Oeconomia Alpium II: Economic History of the Alps in Preindustrial Times

Methods and Perspectives of Research

Markus A. Denzel, Andrea Bonoldi, Marie-Claude Schöpfer, Markus A. Denzel, Andrea Bonoldi, Marie-Claude Schöpfer

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9783110519914
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

Roads, Tolls and the Development of Ecclesiastical Institutions in the Alps (400–900)

Katharina Winckler

Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research, Wien

When Christendom became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the year 380, it already relied on an established network of bishoprics that reached into the Alps as well. Notable were the activities of the Bishops Theodul of Sion and Vigilius of Trento (both lived around 400) or the fourth century monastic site and Christian sanctuary at Saint-Maurice d’Agaune. From the fifth century onwards, the Alps were fully divided into bishoprics. In addition, a monastic network had begun to develop. Main Christian centres such as Milan or Lyons and Vienne influenced nearby Alpine valleys.¹

But what were the economic foundations of these Christian institutions and how did they generate income? From the first century on wealthy Christians gave to the Church property, goods or money in order to establish sites for Christian communities. Since Emperor Constantine the Church has been entitled to buy property, and since the fifth century this property (in theory) was inalienable.² In the Alps we also find traces of accumulation of wealth. The evidence starts in the late fourth century. In the middle of the Provencal Alps, where today only sheep are grazing, along a remote road c.10 kilometres north of Sisteron, an inscription is preserved which tells us about Claudius Postumus Dardanus, his brother and his wife. They donated property here in order to build a Theopolis – a city of God. Without doubt, the donation was inspired by the ideas of Saint Augustine, with whom the donators exchanged letters. Unfortunately, only this inscription is left of this community.³ Since the sixth century, income in the form of tithes (decimae) also became common for bishoprics. Our earliest source on this, coincidentally, stems from the Alpine area: in the Vita Severini. But it seems to have been a fixed part of ecclesiastical income only from the Carolingian era on.⁴

In the beginning of the 6^th century the church was already an established economic agent in the Christian reigns of post-Roman Europe. The most important source of income for the ecclesiastical institutions was property, donated by kings, queens, other nobility and free peasants. In the seventh century Gaul bishoprics, churches and monasteries already amassed an enormous amount of land. New research by Ian Wood has confirmed older assumptions that in Merovingian Gaul nearly one third of the land belonged to the Church. In Italy the amount of property seems to have been slightly less, but nevertheless high.⁵ We can also assume that similar conditions were common in the Alpine bishoprics and monasteries.

These possessions and granting of rights were subject to many fluctuations. Kings repeatedly attempted to secularize ecclesiastical land, for instance, the Merovingian King Dagobert (603–639) in the seventh century or the Carolingian major-domo Charles Martel in the early eighth century.⁶ Later Carolingian rulers tried to gain control over formerly autonomous bishoprics, e.g. in the Alpine bishopric Churraetia.⁷ Proprietary churches and monasteries, however, are another topic: these were founded and endowed by members of elite families. Formally, these properties were under the rule of the respective diocese (or monastery), yet the founders and their descendants could still exercise power over these institutions.⁸ In the Early Medieval Alps these for example were monasteries founded by the Burgundian kings (St-Maurice), Bavarian dukes (Mondsee, Kremsmünster)⁹ or several monasteries by the influential Bavarian family of the Huosi, such as Innichen and Scharnitz/Schlehdorf.¹⁰

But the influence of the Church reached beyond property: it also acted as a worldly authority and was granted the right to hold markets and fairs and to collect the tolls from these commercial activities.¹¹ Rulers lend the right to impose taxes and tariffs to the ecclesiastical institutions, and even to have their own jurisdiction and immunitas.¹² In return, the kings and other rulers could expect not only loyalty but also goods and military service: in 817 Louis the Pious ordered that the Alpine monasteries of Novalesa, Mondsee and Tegernsee – among others – had to give dona et militiam. On the north-eastern rim of the mountains Kremsmünster, Mattsee and Benediktbeuren had to deliver goods.¹³ All this served as means for the king, his entourage and his army to cross the Alps. This demonstrates the strong connection of the Alpine ecclesiastical institutions to the road network through the mountains.¹⁴

The roots of these involvements lie also in late Roman administrative toll structures and the survival of parts of the cursus publicus, the Roman system for public messengers.¹⁵ Control over the transalpine routes and passes meant also income through road charges, tolls and maybe also from carrier services (Sauma/Sagma or Marrones/Marruci, see also below at Staffelsee).¹⁶ In the late Roman and the Merovingian successor states, the civitates (in the Roman, administrative sense) were responsible for levying these charges. When the Roman Empire dissolved, the presiding bishop in several areas partly took over the rights and duties of the late Roman administration including the levying of tariffs and taxes.¹⁷ Rightfully this income belonged to the Roman state and its successors, for example the Frankish kings, yet in many cases it was the bishop who managed to gain complete control over this income.¹⁸ Furthermore, the territory and borders of the late antique civitates were transformed often only with minor changes into the diocese of the bishop.¹⁹

The Roman toll system was highly developed and its administrative structure included tolls within the borders of the empire.²⁰ Three major toll districts – Gallia with the quadragesima galliarum,²¹ Illyricum with the portorium illyricum²² and Italia – adjoined in the Alps. This led to a customs frontier stretching from Cemelenum (today Cimiez/Nizza) to Histria (today Slowenia). As we will see, it is not a coincidence, that next to many of these toll stations early medieval bishoprics and monasteries of the Alps were founded and started to flourish.

A location in the Alps also meant that the local ecclesiastical institutions were far away from the centres of power and thus could often act independently. The Merovingian kings of the sixth and seventh centuries, who, in theory, nearly ruled over the whole Alps, were too busy to maintain their power in their immediate vicinity and thus could not take care of the regions at the fringes of the empire. King Dagobert seems to have been the last Merovingian king to have exercised some sort...