Country roads and town roads in Wallachia between the 17^th and the 18^th century 

 

Laurenţiu Rădvan

  

    This paper focuses on the issue of roads in Wallachia, regardless of whether they linked towns or were internal to them. Roads throughout the country borrowed their name from the river whose valley they shared or of the town and the region which was their final point. Not all roads had the same status. There was a hierarchy of land routes, a hierarchy known to rulers, as well as to boyars, merchants or commoners. The “main road” was the one connecting one town to the other and which led into neighboring countries (in the mountains, they would often narrow into a path). It had a public road status, in the medieval sense of the term, which meant that it was under the authority of the prince, who supervised it and granted free access. Local roads were the next to follow in this hierarchy, since they linked villages and are often indicated at the border of estates. The relatively dense road network in Wallachia did not boast excellent conditions, since its maintenance was not permanent. Except for the ancient Roman road on the Olt valley, built from stone, all roads, large or minor, were made of earth. These roads were permanently affected by weather conditions. This situation may also be explained by the way the medieval state was organized, since its roads were not a priority, but was also due to the fact that the technology of the time was not so advanced as to allow roads to be built out of stone. The ruling house valued roads only inasmuch as they represented a source of income. The study identifies in detail the main routes followed by the major roads of the country, with significant junctions at Bucharest and Craiova.

    Town roads were referred to as “uliţă” in the Romanian area, a word derived from Old Slavonic. In the beginning, roads did not have a specific name, since they were located by landmarks nearby: churches, the marketplace or the residence of the prince. From the 17^th century on, major streets are named according to their orientation or to features specific to the neighborhood. Whereas minor streets were made of earth, with their condition subject to all changes in weather, major streets were covered with wood planks, hence their second name, that of “poduri” - “bridges” (planked streets). Documents reveal that two town officials would handle administrative issues of the day, with planked streets being under their jurisdiction: the great aga (marele agă) and the great spatar (marele spătar); one supervised the town center, the other, the purlieus. The two relied on a company of bridge workers, recruited from certain villages, to repair planked streets. Maintenance costs were covered by taxing goods entering the town.