I've been playing a ton of Europa Universalis 4 lately, which covers the time period between 1444 and 1821. It's got me wondering, especially in Western and Central Europe, how legal immigration was handled between countries, duchies, principalities, etc.
To give a bit more specificity, take this example scenario: In 1650, you are a French craftsman that specializes in, say, blacksmithing. You've heard that blacksmiths are in high demand across the border in the Holy Roman Empire, so you decide to pack up your family and move. What would you need to do as far as getting legal permission to go into another established nation? Would there be any concept of legal citizenship at this time? Would you need any governmental documents? How would you settle into your new town in the HRE and avoid being deported to France or involuntarily pressed into the Imperial Army?
I realize this topic may be pretty broad, but I'm not looking for in-depth detail here. What I'm looking for is a general overview of some of the more common methods of immigration and how it was handled between the major powers (eg France, England, HRE) prior to the development of modern systems using passports and governmental departments regulating immigration. Any sources would be very welcome as well!
Migration of skilled labour was reasonably common in early modern Europe. (Edit: this is NOT why they are known as journeymen - see below!) Guilds organized most aspects of skilled labour, including the mobility of journeymen across regions. Some of this migration was seasonal, based on demand for skilled labour at particular times of year or for particular projects. Some of it was permanent, with masters establishing shops in new towns. (I rely here on a quick skim of Reinhold Reith's chapter in Epstein and Prak, Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400–1800.) I would suspect that guild membership would have been enough to get you past the city gates, as guilds were frequently influential in the governance of towns, directly or indirectly. You would certainly be punished for practicing a trade without the sanction of the appropriate guild.
Citizenship, in this time, was not a thing assigned to everyone at birth. It was a restricted thing which meant membership in the corporate entity of a city, which entitled you to a voice in its governance, as well as responsibilities to serve in armies and pay taxes and so on. Different cities had different rules about citizenship, and some cities had no citizenship at all. But territorial citizen-states (the "nation-state") that afforded broad citizenship at birth and policed their borders directly were not a thing until much later than 1650. The Holy Roman Empire in particular was an extremely loose political entity, and control over such matters as skilled labour was regulated by its constituent parts: the cities, principalities, bishoprics, kingdoms, dukedoms, and so on.
Being pressed into military service, meanwhile, was just a fact of life. States were not terribly picky about violating "rights" which only became even nominally universal after Napoleon. The major protections people had against this sort of arbitrary conscription was the influence of any corporations (church, guild, city, nobility) they belonged to, or the threat of outright revolt.
Heilbroner briefly touches on this topic in "The Worldly Philosophers". Basically, at that moment in time, people didn't behave economically in a way that would make skilled immigration possible.
Edit: Typo.