Capitulary
Encyclopedia
A capitulary was a series of legislative or administrative
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

 acts emanating from the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 court of the Merovingian and Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 dynasties, especially that of the first emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

, Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

. They were so called because they were formally divided into sections called capitula (plural of capitulum, a diminutive of caput meaning "head(ing)", i.e. chapters).

As soon as the capitulary was composed, it was sent to the various functionaries of the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 empire, archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

s, bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

s, missi dominici and count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

s, a copy being kept by the chancellor
Chancellor
Chancellor is the title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the Cancellarii of Roman courts of justice—ushers who sat at the cancelli or lattice work screens of a basilica or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the...

 in the archives of the palace. The last emperor to compose capitularies was Lambert
Lambert II of Spoleto
Lambert II was the King of Italy from 891, Holy Roman Emperor, co-ruling with his father from 892, and Duke of Spoleto and Camerino from his father's death in 894. He was the son of Guy III of Spoleto and Ageltrude, born in San Rufino...

 in 898.

Preservation and study

At the present day we do not possess a single capitulary in its original form; but very frequently copies of these isolated capitularies were included in various scattered manuscripts, among pieces of a very different nature, ecclesiastical or secular. We find, therefore, a fair number of them in books which go back as far as the 9th or 10th centuries. In recent editions in the case of each capitulary it is carefully indicated from what manuscripts it has been collated.

These capitularies make provisions of a most varied nature; it was therefore found necessary at quite an early date to classify them into chapters according to the subject. In 827 Ansegisus
Ansegisus
Saint Ansegisus was a monastic reformer of the Franks.Beginning his career as a monk at Fontenelle Abbey, he was soon given the task of reforming monasteries at St. Sixtus near Reims and St. Memius in the diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne, in which he was successful...

, abbot of St. Wandrille at Fontenelle
Fontenelle Abbey
Fontenelle Abbey or the Abbey of St. Wandrille is a Benedictine monastery in the commune of Saint-Wandrille-Rançon near Caudebec-en-Caux in Seine-Maritime, Normandy, France.-First foundation:...

, made such a collection. He embodied them in four books: one of the ecclesiastical capitularies of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

, one of the ecclesiastical capitularies of Louis I
Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

 (Charlemagne's son), one of the secular capitularies of Charlemagne, and one of the secular capitularies of Louis, bringing together similar provisions and suppressing duplicates. This collection soon gained an official authority, and after 829 Louis the Pious refers to it, citing book and section.

After 827 new capitularies were naturally promulgated, and before 858 there appeared a second collection in three books, by an author calling himself Benedictus Levita. His aim was, he said, to complete the work of Ansegisus, and bring it up to date by continuing it from 827 to his own day; but the author not only borrowed prescriptions from the capitularies; he introduced other documents into his collection, fragments of Roman
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 laws, canons of the councils and especially spurious provisions very similar in character to those of the same date found in the False Decretals. His contemporaries did not notice these spurious documents, but accepted the whole collection as authentic, and incorporated the four books of Ansegisus and the three of Benedictus Levita into a single collection in seven books. The serious historian of today, however, is careful not to use Books Five, Six, and Seven for purposes of reference.

Early editors chose to republish this collection of Ansegisus and Benedictus as they found it. It was a distinguished French scholar, Étienne Baluze
Étienne Baluze
Étienne Baluze was a French scholar, also known as Stephanus Baluzius.Born in Tulle, he was educated at his native town and took minor orders. As secretary to Pierre de Marca, archbishop of Toulouse, he won his appreciation of him, and at his death Marca left him all his papers...

, who led the way to a fresh classification. In 1677 he brought out the Capitularia regum francorum, in two folio volumes, in which he published first the capitularies of the Merovingian kings, then those of Pippin
Pippin the Younger
Pepin , called the Short or the Younger , rarely the Great , was the first King of the Franks of the Carolingian dynasty...

, of Charles and of Louis the Pious, which he had found complete in various manuscripts. After the date of 840, he published as supplements the unreliable collection of Ansegisus and Benedictus Levita, with the warning that the latter was quite untrustworthy (see Pseudo-Isidore
Pseudo-Isidore
Pseudo-Isidore is the pseudonym given to the scholar or group of scholars responsible for the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, the most extensive and influential set of forgeries found in medieval Canon law. The authors were a group of Frankish clerics writing in the second quarter of the ninth century...

). He then gave the capitularies of Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor and King of West Francia , was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.-Struggle against his brothers:He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder...

, and of other Carolingian kings, either contemporaries or successors of Charles, which he had discovered in various places. A second edition of Baluze was published in 1780 in 2 volumes folio by Pierre de Chiniac.

The edition of the Capitularies made in 1835 by Georg Pertz, in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
The Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...

(folio edition, vol. I, of the Leges) was not much of an advance on that of Baluze. A fresh revision was required, and the editors of the Monumenta decided to reissue it in their quarto series, entrusting the work to Dr. Alfred Boretius. In 1883 Boretius published his first volume, containing all the detached capitularies up to 827, together with various appendices bearing on them, and the collection. of Ansegisus. Boretius, whose health had been ruined by overwork, was unable to finish his work; it was continued by Victor Krause, who collected in vol. II the scattered capitularies of a date posterior to 828. Karl Zeumer and Albrecht Werminghoff drew up a detailed index of both volumes, in which all the essential words are noted. A third volume, prepared by Emil Seckel
Emil Seckel
Emil Seckel was a German jurist, law historian.- Literary works :* Beiträge zur Geschichte beider Rechte Mittelalter, 1898* Gestaltungsrechte des bürgerlichen Rechts, 1903...

, was to include the collection of Benedictus Levita. To satisfy modern critical requirements so a new edition has been commissioned by the Monumenta Germaniae Historica to Hubert Mordek and to Klaus Zechiel-Eckes; the edition of the Collectio Ansegisi is superseded by the one published in the Capitularia Nova Series vol. 1 (ed. Gerhard Schmitz, 1996).

True character and scope

Among the capitularies are to be found documents of a very varied kind. Boretius has divided them into several classes:

The Capitula legibus addenda

These are additions made by the king of the Franks to the barbarian laws promulgated under the Merovingians, the Salic law, the Ripuarian
Ripuarian
Ripuarian is a German dialect group, part of the West Central German language group....

 or the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n. These capitularies have the same weight as the law which they complete; they are particular in their application, applying, that is to say, only to the men subject to that law. Like the laws, they consist chiefly of scales of compensation, rules of procedure and points of civil law. They were solemnly promulgated in the local assemblies where the consent of the people was asked. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious seem to have made efforts to bring the other laws into harmony with the Salic law. It is also to be noted that by certain of the capitularies of this class, the king adds provisions affecting, not only a single law, but all the laws in use throughout the kingdom.

The Capitula ecclesiastica

These capitularies were elaborated in the councils of the bishops; the kings of the Franks sanctioned the canon of the councils, and made them obligatory on all the Christians in the kingdom.

The Capitula per se scribenda

These embodied political decrees which all subjects of the kingdom were bound to observe. They often bore the name of edictuin or of constitutio, and the provisions made in them were permanent. These capitularies were generally elaborated by the king of the Franks in the autumn assemblies or in the committees of the spring assemblies. Frequently we have only the proposition made by the king to the committee, capitula tractanda cum comitibus, episcopis, et abbatibus, and not the final form which was adopted.

The Capitula missorum

These are the instructions given by Charlemagne and his successors to the missi (dominici)
Missus dominicus
A missus dominicus , Latin for "envoy[s] of the lord [ruler]", also known in Dutch as Zendgraaf , meaning "sent Graf", was an official commissioned by the Frankish king or Holy Roman Emperor to supervise the administration, mainly of justice, in parts of his dominions too far for frequent personal...

sent into the various parts of the empire. They are sometimes drawn up in common for all the missi of a certain year (capitula missorum generalia); sometimes for the missi sent only on a given circuit (capitula missorum specialia). These instructions sometimes hold good only for the circuit of the missus; they have no general application and are merely temporary.

Incorporated capitularies

With the capitularies have been incorporated various documents, for instance, the rules to be observed in administering the king's private domain (the celebrated Capitulare de villis vel curtis imperii, which is doubtless a collection of the instructions sent at various times to the agents of these domains); the partitions of the kingdom among the king's sons, as the Divisio regnorum of 806, or the Ordinatio imperii of 817; the oaths of peace and brotherhood which were taken on various occasions by the sons of Louis the Pious, etc.

The merit of clearly establishing these distinctions belongs to Boretius. He has doubtless exaggerated the difference between the Capitula missorum and the Capitula per se scribenda; among the first are to be found provisions of a general and permanent nature, and among the second temporary measures are often included. But the idea of Boretius is nonetheless fruitful. In the capitularies there are usually permanent provisions and temporary provisions intermingled; and the observation of this fact has made it possible more clearly to understand certain institutions of Charlemagne, e.g. military service.

After the reign of Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

 the capitularies became long and diffuse. Soon, from the 10th century onwards, no provision of general application emanates from the kings. Henceforth the kings only regulated private interests by charters; it was not until the reign of Philip Augustus that general provisions again appeared; but when they did so, they bore the name of ordinances (ordonnances).

There were also capitularies of the Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

. These capitulanes formed a continuation of the Lombard laws, and are printed as an appendix to these laws by Boretius in the folio edition of the Monumenta Germaniae, Leges, vol. iv.

Primary sources

  • Capitularies of Ansegisus (assembled 827), ed.

External links

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