Rozmieszczenie młynów wodnych na obszarze Łodzi w świetle wykorzystanych historycznych źródeł kartograficznych

Abstract

The paper is an attempt at application of the many historic sources for the investigation of the localization and period of working the watermills in the area defined by the contemporary administrative border of city of Lodz. Many of manuscripts and cartographic documents have been used which are in the Library of the University of Lodz collected. A cartographic materials from the National Archive in Lodz and the many elaborations regarding to the history and geography of the city and the region were also used. The authors pay attention to the need of cartographic information verification which is connected with an analysis of the maps in the old and following elaborations. In the pre-industrial period in the area of contemporary city of Lodz the presence of many small, rapidly flowing streams, was the cause of building a range of devices powered by water. Not only were they used for grinding but also for cutting wood (sawmills) or the production of cloth (fulleries). The first watermills appeared in the area in the fourteenth century (gristmills: Wojtowski, Grobelny and Chachula) during the construction of a dense network of watermills in the lands the Bishopric of Wloclawek. At that time, one mill fell even at only 1.5 villages. All of them have been built on the example of the watermill on the Bzura in Leczyca, dated for the 1145, the oldest in Poland (Grabarczyk et al., 2003). The number of watermills was constantly changing. Some were repaired, others were on fire, flooded by the water or were abandoned. Their number gradually increased until the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on the analysis of cartographic materials (in addition to the written sources) the map of the distribution of watermills in the area of contemporary Lodz has been compiled (fig. 1). In different time periods in the past there were at least 26 water mills on the rivers flowing within the present administrative boundaries of Lodz. From historical sources we know that some of them were built illegally and they were not recorded in the preserved tax records. On many old maps the names of the watermills were omitted, incorrectly placed or twisted (fig. 2). Rozmieszczenie młynów wodnych na obszarze Łodzi... 40 Adam Bartnik, Dorota Bartnik The greatest importance for the industrial development of the city of Lodz had the Jasien river. Since the Middle Ages the strength of its water was used by several mills. The later areas over that river were designed for the development of the textile industry. In the sites of the former watermills starch factories, mangles, fulleries and spinning were built. Yet for some time they were driven by the water (fig. 3). Most watermills have been operated at the same time in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at the end of agricultural period of Lodz (fig. 4). In the following years their number dropped rapidly (for about a half in the early twentieth century). The water drive has been gradually replaced firstly by the steam drive and then by the electric drive. A few of watermills that survived until World War II, were located on the outskirts of the city. On the maps from the 60s. they have been appeared only three of them: Swiatniki watermill and Laskowice watermill on the river of Ner and Rokita watermill on river of Jasien. At that time they were certainly driven by electricity. More than a quarter of Lodz watermills were operated, with a breaks, 400 or more years and the half at least 300 years (table 1). The average duration of their activities was approx. 290 years (it is the estimated value, based on the data which have been previously mentioned).

W artykule przedstawiono wykorzystanie różnych źródeł histotycznych do badania położenia i okresu pracy młynów wodnych w rejonie wyznaczonym przez współczesną granicę administracyjną miasta Łodzi. Podczas analizy wykorzystano manuskrypty i dokumenty kartograficzne, które zgromadzono w Bibliotece Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego. Ponadto wykorzystano też materiały kartograficzne przechowywane w Archiwum Państwowym w Łodzi oraz liczne opracowania dotyczące historii i geografii miasta oraz regionu. Autorzy artykułu zwracają uwagę na rzetelność pozyskanych informacji kartograficznych. Wskazują, że często przekaz kartograficzny bywa błędny na skutek braku aktualizacji treści mapy lub złej transformacji informacji opisowej na przestrzenną. Z tego względu autorzy zalecają szczególną ostrożność co do interpretacji istnienia obiektów przedstawianych na mapach (szczególnie seryjnych mapach niemieckich i austriackich). W sytuacji, gdy istnieją przesłanki o możliwości istnienia błędów, zalecają treść mapy każdorazowo potwierdzać za pomocą niezależnej dokumentacji.