{"id":1845094,"date":"2025-10-27T10:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T14:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1845094"},"modified":"2025-10-27T10:28:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T14:28:20","slug":"a-street-map-of-early-modern-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/10\/a-street-map-of-early-modern-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"A Street Map of Early Modern Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Viabundus<\/a> is an online map of medieval Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Viabundus is a freely accessible online street map of late medieval and early modern northern Europe (1350-1650). Originally conceived as the digitisation of Friedrich Bruns and Hugo Weczerka’s Hansische Handelsstra\u00dfen<\/em> (1962) atlas of land roads in the Hanseatic area, the Viabundus map moves beyond that. It includes among others: a database with information about settlements, towns, tolls, staple markets and other information relevant for the pre-modern traveller; a route calculator; a calendar of fairs; and additional land routes as well as water ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viabundus is a work in progress. Currently, it contains a rough digitisation of the land routes from\u00a0Hansische Handelsstra\u00dfen<\/em>, as well as a thoroughly researched road network for the current-day Netherlands, Denmark, the German states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hesse and North Rhine-Westfalia, and parts of Poland (Pomerania, Royal Prussia, Greater Poland). The pre-modern road network of Denmark will be added soon; the inclusion of other regions is currently being planned.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What features would an online map service have, if online map services existed in early modern Europe? Something like this. I tried the route calculator: I found that it would take me approximately 20 days to get from Frankfurt to Antwerp on horseback in 1500. (It\u2019s about four and a half hours by car today, per Google Maps.) People who write historical fiction set Europe in this time period ought to be all over this. [MetaFilter<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viabundus is an online map of medieval Europe. Viabundus is a freely accessible online street map of late medieval and early modern northern Europe (1350-1650). Originally conceived as the digitisation of Friedrich Bruns and Hugo… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[{"did":"did:plc:hhxrnk4vub7jtlcl3ve26kjo","date":"2025-10-27T14:28:23+00:00","uri":"at:\/\/did:plc:hhxrnk4vub7jtlcl3ve26kjo\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3m46mv4wwcc2p","response":"{\"uri\":\"at:\/\/did:plc:hhxrnk4vub7jtlcl3ve26kjo\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3m46mv4wwcc2p\",\"cid\":\"bafyreibruprmxsj2o2n7o3fii3itxifpdz3tqbxvidwiuwebyuuy65f6fa\",\"commit\":{\"cid\":\"bafyreifsmm2uqk6rkdxnvow6gy3gxcmfry5ppscqqg5clijnyj3q543j5e\",\"rev\":\"3m46mv4xb222p\"},\"validationStatus\":\"valid\"}"}],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,114],"tags":[548],"class_list":["post-1845094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-history","category-web-mapping","tag-europe","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1816243,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/06\/new-books-on-early-modern-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1845094,"position":0},"title":"New Books on Early Modern Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 June 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"Three books that have come out or are coming out this year that deal with maps of early modern Europe: Navigations: The Portuguese Discoveries and the Renaissance by Malyn Newitt (Reaktion, 24 Apr). \u201cNavigations re-examines the Portuguese voyages of discovery by placing them in their medieval and Renaissance settings. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5651,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/08\/here-be-blank-spaces\/","url_meta":{"origin":1845094,"position":1},"title":"My New Article on Fantasy Maps: ‘Here Be Blank Spaces’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"26 August 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"My short essay on fantasy maps, \"Here Be Blank Spaces: Vaguely Medieval Fantasy Maps\" appears in issue #300 of The New York Review of Science Fiction, out today. I wrote it in response to several books I read rather closely together earlier this year: Reinhart's Art of the Map, Van\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1785987,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/07\/another-caricature-map-of-modern-europe\/","url_meta":{"origin":1845094,"position":2},"title":"Another Caricature Map of Modern Europe","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 July 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DaveyCartoons\/status\/1008606643708481536 In December 2016 cartoonist Andy Davey\u00a0created, for a private client, a modern-day \"serio-comic\" map of Europe in the style of the caricature maps that proliferated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Now he's created another one in the same style, this one even better than the last:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1808941,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/09\/the-idea-of-north\/","url_meta":{"origin":1845094,"position":3},"title":"The Idea of North","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 September 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"Thony Christie explores the question of why north is at the top of modern maps by looking in detail at medieval and early modern maps, which had no consensus. \u201cI think that the re-emergence of the Ptolemaic world map at the beginning of the fifteenth century and the development of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1805414,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2021\/11\/max-schorms-modern-caricature-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1845094,"position":4},"title":"Max Sch\u00f6rm’s Modern Caricature Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"14 November 2021","format":"link","excerpt":"Max Sch\u00f6rm has resurrected the art of caricature maps (maps where countries are made to look like people, animal or other objects; they were a regular feature of propaganda maps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries). 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Combined, its 11 sheets form a scroll\u00a06.82 metres\u00a0long and only 34 centimetres wide, with territories elongated\u00a0beyond modern recognition; it\u00a0was basically the classical period's equivalent of a TripTik or Beck network\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"peutinger-part","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/peutinger-part-1024x489.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/peutinger-part-1024x489.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/peutinger-part-1024x489.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/peutinger-part-1024x489.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1845094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845095,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845094\/revisions\/1845095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1845094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1845094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1845094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}