The Ordering of Movement: Channelling Mobility in the Old Reich

• In Event: The Mechanics of Mobility in the Renaissance World I: Roads and Gates

Abstract

On the roads and rivers of the Holy Roman Empire, control over moving goods and people was a permanent point of contention between competing lords, communities and travelers. Such conflicts were often framed as matters of safe-conduct, a term denoting the quasi-sovereign right to escort travelers and to levy customs duties on passing goods and people. In this paper, I explore how, why and to what extent safe-conduct was used to enclose economically or symbolically important forms of movement. Often patchy and inadequate, such attempts triggered more or less open forms of resistance from the side of those to be controlled and prompted erudite debates around freedom of movement and its restriction. The physical, symbolic and intellectual conflicts occasioned in this context inform us about the complexities of human mobility in the early modern period and call for new ways of visualising early modern statehood.

Author

• Luca Scholz, Stanford University