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visual expressiveness enlivening the monotonous plane of the wall with regular or randomly distributed
dots of differing colours.
The use of dark bricks to increase the expressiveness of the brick wall flourished in the 14th century in
German countries, but in the 15th century it was distributed also in Silesia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and
in Denmark, reaching England around 1500 (Holst 2008, 188, 189). In Livonia, too, application of dark-
burnt bricks was encountered. In the external wall of the Bergfried – the Main Tower of Turaida Castle –
a few dark-burnt bricks stand out as isolated, randomly distributed black dots (Fig. 6). Probably there the
brick-kiln waste pieces were used – separate sooty items that did not have any other defects. However, the
fact mentioned in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia that the Bishop of Ratzeburg had participated in the
construction of Turaida Castle in 1214 could serve as indirect evidence about intentional decoration of
the wall. As mentioned above, the brick wall of the Dom Church of Ratzeburg built around 1210–1220
has been enlivened by irregularly distributed dark bricks.
In several 14th and 15th century Livonian buildings dark bricks have been laid in such a way as to create
a simple ornament. A grid of rhombuses is seen in the western façade of Valmiera/Wolmar St. Simeon’s
Church tower, there are some rhombuses in the northern wall of Riga St. John’s Church and above the
gate of the former monastery there. In the late 19 th century, architect WilhelmNeumann, when depicting
the north-western façade of the large tower of Ludza/Ludsen Castle, highlighted the grid of rhombuses
in his drawing, and added a note that the grid had been formed using black glazed bricks (Neumann
1890, 318, Taf. 6). However, this seems to be an incorrect designation. Until the present day, no glazed
bricks can be seen in the façade of Ludza tower, and no regular grid of rhombuses is discernible. There
are only separate dark-burnt bricks in the façade which form slanting lines and hardly distinguishable
rhombuses. Elsewhere dark bricks were applied in the red-brick walls of Latvian medieval castles only
as separate irregularly distributed decorative accents. Thus, for example, in Bauska Order Castle, in
the corner of the southern tower that was built of grey stones, a fragment of the wall made of red and
a few dark bricks can be seen. Possibly, the building masters of Livonian castles and churches did not
specially order dark-glazed bricks, but builders laid some waste pieces at regular distances. However, the
appearance of the diamond-shaped patterns on the facades of Riga and Valmiera churches as well as in
Ludza Castle could testify to the connections between the building masters and the Teutonic Order or
even their origin in Prussia.
Brick sizes
In the course of centuries, brick sizes have slightly changed, therefore researchers sometimes use
them for dating purposes. Researchers of Middle Europe denote the most ancient and largest bricks as
“Cloister size” bricks. In the 12th/13th centuries, in German countries, the brick sizes were 32–34 × 15–
17 × 9–11 cm, but starting with late 13th century their sizes diminished (28–30 × 14–15 × 8–10 cm)
and were preserved as such until early 16th century (Torbus 1998, 318). The brick length often
corresponded to the regional unit of measurement – a foot, but the width – to half-foot (Holst 1999,
219, 220). Since foot sizes used in various countries slightly differed, the sizes of bricks were not equal
either, nevertheless, the proportions were mostly preserved. Thus, for example, the sizes of bricks
Ieva Ose. Building ceramics of Turaida Castle in the 13th–17th centuries