When Emperor Conrad II issued the Edictum de Beneficiis in 1037, it redefined the relationship between lords, bishops, and knights across northern Italy. Far from a simple legal order, it became a pivotal moment in the struggle over land, loyalty, and authority in the medieval world.
By David Bachrach
During his siege of Milan in 1037, Emperor Conrad II (1024-1039) issued a command, usually denoted as either the edictum de beneficiis or the edictum de feudis. There are several key passages in this edict, which have received enormous scholarly attention.
Conrad commanded in the first paragraph that “in order to reconcile the spirits of the seniores and the milites” … “no miles of a bishop, abbot, abbess, margrave, count, or anyone else who holds a benefice from our public goods or from the assets of a church, shall lose unjustly what he holds up to this point. This goes for both our major vassals and their milites, such that no one will lose his beneficium without a clear and proven guilt.” (You can find a full translation of the text here).
Subsequent clauses lay out the legal forms that had to be followed to strip a miles of his beneficium and also state the expectation that a son would inherit his father’s beneficium. In the absence of a son, or a grandson in the male line, then a brother of a miles could inherit the beneficium.
Although the text itself is silent on this matter, many scholars have associated Conrad’s decision to issue this decree with the claim by the anonymous author of the Major Annals of St. Gall that in 1035 the “lower-ranking milites, having been oppressed more than was customary by the iniquitous domination of their superiors, all joined together at the same time and resisted them.”
This author added that the bishop of Milan and other “senators of Italy tried to the extent that they were able to recall from their insolence those who were rebelling. But they [the rebellious milites] did not wish to concede on any point until it was confirmed to them in writing by the king that they would hold inviolate the rights of their fathers.”
How a Medieval Edict Took on a Life of Its Own
Conrad II depicted in the 12th century. Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Cod. lat. 295, fol. 81v
In the decades after the promulgation of the edictum de beneficiis, this text was cited, annotated, and explicated by legal writers throughout northern Italy. Consequently, modern scholars have interpreted the edict as playing a major role in the creation of hereditary benefices and consequently as a weakening of the power of lords to remove “fiefs” from their “vassals.”
This greater economic and political autonomy of milites from their erstwhile lords is understood, in turn, to have led to a fragmentation of noble power, and the collapse of larger lordships, such as those held by bishops, abbots, and counts. This reallocation of power within society is connected with the model of incastellamento whereby every hilltop village became the fortified center of a small lordship. In short, the edictum de beneficiis is generally seen as the birth certificate of “feudalism” in northern Italy.
However, given the general rejection of the “feudal” model by most specialists in early medieval history, the question arises whether the edictum de beneficiis should be read retrospectively as a foundational text for the introduction of feudalism or whether, instead, Conrad’s commands can be understood in light of an earlier tradition of governance.
In a recent study, Steffen Patzold proposes pursuing just such an approach. He suggests that the key passages in the edict should be understood as part of the long afterlife of Carolingian governmental practices vis-à-vis both the control over fiscal and church resources, particularly as these were used to recruit and pay professional fighting men. In this context, rather than assuming that the milites in the text were “feudal vassals” and the seniores were “feudal lords” of the type seen in later periods in Italy, it should first be recognized that the use of lands to pay fighting men had a long prehistory by the early eleventh century. Just as importantly, the individuals affected by Conrad’s edict were quite limited.
First, Conrad was not issuing a command about any miles of any senior, but rather was focused on the milites of secular and ecclesiastical office holders. Secondly and even more importantly, the edict only covered those milites whose beneficia consisted of fiscal or ecclesiastical assets. In this context, the rulers of the regnum Francorum and their successors throughout the erstwhile Carolingian Empire, consistently claimed ongoing oversight and control over both these classes of assets. Charlemagne (768-814), Louis the Pious (814-840), the latter’s sons Lothair I (840-854) and Charles the Bald (840-877), and Lothair’s son Louis II (844-875) all issued edicts regulating the possession of beneficia either from the royal fisc or churches.
These rulers mandated the proper maintenance of lands held in this manner on pain of confiscation, regulated the types of men who could receive beneficia from churches, and commanded that lists be made of everyone holding beneficia so that they could be assessed to perform duties on behalf of the res publica. Chief among these obligations was military service in the king’s army.
Looking Back: Earlier Efforts to Protect Land and Loyalty
Carolingian rulers also issued regulations protecting the rights of the holders of beneficia. In 865, Louis II issued a ruling that: “We do not wish that any of our faithful men shall be deprived of his beneficium without due legal process, and so we order that no one shall deprive him [of his beneficium] in any way, but rather that he shall hold it securely.” Conrad’s edict of 1037 clearly parallels this Carolingian mandate issued almost two centuries before.
In the post-Carolingian period, we see a similar concern by rulers for the protection of church assets, particularly when these had been granted as beneficia to the king’s milites, or to the milites of royal office holders. During the tenth and early eleventh century, the Ottonian rulers of Germany issued numerous regulations regarding the disposition of church property, both when assigning lands to their own milites and when recovering lands that had been usurped from churches by unscrupulous laymen.
