Historic roads

Old Quarters are historical paths of land transport, which arose before the modern highways. They served as trade routes and military roads.

Some old streets were laid out complex and can be seen to this day its straight course in plane -wave topography in as well as traces of engineering structures in steep terrain. These include the Roman roads. A lot of the old streets, however, was paved with minimal effort. In mountainous areas, old streets ran as high road. Old streets or portions thereof, such as the sandy caravan routes in Africa and Asia, could not be suitable for vehicles. Even through the high mountains led many ancient trade routes as only mule tracks.

The historical Altstraßenforschung is a branch of Altwegeforschung.

Formation conditions

Large parts of the old streets were unpaved nature trails, the course of which varied according to the geology and topography of the landscapes that were to traverse between major source and destination areas of traffic. The valley floors were mostly swampy in the early Middle Ages in Europe. The unbedeichten rivers often burst their banks and changed the process, often run their course. Parallel flow paths on valley slopes have elaborate terracing requires. Fords were danger zones, ferries, if present at all, not reliable. Bridges were a rare luxury and could be destroyed by natural events or acts of violence.

Among the fixed exceptions include corduroy roads by Moore ( who gave it since the invention of the chariot wheel ) and one or the other high mountain pass.

Route guidance

Therefore, Old Quarters ran preferably on ridges, eponymous for the High Street, or the gentle hills at about the level of the source horizons, such as the Hellweg between Duisburg and Paderborn and its branches along the Teutoburg Forest. The high-altitude trails also had the advantage that they were overall drier than paths in the valley. Basalt weathering soil was preferred because quickly formed ravines on sandstone soils. In areas where deforestation was already advanced, dangers could be seen from far away on the heights.

Cross section / division

As can be read off from systematic comparisons of today's road networks and street names, old streets were by no means only of a pair of ruts. Depending on soil conditions, population density and obligations of feudal landlords, there could be number of parallel routes that were used at different times or for different purposes. So parted in the sandy Senne Hellweg (actually just a branch thereof) except the still Hellweg mentioned way for trade and travel cart to Huckepackweg for Fußreisende, in the bridle and the Kohlenweg for local firewood transport. These special routes could several hundred meters apart. Further splittings resulted when next to a much too extended, a new way has been paved.

History

Until the time of the ancient world the emergence of some old streets in then inhabited by Celts and Germanic countries can be traced back. We traded above all salt, luxury goods from the Mediterranean, amber and slaves. Even in the vorantiken Bronze Age there must have been significant long-distance trade, as the bronze production in the whole of Europe depended on tin from Britain. From the rapid conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar is concluded that there was a good road network before the submission. The Romans passed through her kingdom with mostly straight roads, which basically consisted of a causeway between two trenches. The more important additionally had a solid covering. With the decline of their empire the roads were no longer maintained, but often continued to be used, so that many today are part of the street and road network.

In the Frankish kingdom of the Merovingians, the road network was still predominantly Roman roads. An important nodes they built palaces. The Carolingian expanded the Frankish Empire on areas that were not accessible by Roman roads. They use unpaved roads as highways and secured by these castles. It monasteries were built at junction points. With the Christian pilgrimages developed pilgrimage routes and the establishment of markets took the traffic on the trade routes to. From the early Middle Ages, the first documented evidence of individual paths that did not return to Roman roads, the Ortesweg that is mentioned in the Vita Sturmi the fourth abbot of Fulda Eigil, as Sturmius 744 looking for a suitable place for the monastery come. Traces of trade routes in the Slavic area are several wooden bridges over the River Havel.

In the High Middle Ages, new cities were founded, often under the protection of a castle or near a monastery along the trade routes. In the medieval Feudalreichen the travelers were on royal and other main roads under the land or King's Peace. The landlord, mostly owner of a fief had to ensure the safety of travelers on this road. It developed in the Middle Ages, the convoy being. There were also provisions that the income of the feudal lords increased, while minderten their interest in the maintenance of the paths. Thus, the load of a car fell by the landlords when an axis touched the ground. Old Quarters were located after the first clearance period ( during the Carolingian ) also increasingly in the valley, as increased by population growth, the population density in the valleys. Thus, there were more and more direct connections from place to place. Höhenwege got the meaning of secret ways to bypass customs offices or highly fortified places. They evolved by their location on mountain ranges (natural boundaries ) often to border paths (see Rennsteig ).

Some sources give the Central European small states as a reason why you so long to make do with unpaved roads took. In contrast, the road began in Germany in highly politically fragmented regions southwestern and central Germany while. In the eastern provinces of Prussia, a large contiguous territory until the first decades of the 19th century was not a single street art

The Chausseebau began in France and southwestern parts of Germany, mid-17th century, in other areas until the middle of the 18th or the first half of the 19th century. In most cases, marked the beginning of strategic considerations of the states. But the Simplon road in Switzerland and the English Turnpike Roads were operated by private companies. Art roads reduced rolling resistance of the vehicle. They could be out on dams through wetlands and in river valleys on a terrace just above the flood plain. In the mountains, they could have uniform slopes or follow contour lines, a result, they were faster than the old streets. Those lost rapidly in importance and were no longer used.

