Oppidum
An
oppidum (pl: oppida) was
Latin for the main settlement in any administrative area of the
Roman Empire.
Julius Caesar described the larger
Iron Age settlements he encountered in
Gaul as
oppida and the term is now used to describe the large pre-Roman towns that existed all across Western and Central Europe. Many oppida grew from
hill forts although by no means all of them had significant defensive functions. Oppida surrounded by earthworks are known as
enclosed oppida.
The development of oppida was a milestone in the
urbanisation of the continent as they were the first large settlements north of the
Mediterranean that could genuinely be described as
towns. Caesar pointed out that each
tribe of Gaul would have several oppida but that they were not all of equal importance, perhaps implying some form of
hierarchy.
In conquered lands, the Romans used the
infrastructure of the oppida to administer the empire and many became full Roman towns. This often involved a change of location from the hilltop into the plain.
Examples of oppida:
*
Bibracte (Mont Beuvray), France
*
Manching, Germany
*
Alcimoennis, Germany
*
Stradonice, Bohemia
*
Basel-Münsterhügel, Switzerland
*
Traprain Law, Scotland
In the mediaeval
Kingdom of Hungary oppidum was the legal Latin term for
market towns
(mezőváros in
Hungarian), which were of lesser status than
free royal towns but more important than villages.
[http://memex.c3.hu/scripta/books/97/02/01kubi.htm]*
Collis, John (1984)
Oppida, earliest towns north of the Alps. Sheffield
* Garcia, Dominique (2004)
La Celtique Méditeranée: habitats et sociétés en Languedoc et en Provence, VIIIe - IIe siècles av. J.-C. chapter 4
La « civilisation des oppida » : dynamique et chronologie. Paris, Editions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-286-4
Latin
oppidum, from an earlier Latin
ob-pedum, "enclosed space". Pedum itself could derive from
Proto-Indo-European *pedóm-, 'occupied space' and/or 'footprint'.
