History of Travel Restrictions in Europe

[Oriflamme]

I know this is a bit of a broad topic, but I'm interested in how the various countries of Europe handled freedom of movement, primarily in the 19th Century. For example, if I was a relatively well off Hungarian in Transylvania, how difficult would it be to travel to Vienna, or even further to places like Paris?

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

In the 19th Century? Easy as pie.

There were essentially no travel restrictions across national borders until the First World War. You went somewhere, settled, maybe report your existence at the local police station, and that's that. There was basically no controls until the outbreak of the war. At certain ports (e.g. Ellis island) you might checked for disease, but otherwise came and went as you pleased.

WWI really changed everything. Travel restrictions, IDs, passports, centralized records and bureaucrats were introduced everywhere. There is a beautiful heart-breaking story by Stefan Zweig - "Buchmendel" - about a Russian-born Jewish book dealer in Vienna who got caught up by the outbreak of WWI that plays on this theme.

In the Medieval & Early Modern era, there were lots of controls on internal movement, esp. of the poor, e.g. in-passports needed to enter Paris, out-passports to leave a village or county. But these were locally obtainable on the spot or largely unenforced (the usual "travel restriction" was just to shut the town gates at night). People caught begging were of course were "moved along" by the local magistrates (often after a whipping). Those who requested charity from the parish church (or looked so poor that they were suspected to have that intention) could be reported to the police and be checked if they were natives of the parish or of a "foreign" parish (no documents produced, their names were just checked against in the local church's birth registers). (In pre-modern era, the term "foreigner" meant a person from another parish; a "stranger" was a person from another country; today it is more the reverse).

More serious was an indentured servant, serf or slave, or something like that. He would need to carry around a document proving permission from the master.

Pre-Modern controls between countries were rarer, and often pertained more to preventing your own people from leaving (vid. Louis XVI at Varennes), than the other way around.

 

[Klausewitz]

I know this is a bit of a broad topic, but I'm interested in how the various countries of Europe handled freedom of movement, primarily in the 19th Century. For example, if I was a relatively well off Hungarian in Transylvania, how difficult would it be to travel to Vienna, or even further to places like Paris?

From a legal standpoint, it would relativly easy for you; you are rich, but if you wealth comes from something in Transylvania, you are unlikely to up and leave and reduce the amount of taxes available.
Since you are rich, and therefore no burden to anyone, it is also unlikely that Vienna or paris would object to having you.
How easy you would find the actuall traveling, the tariff regimens, etc. is another question.
And if you are poor or merely well-off the equation changes.
Also note that in unstable times passes and pass restriction would be enforced MUCH more vigirously.
I also assumed you are free-born and not a Jew, e.g. subject to specific laws restricting the travels of Jews or their ability to settle.

 

[Arilou]

Easy as pie. There usualy weren't border controls as we know them, nor ID controls or anything like that. The main issue you might run into would be vagrancy laws, and if you were reasonably well off that wasn't much of a problem. What controls there were (eg. customs etc.) were mainly interested in levying dues on trade goods,a nd didn't care much about people.

Occasionally you'd have a region get all suspicious and try to demand passports for every traveller, but it usualy wasn't national and usually didn't last long. As Abdul says travel restrictions in general is largely a post-WWI thing. (also why all those leftists keep evading the forces of reaction, they just move out of the rang eof the secret police)

Those who requested charity from the parish church (or looked so poor that they were suspected to have that intention) could be reported to the police and be checked if they were natives of the parish or of a "foreign" parish (no documents produced,

At least towards the later period, if you looked like you were fit but still a vagrant you might get put to work, either at the state poorhouse or assigned to someone. But again, that was largely if you looked like a vagrant.