Customs castle
A customs castle is a castle that was used to secure and monitor a customs post in the Middle Ages and the early modern period . It was therefore always close to them on important long-distance trade routes such as the Alpine passes or the Middle Rhine . Such a castle was mostly strategically located at border crossings, river crossings or mountain passes so that the collection of customs could not be circumvented, and had armed guards . The actual customs collection point was at their feet on the road or the river and was often connected to the weir system by walls or was developed into a dam . Rivers were also blocked by iron chains, for example at the chain barrier tower St. Martin im Mühlkreis .
Customs castles were subordinate to the respective sovereign or one of them enfeoffed or commissioned vassals or ministerials and, like for example Stahleck Castle above Bacharach am Rhein, usually also performed other administrative and representative tasks. However, there were also pure customs castles, such as B. Karlfried at Zittau or in Rhein preferred Pfalzgrafenstein at Kaub , for the purpose of imposing an Wegzolls or ship duty served. In the Middle Ages there were no border tariffs, only taxes for the use of a certain road or river stretch, or bridge tariffs.
Originally in the hands of the kingship, the right of customs and escort (Latin conductus et theloneum ) was exercised in the Holy Roman Empire as a fief or pledge of the empire or a sovereign of castle landlords who kept a share for themselves was an important source of income. But by no means every castle that arose near a trunk road was endowed with the right of customs and escort; conversely, there were also roads whose rights of escort were tied to a distant castle with the customs revenue. The road tariffs found their justification in the obligation of the customs officers to ensure travel comfort, the maintenance of bridges and paths as well as protection from highwaymen.
When the road toll was levied, however, there were no binding regulations, which is why it was often arbitrary. The transition from customs to robbery (see: robber barons ) was smooth.
literature
- Horst Wolfgang Böhme : Zollurg. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme, Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (Hrsg.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses . Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , p. 272, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Timothy Reuter , The Uncertainty on the Roads in the European Early and High Middle Ages: Perpetrators, Victims and Their Medieval and Modern Viewers . In: Carriers and instruments of peace in the high and late Middle Ages , Sigmaringen 1996