Original scientific paper
The Rakovec Section of the Military or Coloman’s Road
Franjo Pajur
Abstract
Historical literature shows a certain ambiguity regarding the route of the second part of the so-called Križevci Section of the medieval Military Road (via exercitualis), also known as the Road of King Colomanus (via Colomani regis) or Coloman’s Road. Based on the present-day route of the major traffic direction, this road is usually defined as the road linking Križevci with Zagreb via Vrbovec, even though – as this article shows – there are no historical grounds for such an assumption. Based on the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century charters, it may be seen that the road after Ravno, Tkalac and the estate of Gostović led via Rakovec and Donja Zelina and nearby Blaguša and Moravče to Zagreb, to continue from there towards the sea. It may be corroborated that it was so, besides by the aforementioned charters, also by some other established facts, such as the status of Rakovec as the central place of the area, both in a defensive (castrum) and in an economic sense (the centre of a lordship, borough, fair and toll station), or based on the network of medieval parishes. From all that, it appears that the route of the Križevci section of Coloman’s Road in its second part passed through the Rakovec area and that this settlement owed to that fact its increasing importance in the Middle Ages. Of course, the fact that this important traffic route would move on to the Vrbovec section, after the direct Ottoman danger decreased at the beginning of the seventeenth century, would also contribute to the gradual marginalisation of Rakovec and transformation of Vrbovec into the central place of the area.
Keywords
Coloman’s Road; the Military Road; Rakovec
Hrčak ID:
75838
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2011.
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