Mucharz) became evident, as had already been observed for settlements in Masovia (Kittel 2013).

The intensive settlement movement in the 13th–14th century could also have been caused by the reconstruction after the Mongol invasion, also in the outskirts of the Carpathians, as demonstrated in the Lublin region (Gurba et al. 1995). When founding settlements, political considerations were crucial. The settlement of the Wieprzówka valley was the result of the settlement pressure from Zator, which was becoming an important urban centre in the Oświęcim Basin. Villages were created in places where conditions were favourable for agriculture, while their centres were founded at a safe distance from watercourses. In most cases, they did not have any natural defensive values.

Most of the 14th century settlements were founded near the already existing, more important centres. This confirms a change in the decision factor when choosing a site – from environmental to non-environmental. In the case of the Skawa catchment area, most of the settlements established near larger towns and villages performed auxiliary functions for them.

The settlement movement from the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries was of a different nature and direction. The region of the Skawa catchment area was within the borders of the Polish Crown and new villages emerged mainly for economic reasons. In the 15th century, next to the nuclei of the later so-called Sucha State, single settlements were created on the Skawa River. Those located in the northern part of the catchment area filled the settlement emptiness, while to the south of Sucha, villages were founded ‘in cruda radice’ – places convenient for the development of livestock breeding, which the Wallachian population engaged in. As early as the 16th century, these towns and villages were surrounded by newly formed settlements, occupying the most difficult places to cultivate and inhabit – in V-shaped valleys located in the upper part of the catchment (Górka & Więcław-Michniewska 2016).

The development of settlements was clearly linked to changes in land cover and land use. These changes reflected the anthropopressure that had developed over the centuries and were responsible, among other things, for the indirect human influence on the hydromorphological conditions of the rivers (Škarpich, Hradecký & Dušek 2013). Although no detailed studies have been carried out in the Skawa catchment, numerous studies from other areas of the Carpathians indicate the direction of these relationships. Research from the Beskid Niski shows that prehistoric humans significantly influenced not only the size of forest areas but also the species composition of forests (Wacnik et al. 2016). Wallachian settlements, identified in the Skawa catchment in the 16th century, triggered the processes of soil erosion on slopes and alluvial aggradation along rivers in the Czech Carpathians (Wistuba, Sady & Poręba 2018). In the Bieszczady Mountains, the expansion of settlements in the 16th and 17th centuries was accompanied by both an increase in the area of agricultural land and the development of crafts and, later, the timber industry (Kukulak, Pazdur & Kuc 2002). In the 18th and 19th centuries, when the Carpathians were entirely within the Habsburg Empire, intensive forest management in Galicia led to the deforestation of large areas (Munteanu et al. 2014). In the Skawa catchment, forests then covered only 26% of the catchment area (Witkowski 2021).

The general direction of settlement development up the main valley and further along the tributary valleys is maintained in the Skawa catchment area (Fig. 3). It is clearly visible, however, that it was political and economic considerations that influenced the emergence of the most important settlements in the region, and the place and time of their foundation go beyond the main direction of colonization of the foothills and Beskids. A survey of settlements in the Skawa catchment area confirms that the highest parts of the Beskids have been settled since the 15th century. However, in the lower, more accessible parts of the Beskydy, settlements and thus anthropopressure appeared earlier – as early as the 10th century. Research in the Skawa catchment area confirms that the spread of historical settlements depended primarily on colonization trends, which were mainly determined by politics.