Work in the precious metals and in ivory was frequent in the churches, since each had a treasury, and a third of the income, saved from tithes, was assigned for religious ornaments. In these collections gold reliquaries with chased work and precious stones were specially valued; also portable altars and ciboria. The “ivories,” of which interesting specimens are still preserved, are remarkable for the care displayed in continuing the traditions of this branch of Christian art, as practised both in the Eastern Empire and in Italy during earlier centuries.
Books are recorded also in the inventories of the church treasuries, and the specimens that have survived attest the artistic value of Carolingian calligraphy. The style of writing, under the influence of English and Irish models, is clear and free from abbreviations. Besides the miniatures, these manuscripts exhibit artistically drawn letters, effectively combined, and characters done in gold and silver on a purple background. There were a number of schools where the art of copying was taught, the most celebrated being at Tours, under the supervision of Alcuin. The national library at Paris has a beautiful example of this work in a book of the Gospels prepared for Charles in 781, by the monk Godescalk. In Vienna, in the imperial treasury, there is another Gospel book in similar style, which, legend says, was found on the knees of the Emperor when his tomb was opened.
In church music, the Emperor continued his father’s policy of encouraging the Roman use of singing the psalter, as opposed to the Gallic custom. Masters were brought from Rome for this purpose and schools established at St. Gall and at Metz. There is still in the first-named place a Gregorian antiphonary, brought at this time from Italy, for the purpose of giving musical instruction after the Roman method.
IX
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Turning now to questions of economic development, one is impressed by the small part played by city life in the Empire, and by the industrial importance of the manor. The landed proprietor depended on his country seat for his support in the most real sense of the word. We find Einhard, while residing at the court at Aix, bidding his tenants send him flour, malt, wine, cheese, and other products, and he orders 360 bricks to be made in the country. Even the workmen, who are engaged in building work in the town, are to be sent from the “villa.” Small estates had completely disappeared and agricultural communities were the exception. The villas were often placed near together, a tendency which led to the multiplication of country churches, whose existence up to this time is only infrequently mentioned in legal documents. It was this evolution from a union of “villas,” or the country seats on great estates, which led to the creation of the villages. The growth of large estates may have been due to the impoverishment of the small landed proprietor, but other important factors in the change were the wide extent of frontier land and the growing importance of the monasteries. The monastic estates were of imposing size, as it was the custom for the small land owners to cede their property to the monastic communities, sometimes to escape taxation, but also from motives of ecclesiastical loyalty to those whom they looked up to as models of Christian virtue, and whose prayers they coveted as efficacious in healing all spiritual distress.
The importance of these institutions is revealed in the figures given for St. Wandrile, which had on its rolls 1727 manses, inhabited by a population numbering 10,000 souls. Luxeuil had 15,000 manses, and Alcuin, the abbot of St. Martin at Tours, is reported to have had on his domain no less than 20,000 serfs.
The celebrated Polypticon of Irminion, the abbot of St. Germain-des-Près, drawn up between 800 and 826, records the administration of one of these great monastic estates. The acreage belonging to the abbey was 26,613 hectares, and was spread over seven existing French departments. The parcels of ground numbered 1646; over 10,000 persons were employed, among them only eight freedmen, the rest being either serfs or “coloni.”
Of the land, about two-thirds was arable and one-third wooded. The dues from the tenants were collected in money, cattle, poultry, wine, wheat, pitch, linen, mustard, woolen stuff, and thread, honey, wax, oil, and soap, instruments of wood and iron, firewood, torches. The annual revenue of the abbey was nearly $600,000, a sum which amounted to more than $20 per household.
But the largest landed proprietor was the King; and food, drink, and articles of clothing were supplied to the court by the villa system. The royal capitularies give the exact details as to the industrial administration of an estate. There were many outbuildings included in the royal villa, such as kitchens, bakeries, stables, dairies, etc. Fisheries, too, were encouraged. There were vegetable gardens and flower gardens, in which seventy-four kinds of plants were cultivated, among them many of the vegetables in common use at the present time, and sixteen species of trees, including fig, pear, apple, peach, and cherry trees. In the villa were found various kinds of artisans, smiths, workers in precious metals, cobblers, saddlers, carpenters, turners, rope makers. The women’s apartments were provided with rooms artificially heated, and in them women wove wool and linen goods, and also prepared them for use by dyeing, although it must be noted that the range of coloring matters was limited. The staff was organized into a kind of industrial hierarchy under special officers, who supervised the work or kept the accounts. Over all stood the “mayor,” who had the supervision of as much land in his district as he could visit in a day.
Care was exercised by the Emperor that these dependents should receive enough to live on; no one was to be reduced to poverty, and provision was made to protect all from unjust treatment at the hands of their superiors. The maximum price of staple articles, such as wheat and wine, was fixed; cornering the market was forbidden, likewise exportation from a given locality when crops were poor. The bishops and counts were charged to see that the owners of estates looked after the indigent, whether slave or free, lest any should die of hunger.