Page 180 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Margareth Lanzinger

so-called ‘Wirtstabernen’ and ‘Tabernwirte,’ who had to ‘hang out a fixed
sign’ (Heiss 2001, 21; Peyer 1987, 231–2) and welcome all guests, ‘regardless
of whether they were well-paying customers or craftsmen and farmers,’
itinerant traders or carters, were of the highest social and economic im-
portance. The legal status and the ‘contract obligation’ associated with
these inns placed them at the service of the local population, but also of
transit traffic, which was extremely important both for the regional econo-
my and for provincial revenues in the early modern period (Heiss 2001, 21).
In Innsbruck, 23 of the almost 50 innkeepers in 1775 were ‘shield’ or Tabern
innkeepers; Bolzano even recorded ‘100 permanent businesses,’ and Brix-
en, with a population of around 2,500, had 25 inns (Heiss 2001, 22–3).
Other small towns such as Klausen or Sterzing also had a considerable
number of inns along the main road. The territorial lords, the sovereigns,
or the bishop issued the trade licence, the so-called ‘Gerechtigkeit.’ These
licences were attached to the house and were inherited or sold with it (De-
rix and Lanzinger 2017, 3–4).
The scattered references in older works suggest that the volume of goods
transported was still considerable in the eighteenth century. In the 1950s,
Otto Stolz attempted to approximate the volume of goods transported on
the Brenner route. He assumed 10,000 tonnes for the year 1730 and 19,000
tonnes for 1800 (Stolz 1953, 149; critical Hassinger 1969). The commercial
tables (Commerzialtabellen)are available from 1775 (Moioli 1984). A first
sample from the Klausen customs register for 1750 shows that in that year
atotalofalmost30,000wagonhorsespassedthrough theKlausencustoms
station, located on the Brenner route between Brixen and Bozen, trans-
porting large quantities of various goods (diöab, zrk 1750).

Inns and Innkeepers on Transit Routes

Taverns and inns on the transit routes provided food and accommodation
for travellers, carters and merchants and varied in size. They provided shel-
ter and food for horses and often also had shelters for means of transport
and storage facilities. In most casestheyalsoincludedfarms with some
land holdings. It can therefore be assumed that innkeepers were highly
pluriactive. The concept of pluriactivity is also a good way of describing this
social milieu because it focuses on rural societies, but it can also be used
in a broader sense. Here it is used in the more open Italian interpretation,
which understands it as the interaction of different sectors, not necessari-
ly – as in the French model – additional activities to primarily agricultural

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