Medieval Communication Networks in the Central Eastern Alps: Some Trend Lines.

The article focuses particularly on the southern slopes of the Alps. Methodologically, it starts from the notion of “area of a route” (area di strada) developed about 30 years ago by Giuseppe Sergi. Adopting this perspective, it relates each route to the political, economic and social history of the areas through which it passes. From a chronological point of view the article is divided into two parts. The first – entitled The Early Middle Ages: from fragmentation to unity - reconstructs the variousphases that took place in the Early Middle Ages, with particular attention to the Carolingian age, when the Alps were subjected to a single political authority. The second part – entitled The High and Late Middle Ages: towards a new political fragmentation - highlights how the end of the Carolingian Empire meant the simultaneous end of a political unity in the Alps. The article highlights, however, that the “vertical strips” which split the Empire after the Treaty of Verdun (843) and traversed the Alps continued to unite the northern and southern sides of the mountains at the regional level, centred around the main Alpine crossings. In this perspective, the article analyses the context in which the Reschen and the Brenner Pass gradually became more strategically important, a process which really took off from the middle of the 10th century. The article then explains how the political fragmentation of the Alps would have a profound effect on mobility and its safety, thus increasing trade traffic and other economic activities.