Carolingian Perceptions of Traveling
During the eighth and ninth centuries, continental Europe underwent the largest military expansion that was not matched since the Roman Empire under Valentinian I and for many centuries after. How such an immense territory was administered and centralized depended on the communications and efficiency of travel. In Rosamond McKitterick’s comprehensive survey Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity, Charlemagne’s travels are well documented, she relies heavily on Adolf Gauert’s map from the 1965 Charlemagne exhibition at Aachen, which tracked Charlemagne’s movement particularly involving military conquests. However, Gauert’s map does not explain the duration of travel and the reasons for particular visits. Nonetheless, McKitterick provided helpful tools and assumptions that can help us track and estimate approximate durations. For instance, it can be assumed that contemporaries travelled on horseback for faster journeys, and that mules and carts were used for transporting baggage and goods, hence taking a much longer duration. More importantly, McKitterick and other historians such as Regine Le Jan and Michael McCormick, all calculated an approximate travel speed of 30 km a day. Although McKitterick offers Routenet.nl as a source to consult travel distances, she problematizes the ways in which we can really determine the time absorbed by each journey, the detours and the unscheduled stops. Given the ambiguity of the exact routes that were taken and the lacunae of such data in the Royal Frankish Annals, I will still use this average speed (30km/day) throughout this essay as a default to calculate approximate travel durations to demonstrate exactly how time-consuming it was to travel. Moreover, if distances were not specified in primary sources, I will use an average distance among the various route options provided via Google maps. Although many historical sources note the evident mobility of Charlemagne, his army, the missi, and pilgrims, little is known about how people thought about traveling and exactly how time consuming, arduous and terrifying it was to embark on a journey. Thus, by consulting various primary sources that record movement throughout the empire and attest to the importance of travel, we can see how seasonal conditions, natural hazards and time constraint were all crucial factors allowing us to make presuppositions as to how contemporaries evaluated and understood their particular journeys.
One prominent source for tracking the movement of Carolingians is the Royal Frankish Annals. Based on the accounts recorded by the annalist, there seems to be a recurring pattern where both the decisions on when to travel and how political affairs were dealt with, were both influenced by seasonal weather conditions. For example, in 811, the annalist recounted that a peace treaty was made beforehand between the Charlemagne and Hemming, the Danish King, only because the harsh winter conditions prevented both parties from exchanging oaths in person. As expected, this settlement was done during the following spring when roads were no longer closed off due to frost. Similarly in 813, it was not until spring when Charlemagne was willing to send Bishop Amalhar of Trier and Abbot Peter of the monastery of Nonantola to Constantinople to settle a peace treaty with Emperor Michael. Not only did seasonal patterns affect the physical proximity with regards to diplomatic concerns, but it also played a key role in the planning and organizational tactics of military campaigns. One paradoxical example of the 815 entry highlights how travel conditions were greatly altered by seasonal changes. Though Charlemagne tried to take advantage of an anticipated frozen Elbe River so that the Saxons and Obodrites could begin the campaign earlier, the unexpected warm weather prevented any movement; thus, the march was delayed until the middle of May. Moreover, seasonal conditions played such a crucial factor in military provisions that the annalist even mentioned an instance where an assembly held at Aachen of February 821 decided that war against Ljudovit and the Spanish March were to be waged only during the next summers by three alternating armies. It is easy to underestimate the extent to which the Carolingians had to adapt and plan their movement according to seasonal patterns, but it seems quite clear that these weather changes greatly impacted their diplomatic situations.
Similar to seasonal changes, natural hazards, disasters and physical obstructions also affected the ways in which the Carolingians travelled. In 785, for instance, a severe flood forced Charlemagne to return from Rehme to the castle of Eresburg for the entire winter and consequently held a general assembly at Paderborn nearby. The Carolingians also had to take certain precautions and risks when traveling through contaminated rivers such as the Drave River in Upper Pannonia through which the army marched, and eventually succumbed to dysentery. Throughout the Royal Frankish Annals, it is important to note that large portions of an annal entry described portents and great natural disasters such as flooded rivers, spreading pestilence, and excessive rain; however, despite the chronicler not associating these disasters as a direct deterrent of travel, we can still assume that these conditions likely prevented much movement during that particular year. Interestingly, only in the year 829 was there a mention of how natural disasters were problematic: “When the winter was over an earthquake occurred in Aachen during the holy forty-day fast, a few days before Holy Easter. A violent storm broke loose. […] The emperor, delayed by various affairs, remained in Aachen until July 1.” Even Einhard, Charlemagne’s well-known courtier, explains, in his Translatio account, how heavy rain would in fact pose serious problems for travel:
The sky was full of dark clouds that could soon turn into a heavy rain unless divine power prevented it. Indeed, it had rained so much without stopping the previous night that it had almost not seemed possible for us to begin our journey that day…We found that the way through which we were traveling had been changed into another condition than the anticipated one. For we found that there was little mud and that the streams that usually rise after so much and such steady rain as there had been that night had hardly risen at all.
