23. We have ordered that diviners and soothsayers shall be handed over to the churches and priests.
24. Concerning robbers and malefactors who shall have fled from one county to another, if any one shall receive them into Fugitive criminals his protection and shall keep them with him for seven nights,[143] except for the purpose of bringing them to justice, let him pay our ban.[144] Likewise, if a count[145] shall have concealed them, and shall be unwilling to bring them forward so that justice may be done, and is not able to excuse himself for this, let him lose his office.
26. No one shall presume to impede any man coming to us to seek justice; and if anyone shall have attempted to do this, he shall pay our ban.
34. We have forbidden that Saxons shall hold public assemblies in general, unless perchance our missus[146] shall have caused them to come together in accordance with our Public assemblies command; but each count shall hold judicial assemblies and administer justice in his jurisdiction. And this shall be cared for by the priests, lest it be done otherwise.[147]
18. The Capitulary Concerning the Royal Domains (cir. 800)
The revenues which came into Charlemagne's treasury were derived chiefly from his royal domains. There was no system of general taxation, such as modern nations maintain, and the funds realized from gifts, fines, rents, booty, and tribute money, were quite insufficient to meet the needs of the court, modest though they were. Charlemagne's interest in his villas, or private farms, was due therefore not less to his financial dependence upon them than to his personal liking for thrifty agriculture and thoroughgoing administration. The royal domains of the Frankish kingdom, already extensive at Charlemagne's accession, were considerably increased during his reign. It has been well said that Charlemagne was doubtless the greatest landed proprietor of the realm and that he "supervised the administration of these lands as a sovereign who knows that his power rests partly on his riches."[148] He gave the closest personal attention to his estates and was always watchful lest he be defrauded out of even the smallest portion of their products which was due him. The capitulary De Villis, from which the following passages have been selected, is a lengthy document in which Charlemagne sought to prescribe clearly and minutely the manifold duties of the stewards in charge of these estates. We may regard it, however, as in the nature of an ideal catalogue of what the king would like to have on his domains rather than as a definite statement of what was always actually to be found there. From it may be gleaned many interesting facts regarding rural life in western Europe during the eighth and ninth centuries. Its date is uncertain, but it was about 800—possibly somewhat earlier.
Source—Text in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Leges (Boretius ed.), Vol. I., No. 32, pp. 82-91. Translated by Roland P. Falkner in Univ. of Pa. Translations and Reprints, Vol. III., No. 2, pp. 2-4.
62.[149] We desire that each steward shall make an annual statement of all our income, with an account of our lands cultivated by the oxen which our plowmen drive, and of our lands which the tenants of farms ought to plow;[150] an account of the pigs, of the rents,[151] of the obligations and fines; of the game taken in our forests without our permission; of the various compositions;[152] of the mills, of the forest, of the fields, and of the bridges and ships; of the freemen and the districts under obligations to our treasury; Report to be made to the king by his stewards each Christmas-tide of markets, vineyards, and those who owe wine to us; of the hay, fire-wood, torches, planks, and other kinds of lumber; of the waste-lands; of the vegetables, millet, and panic;[153] and 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 and soap; of the mulberry wine, cooked wine, mead, vinegar, beer, wine new and old; of the new grain and the old; of the hens and eggs; of the geese; of the number of fishermen, smiths, sword-makers, and shoe-makers; of the bins and boxes; of the turners and saddlers; of the forges and mines, that is iron and other mines; of the lead mines; of the colts and fillies. They shall make all these known to us, set forth separately and in order, at Christmas, in order that we may know what and how much of each thing we have.
23. On each of our estates our stewards are to have as many Domestic animals cow-houses, pig-sties, sheep-folds, stables for goats, as possible, and they ought never to be without these. And let them have in addition cows furnished by our serfs[154] for performing their service, so that the cow-houses and plows shall be in no way diminished by the service on our demesne. And when they have to provide meat, let them have steers lame, but healthy, and cows and horses which are not mangy, or other beasts which are not diseased and, as we have said, our cow-houses and plows are not to be diminished for this.