Capitulare de villis

The Capitulare de villis is a text composed in c. 771–800 that guided the governance of the royal estates during the later years of the reign of Charlemagne (c. 768–814). It lists, in no particular order, a series of rules and regulations on how to manage the lands, animals, justice, and overall administration of the king's property and assets. The document was meant to lay out the instructions and criteria for managing Charlemagne's estates and was thus, an important part of his reform of Carolingian government and administration.

The Capitulare de villis is one of several capitularies issued by Carolingian royalty to address the organization and administration of their estates. This document is significant with regards to understanding Carolingian culture, administrative, and social-reform programs. Capitulare de villis along with 254 other manuscripts at the Herzog August Library in Germany are the only surviving administrative documents from Charlemagne's reign discussing detailed estate management and revenue collection.

The capitulary is of disputed origin and was "variously claimed for Fulda or the Rhineland ... containing a group of texts associated with the royal court". There were also disputes regarding its publication date and under what circumstances the document was created. The general consensus is that the Capitulare de villis dates back to sometime between the years 771 and 800.

This document was developed in a time of change and transition. As the Carolingian court became a stationary body at a palace, the document was likely created in an effort to manage the logistical difficulties of supplying and maintaining the food and equipment for an administration at some distance from its estates, thereby ensuring that politicians and soldiers would be well provisioned. The amount of detail included in the Capitulare de villis speaks to the king's attention to government and the simplified form of administration at the time. Thus, although the Capitulare de villis is no longer used as a tool to understand the entire economic and social structure of the Carolingian world, it remains an important document for understanding Carolingian material culture and political administration.

The Capitulare de villis is not arranged in any logical order but instead jumps between different topics throughout the course of the document's seventy chapters. Topics were not treated equally by the author as some are longer and go into more detail than others. The text is much more specific in regard to crops and animals and tends to become more vague in regard to everyday care of livestock such as chickens and other less prevalent material.

The majority of the Capitulare de villis is given over to describing the duties of the iudex, "an official tasked with the care of royal properties or the duties of their subordinates". It is mandated that "each steward shall perform his service in full, according to his instructions". The document includes many duties including warning officials against corruption, protection of the properties from being stolen, fairly prosecuting criminals, and presenting the king with certain items once annually. The most important duty described in this document, however, was creating an accurate inventory and facilitating the transportation of an estate's food, money, and goods to the Carolingian court.

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