15 Introduction than mobility, in historical research of the previous century.9 Currently this is changing. Scholars advancing the ‘mobility turn’ have questioned the focus on fixity, location and space and argued that it has obscured the importance of mobility in understanding human societies.10 Originally the ‘mobility turn’ stressed that mobility was essential to understand contemporary societies, demonstrating that mobility organises and transforms contemporary societies.11 Certainly, today it is possible to cover vast distances in very little time that are unparalleled in earlier human history, and the current high degree of mobility of people and goods is evidently shaping and transforming societies. The ease and affordability of covering vast distances is not to be compared with mobility in pre-modern societies. Nevertheless, in past societies people moved too, albeit for different reasons, at different speed and in different circumstances. While aspects of travel and the role of mobility in the Eastern Roman Empire have not been ignored completely in earlier research, a resurge of interest may be seen since the early 2000s.12 In these efforts the assumption of low levels of mobility for pre-modern societies has been questioned.13 Additionally, corresponding to insights from the mobility turn, more attention is given to the essential role of mobility in structuring and transforming society in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean.14 In the early scholarly efforts to reevaluate the role of mobility, mobility has been claimed as a defining characteristic of the Mediterranean, or for particular regions within it.15 9 Leary (2014), p. 4; For the same shift in focus from fixity to mobility in anthropology, see Adey et al. (2014), p. 3. 10 The ‘mobility turn’ was identified in 2006 in the first issue of the journal Mobilities, which seeks to ‘address this emerging attention to many different kinds of mobility’. Hannam et al. (2006), p. 2. 11 For example, on the structuring role of mobility for a ‘network society’, the editors of the first issue of Mobilities note: ‘mobilities seem to produce a more ‘networked’ patterning of economic and social life, even for those who have not moved’. They also identify various societal and environmental changes that are greatly influenced by increased mobility, illustrating the transformative potential of mobility. Ibid., p. 2. The (critical) observation that the mobility turn is ‘the newest effort in diagnostic descriptions of modern society’ is made in Faist (2013). 12 Studies that have mobility as the central concern of the previous century include for example Dimitroukas (1997); Kislinger (1997); Malamut (1993). The beginning of the second millennium was hallmarked with two impressively extensive publications that have inspired further scholarship on mobility, trade and interconnectedness in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean: Horden and Purcell’ Corrupting Sea and McCormick’s Origins of European Economy. Moreover, in 2000 a conference on ‘travel in the Byzantine world’ reflected contemporary interest in the topic in the field of Byzantine Studies. Horden and Purcell (2000); McCormick (2001); Macrides (2002). 13 Following the publication of the Corrupting Sea, this debate has especially advanced for earlier Roman history, both furthering and nuancing the conclusions made by Horden and Purcell. For discussions on the prevalence of mobility in antiquity, see e.g., Tacoma (2016); Isayev (2017); Moatti (2019). Also for the medieval period, Peregrine Horden proposes to ‘assume mobility in the medieval past unless or until the evidence invalidates this null hypothesis and demonstrates stasis’. Horden (2007), p. xxxiv. 14 E.g., McCormick (2001); Hoerder (2002), pp. 1–134; Preiser-Kapeller and Mitsiou (2019). 15 Schlesier and Zellmann, for example, note with regard to the Mediterranean world that ‘[f]or ancient Greek culture, mobility seems to be a specific characteristic. The same can be said for the Christian, Judaic and Islamic Middle Ages, but under different or changed circumstances’. Constable, working on fondaco’s or travel hostels from late antiquity until the early modern period, observes how the Mediterranean has always been the ‘realm of travelers’. Paul Oldfield focussed instead on a particular region, southern Italy, and argued that due to its position bordering multiple political entities and the changing borders, this region in particular was characterised by a high degree of mobility. Although his main focus in on later centuries (11th-15th centuries), Pietro Dalena also highlights the many travel movements and facilities in southern Italy. Schlesier and Zellmann (2004), p. 7; Constable (2003), p. 2; Oldfield (2016); Dalena (2003). I
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