The Sources of Kėdainiai Town
How “terra Gaydine” became “civitas Caiodunensis” – Kėdainiai in the XIV–XVII centuries
The Old town of Kėdainiai is original for its well-formed plan. It was formed adapting to the local relief and separate parts of the town where communities of different confessions such as Catholics, Evangelical reformists, Evangelical Lutherans and Judaists settled down. Division of the inhabitants into territories according to confessional and national dependence caused the unique architecture of Kėdainiai.
The start for Kėdainiai town was a small village established in the beginning of XIV c. on the wide right valley of the river Nevėžis. The village was mentioned for the first time in 1372 by German chronicler Hermann Wartberge, who called it “terra Gaydine”. Archaeological excavation gives evidence that a village of size 4 ha was established in safe and full of rich soil place of the valley. The valley was safe due to four fast-flowing and aquiferous streams running into Nevėžis from northern and southern sides. The valley was rich of alluvial deposit brought by Nevėžis tides, sources and melt-water, running from upper terraces of the river. At the surface of the terraces there is the till and on its hills made of clay loams and sandy loams there formed turfy carbonaceous soils. They are the richest in Lithuanian landscape because during the climate change they preserved all the best physical properties: there are a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium. Those soils also preserved excellent structure applying the alternation – crops, ploughs and pastures.
Kėdainiai started to obtain the features of a town in the middle of XV c. and in the end of the XV c. Polish chronicler Jan Dlugosz called it “oppidum Kieidany”. Favourable geographical place, the crossroads of trade-routes, Nevėžis, suitable for marine, surrounding forests rich of raw material, the nearness of important supermarkets of Vilnius and Kaunas, the activity of local merchants and merchants of Hanza influenced the formation of the town. Rapid development of Kėdainiai was also influenced by the fact that the town was the property of the noblemen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Radvilos and Kiškai from the middle of the XV c. to the I half of the XIX c.
Till the middle of the XVI c. Kėdainiai grew spontaneously: adapted itself to the locality relief, widened near the roads, leading to Vilnius, Kaunas, Raseiniai, Riga , Karaliaučius. Both sides (the left and the right) were of the linear planning. On the left side there was formed the administrative and religious centre, where Radvilos manor and gothic St. George’s Church stood and the parochial graveyard was. On the right side there lived ordinary townspeople and the centre of their public life became a rectangular Senoji Rinka (Old Market) square sized 110 × 60 m.
Kėdainiai were started to be planned in the II half of the XVI c. and finished in the middle of the XVII c. The town was planned regularly and rationally. It is considered that such way of planning was dictated by protestant pragmatism, dominating in Kėdainiai in XVI–XVII centuries.
Only the right side of the town, located on the wide valley of Nevėžis, was planned. While planning it there was applied the rectangular plan, the topic of which was four market-squares. They were formed in four main directions – in the North, in the East, in the West and in the South. The squares in the town were formed near the old roads leading to the town and were connected by the new straight streets. Next to the different squares the communities of religious confessions such as Evangelical Reformists, Evangelical Lutherans and Jews Judaists settled.
Evangelical Reformists, the majority of which was composed of Scottish immigrants, located in the central part next to Didžioji Rinka (Great Market) square. Their parcels of land were located next to the market-square and Pilies street (current Didžioji st.). Scottish houses were different from other townspeople houses by the size and splendour: they were two-storey buildings and made of bricks, in the shape of letters L and U with gabled two-pitched roofs, covered in tiles. On the ground floors there were the shops and inns, on the first floors there were accommodation facilities, and in the basements under the houses the goods were stored. The vaulted spans of the first floors and wooden galleries on the yard side were a characteristic feature of Scottish houses. In the middle of the XVII c. in the territory accommodated by the Scottish there appeared two significant social buildings such as the Town hall and the Evangelical Reformist Church.
Evangelical Lutherans, likely emigrants from Saxony and Prussia located in the Western part of the town, so called Jonušava. Their community gained the autonomy, the right to have their own coat of arms and to elect the burgomaster. That way next to the old Kėdainiai town there was formed a new, in legal terms, autonomous town called Jonušava or New Kėdainiai. The centre of the public life of the new town became a rectangular market-square sized 150 × 60 m. Rectangular parcels of land were next to it and in front of the parcels there were dwelling-houses. The type of houses built by Evangelical Lutherans in Jonušava is not clear since no one remained. The most probably they built fachwerk houses similar to ones where they lived before coming to Kėdainiai. In Jonušava panorama there dominated two clear architectural focuses – the “Prussian brick building” Evangelical Reformed Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church of Renaissance forms.
The Jews Judaists settled down in the northern part of the town next to the Senoji Rinka (Old Market) square. Their territory was not large but densely built on. The Jews, who belonged to the jurisdiction of the manor but not the town, were strictly prohibited to locate and live in other areas. The Jews lived in wooden one-storey and two-storey houses. They built their houses one next to another leaving narrow space for passages and small yards. In Senoji Rinka (Old Market) the Jews had built a synagogue which did not distinguish because the Jews were not allowed to build their religious buildings higher than those of Christians.
The Lithuanians lived in the southern part of Kėdainiai, next to the rectangular Knypava market-square sized 90 × 60 m. The beginning for Knypava most probably was given by the German, the newcomers from autonomous part of Köningsberg, Knypava, in German called „Kneiphof“; that is why that part of Kėdainiai was called Knypava. In the middle of the XVII c. there were tries to locate Orthodoxes in Knypava, the emigrants from the Eastern lands of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. In the northern side of the market-square in 1652 there was built a small wooden orthodox church, a small wooden monastery and the graveyard. However, only few orthodox believers lived in Knypava, just several monks.
On the left part of Kėdainiai there mostly lived the Catholics and the centres of their public life were two small markets of Kaunas and Šėta. This part of the town remained of linear planning. In its panorama there dominated the gothic brick St. George’s Church standing on a high terrace of Nevėžis. In the narrow valley and on the terrace slopes, near the roads, leading to Kaunas, Vilnius and Šėta, there located wooden townspeople’s houses, small shops and inns. Their architecture was traditional of folk style, similar to that which formed the Lithuanian towns and suburbs and which almost did not change in the flow of years. Therefore, the wooden houses of folk architecture remained the most on the left side of Kėdainiai.
In the middle of the XVII c. Kėdainiai had the well-formed plan and playful spacious composition, characteristic for the cities of Western Europe. Architectural dominants such as churches, manor palaces and the town hall, composed hierarchically, became apparent in the town panorama. The public buildings and townspeople’s houses stood below. The territory of the town covered 87.5 ha and did not develop until the beginning of the XX c.
Algirdas Juknevičius
Kėdainiai Regional Museum
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