Rights of Passage: From Ancient Token to Modern Passport

Rights of Passage: From Ancient Token to Modern Passport

By Mr Ghaz, July 3, 2010

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Rights of Passage: From Ancient Token to Modern Passport

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In order to travel today, everyone crossing national boundaries must have a passport-an official document confirming the bearer’s identity and authorizing that person to move freely from one country to another. A vital document easily taken for granted, the modern passport is younger than the 20th century. Its origins, however, date back thousands of years.

Official Protection

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Before the advent of railroads, passenger ships, and airplanes, few people made international journeys. The merchants and diplomats who did travel carried tokens of recommendation from their rulers. These sometimes took unusual forms. For example, in ancient Egypt official couriers were given a cartouche-a small oblong shield-on which the pharaoh’s name was inscribed; elsewhere in the Middle East, rulers issued a ring bearing the official seal to their envoys.

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Roman emperors came closer to the equivalent of the modern passport by giving envoys certificates of safe conduct throughout the empire and through foreign territories. The blunt wording on a document Caesar Augustus issued to the philosopher Potamon some time in the first century B.C left no doubt as to its importance: “If there be anyone on land or sea hardy enough to molest Potamon, let him consider whether he be strong enough to wage war with Caesar.”

The Dangers of Travel

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In medieval Europe passports took the form of personal letters that a person in authority gave the traveler. The handwritten letters served both as a means of identification and as a guarantee of personal protection.

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In those times travelers of humble means faced many hazards, one of which was the chance of being driven out of a town as a vagrant. As protection against such a fate, pilgrims who journeyed to the religious shrines of Europe carried a kind of passport called a testimoniale, issued by ecclesiastical authorities.

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The 11th century English king Canute took a special interest in the welfare of English pilgrims en route to Rome; he provided elaborate letters requesting free “ingress, egress, and regress” in foreign monasteries, cities, and villages, As a reward, when they reached their destination pilgrims promised to pray for those who had respected the bearer of Canute’s letters.

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Although such individually signed letters from rulers and other high-ranking officials were the main form of passport for centuries, without secure frontiers or efficient border controls many traveled without any documentation at all. As recently as 1890, only a few countries-including Persia, Romania, Russia, and Serbia-required foreigners to have passports to cross their borders: almost no country required its own nationals to have appropriate documents to travel abroad.

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In the United States, in the early days of independence, passports were provided by a local authority or notary. But faced with the refusal of foreign countries to accept them as valid, in 1856 the government confined the issue of passports to the secretary of state. Until 1918, foreigners could enter the United States without one.

Document of State

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The number of countries issuing passports, and requiring visitors to have them, increased considerably during and after World War I. The passport soon became a recognized state document, confirming both the citizenship and the identity of its bearer. To control immigration, some countries added the requirement that passports be endorsed with entry visas as well.

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Faced with a profusion of documentation and the large variety of styles and wording from country to country, in 1912 the League of Nations introduced a uniform 32-page format to be used by all countries (it has since been modified).

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The passport has become universal, its authority recognized in every country. Eventually the booklet format may be replaced by a plastic, computer-readable card. But whatever its form, the modern passport still has the same force as the precious official rings and cartouches of old.

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