Another obstacle, frequently alluded to by many Carolingian sources, was the dangerous and arduous task of surpassing the Alps. The complications of this journey was so discernible that even Einhard found it worth mentioning, though he admits that it was not his purpose to describe the details of crossing the Alps in writing Charlemagne’s biography. According to Paul Dutton’s translation of Vita Karoli Magni, entering Italy by crossing the Alps was truly a struggle for the Franks to overcome natural obstacles such as unmarked mountains ridges, upthrust rocks and a rugged terrain. Similarly, Samuel Epes Turner’s translation describes this challenge as a “hardship that the Franks endured in climbing the trackless mountain ridges, the heaven-aspiring cliffs and ragged peaks.” It seems clear that these primary accounts offer us a vivid illustration of how both seasonal conditions and terrestrial hazards hindered travel efficiency in numerous ways.
Due to these obstructions, the Carolingians also found ways to cope with these challenges and thus made efforts to improve transportation efficiency. A notable example occurred in 793, when Charlemagne spent an entire autumn on an infrastructure project, which sought to build a navigable canal between the Rednitz and Altmühl rivers so that travel was more convenient from the Danube into the Rhine. Unfortunately, due to excessive rain, the project failed as the ditch continued to flood. Although no other source suggests whether or not Charlemagne returned to this project, this example nonetheless demonstrates Charlemagne’s acknowledgement of improving infrastructure and travel efficiency. On the other hand, the Annals do provide one example where Charlemagne restored a lighthouse at Boulogne to guide the course of sailors. For military protection, the Danish King, Gododrid, decided to fortify his borders with a rampart at the harbour of Schleswig so that only a single gate through which wagons and horsemen would be able to access. Thus, whether or not the alteration of infrastructure was to make travel more convenient or to strategically establish protective barriers, it nevertheless impacted the dynamic of travel.
As it is clear that the travelers during the Carolingian period understood movement to be dependent on external factors such as weather, let us now turn to what travelers considered to be a short and a long journey. A year before Charlemagne’s death in 814, his biographer Einhard recounted that, despite being weak and slowed down by old age, he still went hunting during autumn near his palace in Aachen. Hence, given Charlemagne’s health at the time and how it was necessary to be somewhat physically healthy to travel, we can consider hunting trips from Aachen to Ardennes (250km) as a relatively short journey. Michael McCormick reminds us that it is not surprising to see major, permanent market places to be located near Aachen, most of which were within a day’s travel. For example, in a correspondence between Einhard and one of his deputies at Maastricht (c. 828), Einhard asked a certain deputy to send some people from Maastricht to Aachen (32km) to fix and restore his buildings, as well as delivering flour, grain, wine, cheese and other foodstuffs. Given that it only takes less than a day to travel between Aachen and Maastricht, the transportation of goods between these two locations was not only common, but also demonstrated that the amount of goods to transport would increase based on the relative ease and convenience of travelling short distances. Other accounts, however, suggest that short distances do not always imply the fast and efficient movement of goods. In the case of the translation of relics, Einhard specifies that after sailing down the Rhine from Strasbourg to Portus (the port of Sandhofen), they were joined by “a great crowd of people reveling in the praise of God” until they reached Michelstadt, which took five days. Although it is ambiguous whether the departure point was Strasbourg or Portus after the five days of travel to reach Michelstadt, it seems more likely that Portus to Michelstadt (50km) took five days, which suggests that the crowd of people drastically slowed down their travel speed to an approximate 10km/day, despite such a short distance.
