Hellweg

Their breadth was decreed as an unimpeded passageway a lance's width, about three metres, which the landholders, through which the Hellweg passed, were required to maintain.

In German scholarship and literature, however, Helweg, i.e. when employed without an adjective, usually refers to the well-researched Westphalian Hellweg, the main road from the region of the lower Rhine east to the mountains of the Teutoburg Forest, linking the imperial cities of Duisburg, at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, and Paderborn, with the slopes of the Sauerland to its south.

[1]The Westphalian Hellweg, as an essential corridor that operated in overland transit of long-distance trade, was used by Charlemagne in his Saxon wars and later was maintained under Imperial supervision.

In the 10th and 11th centuries this Hellweg was the preferred route of the Ottonian and Salian kings and emperors travelling at least yearly between their main estates in Saxony and the imperial city of Aachen, when they were not in Italy or on campaign; very important imperial palaces were located in both Duisburg and Paderborn.

[3] The name Hellweg, connoting the wide "bright" clearway (heller Weg) through the forest, derives from Low German helwech with this same significance.