How did people in medieval Europe move logs and other big loads without paved roads?

by [deleted]

Nowadays you see trucks moving massive logs on paved roads. It seems impossible to move logs that big without paved roads. How did they do this in the Middle Ages? Wouldn't the wheels get stuck in the mud? This wouldn't work well if you dragged them with horses or oxen either.

y_sengaku

(Added): Tl;dr: The significance of river transport in pre-modern Europe is sometimes very underestimated.

Do you have any idea where medieval Europeans cut trees down before the import from other countries became common in the 20th century?

Probably somewhere in the forest near mountainous area.

Then, what connects the mountain with the densely populated lowland?

So, the simplest way to transport the log from the mountain was by the river networks.

The basic process (since the 12th or the 13th centuries) is as following:

  1. Some lumberjacks cut the tree in the mountain, and brought them to the river bank in the upstream.
  2. Either in form of logs or the raft made of logs, cut wood were to be discharged into the river. As for the latter, I suppose that the hired sailor (s) to control the raft often accompanied on the raft to the downstream.
  3. Other persons like city officials or private wood merchants salvaged the discharged logs or rafts on the certain points like a specialized facility on the river bank in the downstream near major cities.
  4. It is also important to keep the water level of river flow steady in order not to jam the river with discharged logs and rafts. They had sometimes also built dams or some facilities like a canal in/ along the river to control water flows for this purpose since the Later Middle Ages.
  5. There was always a danger, however, especially when the extreme weather (not so rare in Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe) induced the flood that flushed the discharged logs and rafts to the fields along the river networks........

Major cities in southern Germany (Bavaria) or Switzerland sometimes either purchased the land of the forest area in the upstream area of the river that went down to their city, or concluded a contract with the lumberjacks in the upstream mountains to achieve the stable supply of wood resources to the city that was important not only as building materials, but also as firewood. They also appointed special city officials to take care of these supplies.

(Added): This is an illustration of the raft discharging in Upper Rhein in ca. 1600.

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