You know, not just Germanic and Celtic peoples, but Greeks, Romans, I think even Carthaginians, and old Israelites. Here is good old wiki on the passports in the West:
In the 12th century, the Republic of Genoa issued a document called Bulletta, which was issued to the nationals of the Republic who were traveling to the ports of the emporiums and the ports of the Genoese colonies overseas, as well as to foreigners who entered them.
King Henry V of England is credited with having invented what some consider the first British passport in the modern sense, as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands. The earliest reference to these documents is found in a 1414 Act of Parliament.[13][14] In 1540, granting travel documents in England became a role of the Privy Council of England, and it was around this time that the term "passport" was used. In 1794, issuing British passports became the job of the Office of the Secretary of State.[13] In the Holy Roman Empire, the 1548 Imperial Diet of Augsburg required the public to hold imperial documents for travel, at the risk of permanent exile.[15]
In 1791, Louis XVI masqueraded as a valet during his Flight to Varennes as passports for the nobility typically included a number of persons listed by their function but without further description.[8]:31–32
A Pass-Card Treaty of October 18, 1850 among German states standardized information including issuing state, name, status, residence, and description of bearer. Tramping journeymen and jobseekers of all kinds were not to receive pass-cards.[8]:92–93
Before World War I, in most situations only adult males could receive a passport; their family members were written in their passport if they traveled with them. Even if a married woman had her own passport, she could not use it without her husband present.[16]:93–94
The Bible mentions Artaxerxes giving a passport, but Persia is the East. Arthashastra, could be by Chanakya, a Brahmin of Chandragupta. Passports in Arthashastra seem to be about the countryside being treated as a restricted access area.
Passports were an important part of the Chinese bureaucracy as early as the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD), if not in the Qin dynasty.
I think China counts as the East. And, I'll cite in full the last instance before these European ones:
In the medieval Islamic Caliphate, a form of passport was the bara'a, a receipt for taxes paid. Only people who paid their zakah (for Muslims) or jizya (for dhimmis) taxes were permitted to travel to different regions of the Caliphate; thus, the bara'a receipt was a "basic passport".
So, the idea was not even to protect sovereign territory, it was to keep people in place ...
Here is the chapter modern development cited:
A rapid expansion of railway infrastructure and wealth in Europe beginning in the mid-nineteenth century led to large increases in the volume of international travel and a consequent unique dilution of the passport system for approximately thirty years prior to World War I. The speed of trains, as well as the number of passengers that crossed multiple borders, made enforcement of passport laws difficult. The general reaction was the relaxation of passport requirements.[17] In the later part of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, passports were not required, on the whole, for travel within Europe, and crossing a border was a relatively straightforward procedure. Consequently, comparatively few people held passports.
During World War I, European governments introduced border passport requirements for security reasons, and to control the emigration of people with useful skills. These controls remained in place after the war, becoming a standard, though controversial, procedure.
So, the footnotes are 8, 13—17, and these read, omitting some links:
Torpey, John (2018). The Invention of the Passport.
A brief history of the passport Archived 2019-10-09 at the Wayback Machine – The Guardian
Casciani, Dominic (2008-09-25). "Analysis: The first ID cards". BBC. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
John Torpey, Le contrôle des passeports et la liberté de circulation. Le cas de l'Allemagne au XIXe siècle, Genèses, 1998, n° 1, pp. 53–76
Bixby, Patrick (2023). License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-39789-7.
One of the references to John Torpey is:
The transition from private to state control over movement was an essential aspect of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Communal obligations to provide poor relief were an important source of the desire for controls on movement.
So, partly, in the West, the passport is a byproduct of social services. Here is a question: if someone enters your country without a passport and doesn't ask municipalities for help, what wrong is then done to the country?
In a proposed film project which Tolkien finally didn't approve, Frodo fills in ledgers in the Prancing Pony.
Tolkien replied "ledgers? what for? there wasn't any police, there weren't any passports" meaning obviously in the fictional setting the adaptation was going to reproduce. However, that fictional setting, though chronologically very much older (than actual time) was not socially more rudimentary than the Roman Empire or even the Byzantine Empire. Eriador, the larger region where the Shire and Bree are set (with the Prancing Pony being an inn in Bree), was once part of Arnor, which was one of the divisions of the Numenorean states. And that in some significant ways corresponds to Roman or Byzantine Empire. Which Tolkien, as a scholar and Medieval aficionado, knew pretty well.
Going over Quora answers, it seems Rome indeed didn't use passports in the usual sense, however, whereever you locally resided as citizen of the city state (including Rome or up to AD 79 Pompeii), you would be registered. But there were no police watching over the city, the citizens actually were doing duty as watchmen.
It seems things became more complicated with railways and steamboats ... Interpol was founded after 1918, after Roman Emperors were no more ruling in Vienna or St. Petersburg!
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Martin's Day
11.XI.2025
Turonis, in Gallia, natalis beati Martini, Episcopi et Confessoris; cujus vita tantis exstitit miraculis gloriosa, ut trium mortuorum suscitator esse meruerit.
