Borders and Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780198845676)

In the Holy Roman Empire 'no prince â can forbid men passage in the common road', wrote the English jurist John Selden. In practice, moving through one the most fractured landscapes in human history was rarely as straightforward as suggested by Selden's account of the German 'liberty of passage'.

Across the Old Reich, mobile populations-from emperors to peasants-defied attempts to channel their mobility with actions ranging from mockery to bloodshed. In this study, Luca Scholz charts this contentious ordering of movement through the lens of safe conduct, an institution that was common throughout the early modern world but became a key framework for negotiating freedom of movement and its restriction in the Empire.

Borders and Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire draws on sources discovered in twenty archives, from newly unearthed drawings to first-hand accounts by peasants, princes, and prisoners. Scholz's maps shift the focus from the border to the thoroughfare to show that controls of moving goods and people were rarely concentrated at borders before the mid-eighteenth century. Uncovering a forgotten chapter in the history of free movement, the author presents a new look at the unstable relationship of political authority and human mobility in the heartlands of old-regime Europe.


Author: Luca Scholz
ISBN-10: 0198845677
ISBN-13: 9780198845676
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 03/06/2020
Pages: 280
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2021