Los Sistemas De Comunicación En Aragón En La Edad Media: Una Revisión

Abstract

This work wants to be a critical revision of the topic, we shall treat it only very limitedly. The attention is focused on historic factors that affect the line of communication roads, more particularly peopling and urban development. Antecedents of medieval infrastructure network are briefly exposed, with special notice to the breaking off manifested by the formation of the Muslim society from the VIIIth till the XIth century and the division of the nowadays Aragonese region in two socio-cultural areas quite different from each other, the christian part and the muslim zone. The main roads of three important geographic areas are described in details: the north, more concretely the Aragonese section of the pilgrims'road to Saint James (Santiago de Compostela); the Ebro Valley and the south-east area. As a conclusion, we propose a reflection about relations between communication sys­tems and public power, on the base of juridic norms relative to the fueros -or pri­vileges of a town- and other official texts.