How did (riverine) toll castles operate?
Upvote:2
There are two issues at work here, economics and power.
The first is economics. Yes, in theory, it was possible for merchants to use alternate routes or take evasive actions, but in practice, this was impractical. The tolls were typically a small fraction of the value of the cargo, collected many times. The cost of the evasive action would be a much higher fraction of the cargo. (Tolls were typically set at less than the cost of the nearest alternative.) Most people would rather pay a smaller, rather than larger fraction of the same.
The second is power. A warlord who could afford to build a castle was a very rich and powerful person indeed. Having built the castle, it was a simple matter to construct a "toll booth." Most merchants (other than e.g. Jacob Fugger), were less powerful than most castle owners.
Who would likely win in a showdown? Basically only a sovereign entity had greater power than the average castle keeper. Or a quasi-sovereign person (Fugger was the official lender to the Holy Roman Emperor, which made him the "J.P. Morgan" of his time and place.)
More post
- 📝 Did a capital ship ever hit anything with a torpedo?
- 📝 Were Jews cut off from the Babylonian Geonim?
- 📝 What was the most accurate map of the world before artificial satellites?
- 📝 If the nazi is a far-right party, why is it socialist?
- 📝 Diaries or writings of Cathar Perfecti in 12th Century France
- 📝 How advanced were the people of Indus valley civilization in engineering?
- 📝 How many crew for the LT vz 38?
- 📝 Are there historical examples of non-Christian martyrs who were persecuted and killed because they claimed to be firsthand eyewitnesses of a miracle?
- 📝 Did Germans and Soviets count casualties differently at the Battle of Kursk?
- 📝 What was the point of the Babylonian captivity?
- 📝 Can anybody identify the cap-badge and/or uniform in this image?
- 📝 Is it correct that many historical resources about Islam are written by Muslims?
- 📝 How has Chinese GDP as a percentage of world GDP changed over time and why?
- 📝 How did people cut "pieces of eight"?
- 📝 What options were available to MacArthur to prepare for Chinese intervention in the Korean War?
- 📝 How close did Germany come to interdicting Soviet oil shipments from the Caucasus in 1942?
- 📝 Why was Luodian important in the Battle of Shanghai?
- 📝 How can I find my father’s regiment number on his honorable discharge papers?
- 📝 What kind of missile flew with such speed in 1st century BCE?
- 📝 Could the anti-Napoleonic forces have done better by uniting earlier before Waterloo?
- 📝 Why didn't Emperor Gaozu of Tang let Crown Prince Li Jiancheng command battles more often?
- 📝 What was the ratio of German to Soviet losses on Eastern front during different stages of the war?
- 📝 What are some instances of professional army funding being stolen in full?
- 📝 Organizing the 1788 presidential and congressional elections
- 📝 Was pie crust originally meant for throwing away in England?
- 📝 Medieval farmer's metal tools
- 📝 What makes a war be classified as a "world" war?
- 📝 Why did the "Ruthenians" break up into "Belarusians" and "Ukrainians?"
- 📝 Inflation After Executive Order 6102 (FDR Leaving GoldStandard)
- 📝 Copper and Bronze Age Burials in Western Europe
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did (riverine) toll castles operate?
- 📝 How did cities operate in medieval times?
- 📝 How did himuros operate for storing and transporting ice in Heian Japan?
- 📝 How did destroyers protecting convoys operate in bad weather during WWII?
- 📝 During and right after the French Revolution, how did France maintain and operate such a big army all over Europe?
- 📝 How did people distinguish slaves from free people in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
- 📝 How did Israel win the Six-Day War?
- 📝 How did Nazi Germany finance itself during WW2?
- 📝 How did the general population of England convert so smoothly to Protestantism?
- 📝 How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
- 📝 How did the Romans do division?
- 📝 How did 300,000 people survive the 3 1/2 year siege of Sarajevo?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 How did they cook on ancient ships?
- 📝 How did people wash dishes before dish detergent?
- 📝 How did pilots know when to release bombs on airplanes during World War2?
- 📝 How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
- 📝 How did such a relatively minor event as the assassination of an archduke start World War I?
- 📝 How did German unification affect existing sentences for criminal convicts?
- 📝 How did the Roman state verify citizenship?
- 📝 When and how did people begin to consider slavery immoral?
- 📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
- 📝 How did the ancient Romans count with their fingers?
- 📝 How did passengers keep warm on sail ships?
- 📝 How did Italy and Germany get rubber in WWII?
- 📝 How did Genghis Khan's army feed so many horses?
- 📝 Transatlantic Zeppelin trips usually took > 100 hours. How did they stock enough food, and where did they sleep?
- 📝 Did active frontiersmen really eat 20,000 calories a day? How does this compare to other highly-active people in recorded history?
- 📝 How did Medieval armies survive the use of mail armor in the deserts of the Middle East?