Customs, Trade and Transport in the Eastern Alps

In 1987, the book "Geschichte des Zollwesens, Handels und Verkehrs in den östlichen Alpenländern vom Spätmittelalter bis in die zweite Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts" by Herbert Hassinger was published. It is the fifth volume of the series "Deutsche Zolltarife des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit", which is edited by the Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. At the same time, it is the first of three volumes dealing with the above topic and containing an analysis of the customs and customs tariffs in Salzburg and western Carinthia as well as a discussion of the general history of trade and traffic in these regions. As Herbert Hassinger suddenly died in 1992, the project shall continue and complete the work already begun by the author for the second and third volume. What is to be done is to register and analyse the customs and customs tariffs in eastern Carinthia, parts of Styria and the alpine areas of Upper and Lower Austria, in particular along the main route across the Pyhrn and the Semmering passes connecting Italy with the northern foreland of the Alps. The detailed analysis following to a large extent the methods applied by Hassinger will be followed by a more general and summarizing description of trade and traffic in the eastern Alps. Besides covering regional interests, the study will thus contribute to a better understanding of the so called western and central European "Sonderweg" leading to the industrialization of later centuries, which strongly benefitted from a broad preindustrial trade and by a subsequently dense network of roads.

The research work following the monography "Geschichte des Zollwesens, Handels und Verkehrs in den östlichen Alpenländern vom Spätmittelalter bis in die zweite Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts", published in 1987 by Herbert Hassinger, was concentrated on capturing and analysing the customs duties and tariffs in eastern Carinthia, parts of Styria and the alpine parts of Upper and Lower Austria. There was a special focus on the streets that crossed the Pyhrn and the Semmering thus connecting Italy on the one side with the northern foothills of the Alps on the other. The basis used for this research was an extensive collection of handwritten notes of Herbert Hassinger. During the first phase, the goal of the work was the systematic capturing of secondary literature published since 1987 in order to complete the source material. In addition to this it was tried to get an overview of the latest research results concerning the relevant trade routes. The main focus of the following research work was turned on getting orientation in the source material captured by Hassinger. This source material was incorporated critically by Hassinger only rarely and came only handwritten. It was mostly organized by customs offices without paying attention to the course of trade routes. The original sources that had been captured and documented in short excerpts by Hassinger originated from the Hofkammerarchiv (Vienna) , the Landesarchiv für Niederösterreich (St. Pölten), the Viennese Stadt- und Landesarchiv, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Stadtarchiv Wiener Neustadt and the Stadtarchiv Neunkirchen (Lower Austria), the Steiermärkische Landesarchiv in Graz, the Kärntner Landesarchiv in Klagenfurt and its Ständisches Archiv and the according Herrschafts-, Stadt- und Marktarchive and finally, for Upper Austria, mainly from the Steyrer Stadtarchiv and the Linzer Landesarchiv. The collection of merely handwritten and disordered notes for the regions that were dealt with in this project varied very much in quality and quantity of the material. Thus it was possible to deduce documents and data that could be made use of relatively easily for the regions of Styria, Carinthia and Upper Austria, while more extensive research was still necessary for Lower Austria. Subsequent to the supplementing of the material collected by Hassinger it was tried to evaluate and present the sources with regard to the main trade routes considering the special Western and Central European development towards industrialisation, a development that profited from extensive pre- industrial trading connected with that a narrow net of traffic routes.