"Disciplines such as Physics, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine have contributed very interesting scientific discoveries that help society to progress. Nevertheless, today we find interdisciplinary research groups which are becoming the big tendency. Humanities are also participating in these scientific debates." This was stated by David Gary Shaw, a professor of medieval history at Wesleyan University(USA) within the framework of a seminar organized by the project ‘Religion and Civil Society' at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), under the title ‘The Public Way and the Common Good. Religion and Travel in Medieval England. '

Professor Shaw focused on the relationship between religion and the development of a terrestrial communications network in the seventh and eighth centuries in England. "When the first laws and customs regarding the roads appeared, the king was the maximum protector of road safety, but the Church also played an important role. Monasteries and convents gave shelter and food to travelers," he said.

Different laws and customs in different periods

According to Professor Shaw, the church played an important role in the impulse of the terrestrial communications infrastructures, partially due to the penitential indulgencies. "The pilgrims and clergymen traveled unarmed. Therefore, the Church was involved since the beginning regarding their protection," he said.

David Gary Shaw said that his Research is centered on medieval history because he was always interested in studying how, within the same cultural continuity such as in the case of Europe, there are radically different laws and customs. As a curiosity, he gave the following example, which differs greatly from the current reality: "In the seventh century there was an Anglo-Saxon law that said that if someone is left the main road and went into the woods without a horn, the people of the village could kill him."