- Capitulare de Villis
- One of the most famous and significant of Charlemagne's capitularies, the Capitulare de Villis (capitulary on the royal estates) provides important insights into Carolingian government and economic life. The capitulary reveals Charlemagne's interest in governing local affairs as well as the need for Carolingian kings to attend to such matters. It also shows the economic resources available to Carolingian kings and the obligations of royal servants to their king.The Capitulare de Villis is traditionally held to have been issued sometime between 771 and 800, and most likely closer to the year 800. A later date, of 807, for the issuance of the capitulary has also been proposed. It was issued by Charlemagne to improve administration in the kingdom and to end the abuses of the royal treasury and of the king's residences throughout his vast realm. The capitulary was also designed to guarantee that certain basic necessities would be found in each of the residences, so that the king and his court could be well provided for when he and his retinue visited the various estates in the kingdom. Indeed, the capitulary was intended to establish the standards by which Charlemagne wanted his estates maintained and was, thus, an important part of his reform of Carolingian government and administration. It was, in fact, one of a number of rulings by the king to improve administration, and it laid the foundation for similar rulings by his son, Louis the Pious. The depth of detail in the rulings in the capitulary reveal both the king's interest in government and the rudimentary nature of the administration in Charlemagne's day.The capitulary legislated the day-to-day workings of the royal estates throughout the realm, regulating the materials and laborers found on these estates. In fact, the capitulary laid out instructions for all economic life in the royal estates. It provided rules for making wine, salting food, maintaining buildings, and taking care of animals, as well as a list of the agricultural products to be raised on the estates. The steward of the palace was to provide an annual statement of the revenues derived from the fields farmed by royal plowmen and from tenant farmers, as well as from the number of piglets born, various fines, and payments from mills, forests, fields, boats, and bridges. The steward was also to keep a record of fruits, vegetables, honey, wax, oil, soap, vinegar, beer, wine, wheat, chickens, eggs, geese, and other farm products raised each year. The capitulary also mandated an account of fishermen, smiths, shield makers, and cobblers who worked on the estates as well as the number of workshops in which they worked. The number of tools on each estate was also given, and this account reveals that most of the tools were wood and not iron. Although the Capitulare de Villis is no longer used as a tool to understand the entire economic and social structure of the Carolingian world, since it applied only to the royal estates, it remains an important document for understanding Carolingian material culture and political administration.See alsoBibliography♦ Dutton, Paul. Carolingian Civilization: A Reader. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 1993.♦ Ganshof, François Louis. Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne. Trans. Bryce Lyon and Mary Lyon. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1968.♦ Halphen, Louis. Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire. Trans. Giselle de Nie. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1977.♦ McKitterick, Rosamond. The Carolingians and the Written Word. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.♦ Riché, Pierre. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe. Trans. Michael Idomir Allen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe. 2014.
