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The Capitulary de Villis

Charlemagne and other Frankish rulers issued sets of instructions and decisions, called capitularies, to their officials on legal, military, political, and economic matters. Like all instructions or sets of rules, capitularies describe an ideal, not the way things really were, but we can still use them as sources for many aspects of life. The Capitulary de Villis, issued in about 800, describes the wide variety of activities envisioned for royal manors, which were run by individuals called stewards.

We desire that each steward shall make an annual statement of all our income, giving an account of our lands cultivated by the oxen which our own plowmen drive and of our lands which the tenants of farms ought to plow; of the pigs, of the rents, of the obligations and fines; of the game taken in our forests without our permission; of the various compositions [things that have been made]; of the mills, of the forest, of the fields, of the bridges and ships; of the free men and the districts under obligations to our treasury; of markets, vineyards, and those who owe wine to us; of the hay, firewood, torches, planks, and other kinds of lumber; of the waste lands; of the vegetables, millet, panic [a type of millet]; of the wool, flax, and hemp; of the fruits of the trees; of the nut trees, larger and smaller; of the grafted trees of all kinds; of the gardens; of the turnips; of the fish ponds; of the hides, skins, and horns; of the honey and wax; of the fat, tallow [fat used for candles], and soap; of the mulberry wine, cooked wine, mead, vinegar, beer, and wine, new and old; of the new grain and the old; of the hens and eggs; of the geese; of the number of fishermen, workers in metal, sword makers, and shoemakers; of the bins and boxes; of the turners and saddlers; of the forges and mines, — that is, of iron, lead, or other substances; of the colts and fillies. They shall make all these known to us, set forth separately and in order, at Christmas, so that we may know what and how much of each thing we have.

The greatest care must be taken that whatever is prepared or made with the hands, — that is, bacon, smoked meat, sausage, partially salted meat, wine, vinegar, mulberry wine, cooked wine, garum [fermented fish sauce], mustard, cheese, butter, malt, beer, mead, honey, wax, flour, — all should be prepared and made with the greatest cleanliness.

Each steward on each of our domains shall always have, for the sake of ornament, peacocks, pheasants, ducks, pigeons, partridges, and turtle-doves. . . .

For our women’s work they are to give at the proper time, as has been ordered, the materials [for clothmaking], — that is, the linen, wool, woad [for making blue dye], vermilion [for making red dye], madder [for making yellow dye], wool combs, teasels, soap, grease, vessels, and the other objects which are necessary. . . .

Each steward shall have in his district good workmen, namely, blacksmiths, a goldsmith, a silversmith, shoemakers, turners, carpenters, sword makers, fishermen, fowlers, soap makers, men who know how to make beer, cider, perry [pear cider], or other kind of liquor good to drink, bakers to make pastry for our table, net makers who know how to make nets for hunting, fishing, and fowling, and other sorts of workmen too numerous to be designated.

EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE

Source: James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, vol. 1 (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1904), pp. 137–139.