district in the northwest of the town which have been documented archaeologically. A cemetery with urns and cremation burials on the eastern end of the Vicus was discovered in 1762-63 during the demolition of the old church of St. Ursus. In addition, two Roman tombs were discovered in the same area.
Around 325-350, the unfortified settlement along the road was transformed into a fortified camp or castrum, which covered only half of the former settlement area. A 2�3 meters (6.6�9.8 ft) thick and 9 m (30 ft) high wall was built around the settlement. The new, fortified town was bell-shaped, and is still visible in the cadastral map of the city. At various points in the city, large and small pieces of the old Roman wall are still visible in the houses of the old town. The location of a gate in the north and a tower in the south-east corner are known and it is likely that there were additional gates and towers. Almost nothing is known about the buildings inside the walls.
Early Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages there were two settlement centres, a secular settlement in the former castrum and a religious settlement on the grounds of the late-Roman cemeteries outside the walls. Both the religious histories and archeological discoveries indicate that both areas remained inhabited continuously into the Early Middle Ages. The former chapel of St. Stephen inside the castrum was built on the foundation of an earlier, late-Roman building. A burial memorial in the cemetery of the nearby St. Peter's Chapel dates to around the collapse of the Roman Empire. By the middle of the 5th Century, St. Eucherius of Lyon mentions the martyrdom of St. Ursus and St.Victor and a cult of saints in Solothurn. About 500 AD, the Burgundian Princess Sedeleuba took the bones of St. Victor to Geneva, while the bones of St. Ursus remained in Solothurn. The church dedicated to the veneration of Saint Ursus is first mentioned in 870.
Medieval
