Premium
Capitularies in the Ottonian realm
Author(s) -
Patzold Steffen
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
early medieval europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1468-0254
pISSN - 0963-9462
DOI - 10.1111/emed.12316
Subject(s) - witness , ninth , realm , empire , appeal , context (archaeology) , history , order (exchange) , legal culture , classics , literature , ancient history , humanities , art , law , political science , archaeology , physics , finance , acoustics , economics
This essay is a study of the transmission and later use of Carolingian capitularies. Issued in the ninth century, in a number of cases these documents are known to us only through copies made in the tenth century, in the Ottonian empire. The goal of the study is to prompt a rethinking of the contrast often drawn between the text‐based legal culture of the Carolingian empire and the supposedly oral and ritual culture of Ottonian rule. A survey of seventeen capitulary manuscripts is offered, followed by two case studies. The first concerns a tenth‐century Metz manuscript; the second centres around a Mainz book. These appeal to the Carolingian past in order to shape legal claims in the present: as assemblages of legal texts, they bear important witness to the context of their production.