Via Regia

Via Regia, i.e. "Royal Highway", denotes a medieval historic road. The term, in the usual sense, means not just a specific road, rather a type of road. It was legally associated with the king and remained under his special protection and guarantee of public peace.

There were many such roads in the Holy Roman Empire e.g. the King's road from Menzlin to Wismar in present-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was the "most significant East-West road in the north" of the mediæval west Slavic Lutici settlement areas. The best known Via Regia, from the Rhine river via Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig (where it intersected the Via Imperii) to Silesia, with time, came to be called Via Regia itself. In 2005 it was awarded the title of a European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe.