Die Straße

Streets play a decisive role in the framework of any kind of communication – also in the late Middle Ages. They are not only to be seen as routes for traffic and transport, but as a part of public space serving manifold other functions and practices. They were also subject to different judgements, evaluations and connotations, to various norms and controls. This can be shown with the help of a variety of written records, as well as through religious and secular visual images, and other surviving original evidence. Comparative analysis proves adequate and indispensable. The decisive aspects of the street and its social function are to be taken in account in their mutual connections – in the context of representation and prestige, of symbolic and metaphoric significances, of law, order and religion, or of general efforts of improvement and innovation in the period.