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A capitulary (medieval Latin capitulare) was a series of legislative or administrative acts emanating from the Franks court of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, especially that of Charlemagne, the first emperor of the Romans in the west since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century. They were so called because they were formally divided into sections called capitula (plural of capitulum, a diminutive of caput meaning "head(ing)": chapters).
As soon as the capitulary was composed, it was sent to the various functionaries of the Franks, , , missi dominici and , a copy being kept by the chancellor in the archives of the palace. The last emperor to draw up capitularies was Lambert of Italy, in 898.
Such capitularies make provisions of a varied nature: it was necessary at an early date to classify them into chapters according to the subject. In 827 Ansegisus, abbot of St. Wandrille at Fontenelle, made such a collection. He arranged them in four books: one grouped together the ecclesiastical capitularies of Charlemagne, another the ecclesiastical capitularies of Louis I, Charlemagne's son, another the secular capitularies of Charlemagne, and yet another the secular capitularies of Louis, bringing together similar provisions and suppressing duplicates. This collection soon acquired official status: after 829 Louis the Pious refers to it, citing book and section. See also Capitularies of Charles the Bald
New capitularies were naturally promulgated after 827, and so it was that by 858 there had appeared a second collection in three books, compiled by an author calling himself Benedictus Levita. His avowed aim was to complete the work of Ansegisus and bring it up to date. However, the author not only included prescriptions from the capitularies, but introduced other documents into his collection: fragments of Rome laws, canons of the Church councils and especially spurious provisions very similar in character to those of the same date found in the False Decretals. Despite these spurious items, the collection as a whole was accepted as authentic, and the four books of Ansegisus and the three of Benedictus Levita were treated together as a single collection in seven books. Modern historians, however, are careful to avoid using Books Five, Six, and Seven for purposes of reference.
Early editors chose to republish the collection of Ansegisus and Benedictus as they found it. It was a distinguished French scholar, Étienne Baluze, 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 Pepin the Short, of Charles and of Louis the Pious, which he had found complete in various manuscripts. For works after 840, he also published as supplements the unreliable collection of Ansegisus and Benedictus Levita, with warning about the untrustworthy character of the latter. Cf. Pseudo-Isidore He followed these with the capitularies of Charles the Bald, 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 folio volumes by Pierre de Chiniac.
The edition of the Capitularies made in 1835 by Georg Pertz, in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (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 the project, which was continued by Victor Krause. He collected in a second volume the scattered capitularies dated after 828. A detailed index of both volumes was drawn up by Karl Zeumer and Albrecht Werminghoff. It listed all the essential terms. A third volume, prepared by Emil Seckel, was to include Benedictus Levita's collection. To satisfy modern critical requirements, a new edition has been commissioned by the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, to be prepared by Hubert Mordek and 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).
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, 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 "ordinances" (ordonnances).
There were also capitularies of the Lombards. These capitularies 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.
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