Many old streets have been built over the course of the centuries (eg A -66) or were re overgrown or leveled to fields from the forest. Many a road is no longer passable, although in theory the right of way still exists. However, some sections still exist in their original form and are used as field, forest or trail.

Famous Old Quarters

The Old Quarters had in Europe mostly no consistent proper names and no definite beginning or end. The roads were named by local people always nearby destinations. Over the centuries shifted the routes, because places important lost or won. Sometimes customs offices and unsafe areas were bypassed. There were also branches and alternative routes that travelers could use depending on the conditions (weather, bands of robbers, feuds ). Thus arose for the same road from place to place different names. Even with changes of ownership, for example, by the emperor Landgrave other names bürgerten one.

Fixed names were often introduced only by historians of Altstraßenforschung as a tool for describing the way.

Central Europe

Angelbowege
Antsanvia: trade route from Mainz to Thuringia
Amber Road
Birkenhainer road (wine road )
Bergische Eisenstraße
Bohemian climbing
Brabant street or Brüderstraße: Leipzig, Erfurt, Eisenach, Marburg, Herborn, Angelburg (Mountain), Siegen, Cologne, Antwerp "Brabant"
High Cölnische army and Geleitstraße
Conrebbersweg: Commercial Street in East Frisia
Deitweg
Old Dresden- Teplitz Post Road
Elizabeth Street: Mainz -Kastel to Marburg, pilgrimage to the grave of Elizabeth of Thuringia
Eselsweg in the Spessart
Filsstraße - Geislingen: valley road from Stuttgart to Ulm
Frankenstraße
Frenchmen Street: trail between Kassel, Hessian- Lichtenau and Bebra or Gerstungen / Werra
Old Freiberg Teplitz Post Road
Golden Road
Golden Trail
Heath Road in Sauerland
By Short Hesse ( escort and highway )
By the Langen Hessen (wine road )
Hesse Street: originally Celtic road from St. Goar to Iron Hand, later to Kassel Iron Road (Hessen): Aar east of the Iron Hand

Ochsenweg
Ortesweg: Off Marburger country to Bamberg
Pickerweg
Post Course: Innsbruck ( Austria ) - Mechelen (Belgium ) in 1490
Rennsteig in Thuringia
Race Street: High Road in the Taunus
Salzer way in Lower Hesse
Salzmannstraße
Old Salt Road between Lüneburg and Lübeck
Salt road to Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut, Halle an der Saale and to Reichenhall
Schwabenweg
Septimerpass: possibly pre-Roman, then Roman, paved in 1387
Via Francigena
Via Imperii: north-south trade route from the Baltic Sea via Leipzig, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Innsbruck and Verona to Venice
Via Mala: foot and bridle path through the back Rhine Gorge, wagon road over a mountain ridge
Via Regia: King's Road from Frankfurt am Main Leipzig, Görlitz and Wroclaw to Krakow
Via Tolosana: French part of the pilgrimage route of the Camino to Santiago de Compostela
Via Publica: trade route from Brussels to Frankfurt am Main, Würzburg and Nuremberg to Prague
Forest road in Zella- Mehlis: central ravine system for crossing the Thuringian Forest, for example Zeller Leube
Wine Street ( street car )
Westfalenweg: it was called in the room casting a path that branched off of the "long Hesse ", the oppidum Dünsberg by on the Lahn / Dill- watershed to the intersection of several old streets ( eg with the " Brabant Street " or " Cologne - Leipzig road "and the" Herborner High road " ) resulted in the Angel castle, from where he moved further north in the direction of Paderborn.
Zeithstraße: Bonn - Siegburg - Dortmund

Greece

Via Pythia
Hiera Hodos

Great Britain

The Ridgeway

Roman Empire

The total length of the Roman road network is estimated at 80,000 kilometers to the time of Emperor Trajan. Especially the military roads were in ancient times already fortified art streets.

See:

Roman road
List of Roman roads

Persian King Street
Chinese imperial roads from 220 BC to 700 AD, about 40,000 km, some paved Straight road, over 800 km of paved
Shu- roads

Tea-Horse Road ( China - India)

Inca Empire

The Inca roads opened up one of the hardest for road areas of the world, the Andes. The Incas built a road network of 40,000 kilometers of bridges, tunnels and service areas. The streets had base and pavement. Since the Incas did not know any car, steep sections were performed as stairs and ravines were crossed with rope bridges.

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