On the other hand, long journeys are considered to be arduous, time-consuming and physically demanding. In Einhard’s account of the translation of relics, Ratleig, one of Einhard’s notaries that was sent with a Roman deacon by the name of Deusdona, arranged a plan whereby he sent a separate group (Hilduin’s priest and Deusdona’s brother Luniso) to depart from Rome to Pavia with the relics, while himself and Deusdona stayed in Rome for an additional seven days to determine whether the removal of the relics was noticed by the people of Rome. Given this account, we can assume that a journey from Rome to Pavia (570km) is a long journey since it would take about 19–20 days if they traveled at an average speed of 30km/day; and since it was specified that upon arrival at Pavia, Ratleig and company decided to stay for a few days in order to give the horses a rest for a longer journey ahead, we can infer that Ratleig and his travelers understood a travel of more than 20 days to be considered long. To further illustrate the difficulties involved in preparing for a long journey, Einhard’s letter to Otgar, the archbishop of Mainz indicates how a priest by the name of Hruodrad was unable to travel to travel to Rome by himself:
[After] he had come to Mainz, he was not able to find people with whom he could continue that journey. For this reason, he turned to a certain countryman of mine by the name of Hildebert, whom he knew, and stayed with him until he could find people traveling to Rome. He says that he has now found these people and he asked me [Einhard] to request your [Otgar’s] permission for him to proceed on that journey. For he wishes, as he himself maintains, to complete that journey as quickly as he can and [then] return to his proper place. For this reason, I beg your Holiness to consider granting him the permission requested and that it not be held against him that he was delayed so long on the way. Many unavoidable problems were put in his way, which he could not solve.
This letter demonstrates three important insights. First, before embarking on a long journey — in this case to Rome, even priests need permission from an archbishop in order to proceed and that these trips took place during or after March due to the suitability of weather conditions. Second, a long journey from Metz to Rome required the accompaniment of other travellers due to safety reasons — although Ratleig did not seem concerned to send a lone steward Ascolf from Pavia to Soissons to run an important errand. And finally, travel delays may include factors beyond the traveler’s control and thus unavoidable problems were understandably pardoned. Given these complications, it is not surprising that Charlemagne would issue capitularies that ensured that the missi and their retinues were looked after by counts in order to make travel easier: “And the count in his district, or the men whose traditional custom it has been to look after our missi and their retinues, shall continue, as they have done in the past, to provide them with pack-horses and other necessities, so that they may travel to and from the palace with ease and dignity.” Even specific provisions were made to instruct travelers on how to pack for safe and efficient travel:
That our carts which go to the army as war-carts shall be well constructed; their covering shall be well-made of skins, and sewn together in such a way that, should the necessity arise to cross water, they can get across rivers with the provisions inside and without any water being able to get in — and, as we have said, our belongings can get across safely.
We can therefore conclude that the laws issued by Charlemagne reflect the Carolingians’ understanding of the difficulties of travel. Thus, they sought ways to make legislative measures to ensure the efficiency of movement as it was such a vital component in communication, trade, and transportation in such a vast empire.
As I have previously established, the dangers and adversities of traveling was conscious in the minds of the Carolingians and they certainly found ways to avoid and minimize potential misfortunes by favouring more efficient routes and modes of travel for convenience. The Annals, for instance, consistently cites the annual locations at which the emperor celebrated Christmas and sometimes Easter. The entry of 765 specifies that because there were no plans to launch a military campaign and that Pepin held the general assembly at Attigny, it would not be surprising for Pepin to spend Christmas and Easter at the villa of Aachen. We can infer that because of the absence of pressing administrative and militaristic issues and that a trip from Attigny to Aachen (200km) took less than a week, Pepin would reside at the capital. Given how long it took to advance from place to place, Aachen was not the only place emperors celebrated Christmas — such was the case in 784 when Charlemagne traveled from Worms to the villa of Lügde where he spent Christmas before planning a march into Saxony. Similarly in 791, after the Frankish army set out for Bavaria from Worms, they decided to stop in Regensburg to celebrate Christmas and Easter and for three days to “implore God’s help for the welfare of the army before marching on the south bank of the Danube” These examples not only illustrate that the existence of rest stops were planned strategical for praying and the celebration of Christmas, they also exemplify how the time of year and where Charlemagne was present at a particular moment influenced the travel itinerary of the Franks. Even Charlemagne’s hunting locations varied according to where he was; while spending the early portions of the summer at the Castle of Remiremont, it was therefore more convenient to spend the rest of the summer and the first half of autumn hunting near the Vosges Mountains rather than Ardennes (the usual hunting location).
