Mobility Humanities

In the 4th century, some regions of the Roman Empire had already been conquered by Germanic tribes. Yet, the continuous road network of about 100,000 km of paved roads still functioned properly. That changed in the 5th and 6th centuries when the Western Roman Empire disintegrated and was completely conquered by Germanic tribes. The result was an enormous depopulation and state of unrest. The continuous interregional road network transformed into a fragmented local one and, in many places, the roads completely disappeared. Since the country road network had deteriorated in the north of the former Roman empire, nowadays known as the Netherlands, goods traffic took place almost exclusively over water. Only cities with an ecclesiastical centre, as well as harbour cities situated along a navigable river, had a chance to survive as economic centres. This was the situation at the beginning of the reign of Charlemagne (768-814). He is usually considered a
restorer of the former Western Roman Empire; but was he also a restorer of the ancient Roman road network and mobility? There is a lot of discussion concerning the fate of the post-Roman infrastructure. Several decades ago, scholars argued that after the splitting up of the Roman Empire, the infrastructure collapsed, resulting in scarce traffic in these so-called Dark Ages. Over the past few decades, this image has increasingly changed; the former Roman infrastructure was in part still intact and in use by messengers, traders and officials. In this article, I share this latter opinion; I outline how in order for new towns to arise, they need not only an old infrastructure but also a brand-new one—true even in Merovingian times.