Capitulare de villis
The Capitulare de villis[1] is a text composed sometime in the late 8th or early 9th century that guided the governance of the royal estates, possibly during the later years of the reign of Charlemagne (c. 768–814).
[2]: 149 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.
[3]: 141 A comparison with the Brevium Exempla,[4]: 437 which records actual audits of several estates, shows that de Villis was a largely aspirational document which did not always (if ever) correspond to reality.
[5] 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.
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.
[6]: 264 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.
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.
[7]: 500 The Capitulare de villis played a role in preparing the king's estates to aid him in the event of military conflict by supplying provisions and materials.
[8]: 35 Overall, the Capitulare de villis can shed some light on the type of preparations made for military conflict in this period and the pre-emptive consideration that the king put into such endeavours.
[9]: 183 Overall, it may be possible to employ what is known about the queen's role from this capitulary in order to gain a better understanding of elite women at this time and the responsibilities they had with regard to family estates.
[9]: 175 When the capitulary mentions the number of beds and linens among other essentials to be kept on hand, these would have been items that women were especially concerned with due to their role in ensuring the comfort of guests in their home.
One study from 1912 attempted to argue that the document was written by Louis the Pious "during his programme of estate reform in Aquitaine in 794, based in particular on its mention of certain plants that grew only in the milder climate of southern France".
[6]: 249 Other reasons that have been put forward for the creation of the Capitulare de villis include an attempt 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"[3]: 141 or, conversely, to provide a supply of provisions for the Carolingian army.
