Salt
“Tacitus wrote in the first century A.D. that the Germanic tribes believed the gods listened more attentively to prayers if they were uttered in a salt mine. But many of those mines had been destroyed or closed down in the warfare that followed the disintegration of Rome. As in France, the medieval Church reopened them. Monasteries were often located on the sites of ancient mines so that the salt could provide revenue.Under the direction of the Church, salt mining boomed in the Middle Ages in th...e Alpine area from Bavaria into Austria. In Bavaria, Berchtesgaden and adjacent Reichenhall; across the Austrian border, Hallein, Hallstatt, Ischl, and Aussee were all mining the same underground bed of salt. The Austrian part became known as the Salzkammergut, the salt mother lode, a region of salt mines below green, pine-covered mountains and deep blue lakes. In the winter, the steep pine forests were completely white with snow, but underground the temperature in the mines remained moderate.Underground springs provided brine that could be boiled into salt crystals.MoreLess
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