| Abstract | Paper -a:
The paper discusses the nature and understanding of roads in late medieval Finland and the Swedish realm as an infrastructure superimposed by the crown to the care of local landowning peasants and as a public space of interaction in which the private safety of the travellers was contested not only by the fellow travellers but also by the actual infrastructure of the road and seasonal aspects of the environment. In medieval and early modern Finland various kinds of roads and routes presented an important means for local, regional, and transregional contacts and was continuously in use of both the administration and people. Ever since the 1340's law code of King Magnus Eriksson certain categories of common roads also built up a judicial space where offences against fellow travellers were to be sentenced more severely than elsewhere. A further extension of the public space of a common road were taverns and inns, certain features of which were even regulated through the legislation and ordinances of the crown.
Paper -b:
During the Middle Ages, Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Baltic Sea Region. This paper explores on the basis of guild statutes and craft ordinances how the common language enabled the travelling of ideas, knowledge, goods, and people. A comparative analysis of regulations from various towns shows that they were quite similar across the Baltic area. This is an example of how legal and economical know-how travelled to and between the Hanseatic Cities. From the ordinances we find also evidence how people, merchants, artisans, and journeymen, travelled abroad.
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