Aside from the movement of military campaigns and the transportation of goods, religion was a primary reason why travelers would partake in both short and long journeys, despite the dangers and difficulties associated with traveling mentioned above. As McCormick notes, documented travelers were overwhelmingly religious in profession with a large proportion being pilgrims. In the case of the ninth-century, especially after Abbot Hilduin of St. Medard of Soissons began the process receiving and placing relics into his monastery around 826, a desire to obtain relics from Rome became highly sought after since Soissons immediately became an importance place of pilgrimage, which many ecclesiastical figures envied. Monasteries needed relics as a religious focus in order for pilgrims to secure their devotion to a particular religious institution and since no new martyrs were being produced, it was necessary to seek the remains of martyrs elsewhere to introduce the cult of sainthood.
This very reason prompted Einhard, in his Translatio, to hire Deusdona, the most popular Carolingian relic thief, to organize long caravan journeys to Italy and obtain a variety of relics. As Geary argues, supplying relics to the Franks from Italy had to be a lucrative task, since any long expedition especially across the Alps was — as mentioned above — a formidable task. Therefore, Einhard’s gift of a mule, some money for Deusdona’s daily expenses and a travel companion (Ratleig) had to be only a modest portion of what was actually given. From a legislative perspective, the general capitulary for the missi issued in 802 ensured that traveling pilgrims are given special treatment and perhaps suggests that pilgrims may have packed less: “We ordain that no one in all our kingdom, whether rich or poor, should dare to deny hospitality to pilgrims; that is, no one should refuse a roof, a hearth and water to any pilgrims who are traveling the country in the service of God, or to anyone who is journeying for love of God or for the salvation of his soul.” And since it was widely understood that relics were the main channel through which supernatural healing powers could help the needs of anyone and that communities which possessed relics ensured a special divine protection, it was no wonder relic-centred churches such as the one in Seligenstadt attracted large crowds of pilgrims.
To enter into the minds of how the Carolingians thought about traveling is no easy task. The examination of an array of primary sources has its limitations. As Marcus Bull points out, primary sources, particularly pertaining to the Middle Ages, are not “neutral tools” which equip us to construct a definitive narrative of the past. As I have tried to demonstrate throughout this paper, I have made presuppositions and inferences from these sources to extrapolate a general sense of how eighth and ninth century contemporaries dealt with and understood the complications of travel such as the change of seasons, weather conditions and terrestrial landscapes. In addition, I have concluded that short journeys involved regular hunting journeys and nearby markets for the transportation of goods, while long journeys were considered to take over 20 days, required travel accompaniment and sufficient packing. The Carolingians also issued specific capitularies to improve the efficacy and convenience of travel, which corroborates the effective means of communication for administering a large empire. Although we cannot truly and fully understand how the Carolingians thought of traveling, the analyzed primary sources can still illuminate how military conquests, pilgrims, trade and relic translations predominated travel and provide us with some insight on how they were understood.
Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
Einhard. Vita Karoli Magni. Translated by Paul Edward Dutton. In Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard. Peterborough, 1998.
— — — . Translatio et miracula sanctorum Marcellini et Petri. Translated by Paul Edward Dutton. In Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard. Peterborough, 1998.
— — — . Vita Karoli Magni. Translated by Samuel Epes Turner. In Readings in Medieval History: Volume I. Edited by Patrick J. Geary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
— — — . The Collected Letters. Translated by Paul Edward Dutton. In Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard. Peterborough, 1998.
Royal Frankish Annals. Translated by Bernhard W. Scholz and Barbara Rogers. In Carolingian Chronicles: The Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, 35–125. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970.
Selected Capitularies. In Readings in Medieval History: Volume 1. Edited by Patrick J. Geary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
Secondary Sources:
Costambeys, Mario, Matthew Innes and Simon MacLean. The Carolingian World. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Bull, Marcus. Thinking Medieval: An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.
Geary, Patrick J. Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
— — — . Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Gravel, Martin. Distances, rencontres, communications: réaliser l’empire sous Charlemagne et Louis le Pieux. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.
McCormick, Michael. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
McKitterick, Rosamond. Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Southern, Richard. Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages. Harmondsworth: 1970.
Wickham, Chris. The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400–1000. New York: Penguin, 2009.