This close control over church assets was particularly evident during the reign of Henry II (1002-1024), who routinely intervened to protect church lands and also routinely oversaw the granting of ecclesiastical estates to his own milites and those of his leading men. A generation before Conrad II issued the edictum de beneficiis, Henry II intervened in 1007 in a dispute over control of the assets of the church of Cremona. He placed the church under imperial protection and specifically warned that if any miles dared to misappropriate lands from the diocese he and his heirs should know: “he would be deprived forever of the entire benefice that he held from the assets of the church and would have to pay composition of 100 pounds of pure silver, half to our res publica and half to the aforementioned church.”
Like his Carolingian predecessors and his immediate successor Conrad II, Henry II asserted his control over the disposition of church assets that had been granted out as beneficia to milites. Just as importantly, the king’s charter reveals that a generation before the edictum de beneficiis the heir of the miles would have a claim to the beneficium held by his father or grandfather.
All in all, it would appear that Patzold is correct that Conrad II’s edictum de beneficiis should not be treated retrospectively as the beginning of something new, although later legal writers certainly did make use of this text. Rather, Conrad was drawing on a lengthy tradition that dated back to Charlemagne’s practice of asserting control over the assets of the church as well as of the fisc, and particularly as these concerned the support of milites. Indeed, Conrad can be seen as acting in precisely the same manner as his immediate predecessor Henry II.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Conrad II on a stained-glass windows in the Cathedral of Strasbourg – Wikimedia Commons
Further Readings:
Steffen Patzold, “Konrads II. ‘iussio’ von 1037,” in Konrad II. (1024-1039): Die Anfänge des salischen Königtums in europäischer Perspektive, ed. Julia Exarchos and Florian Hartmann (Cologne, 2025), 215-235.
When Emperor Conrad II issued the Edictum de Beneficiis in 1037, it redefined the relationship between lords, bishops, and knights across northern Italy. Far from a simple legal order, it became a pivotal moment in the struggle over land, loyalty, and authority in the medieval world.
By David Bachrach
During his siege of Milan in 1037, Emperor Conrad II (1024-1039) issued a command, usually denoted as either the edictum de beneficiis or the edictum de feudis. There are several key passages in this edict, which have received enormous scholarly attention.
Conrad commanded in the first paragraph that “in order to reconcile the spirits of the seniores and the milites” … “no miles of a bishop, abbot, abbess, margrave, count, or anyone else who holds a benefice from our public goods or from the assets of a church, shall lose unjustly what he holds up to this point. This goes for both our major vassals and their milites, such that no one will lose his beneficium without a clear and proven guilt.” (You can find a full translation of the text here).
Subsequent clauses lay out the legal forms that had to be followed to strip a miles of his beneficium and also state the expectation that a son would inherit his father’s beneficium. In the absence of a son, or a grandson in the male line, then a brother of a miles could inherit the beneficium.
Although the text itself is silent on this matter, many scholars have associated Conrad’s decision to issue this decree with the claim by the anonymous author of the Major Annals of St. Gall that in 1035 the “lower-ranking milites, having been oppressed more than was customary by the iniquitous domination of their superiors, all joined together at the same time and resisted them.”
This author added that the bishop of Milan and other “senators of Italy tried to the extent that they were able to recall from their insolence those who were rebelling. But they [the rebellious milites] did not wish to concede on any point until it was confirmed to them in writing by the king that they would hold inviolate the rights of their fathers.”
How a Medieval Edict Took on a Life of Its Own
In the decades after the promulgation of the edictum de beneficiis, this text was cited, annotated, and explicated by legal writers throughout northern Italy. Consequently, modern scholars have interpreted the edict as playing a major role in the creation of hereditary benefices and consequently as a weakening of the power of lords to remove “fiefs” from their “vassals.”
This greater economic and political autonomy of milites from their erstwhile lords is understood, in turn, to have led to a fragmentation of noble power, and the collapse of larger lordships, such as those held by bishops, abbots, and counts. This reallocation of power within society is connected with the model of incastellamento whereby every hilltop village became the fortified center of a small lordship. In short, the edictum de beneficiis is generally seen as the birth certificate of “feudalism” in northern Italy.
However, given the general rejection of the “feudal” model by most specialists in early medieval history, the question arises whether the edictum de beneficiis should be read retrospectively as a foundational text for the introduction of feudalism or whether, instead, Conrad’s commands can be understood in light of an earlier tradition of governance.
In a recent study, Steffen Patzold proposes pursuing just such an approach. He suggests that the key passages in the edict should be understood as part of the long afterlife of Carolingian governmental practices vis-à-vis both the control over fiscal and church resources, particularly as these were used to recruit and pay professional fighting men. In this context, rather than assuming that the milites in the text were “feudal vassals” and the seniores were “feudal lords” of the type seen in later periods in Italy, it should first be recognized that the use of lands to pay fighting men had a long prehistory by the early eleventh century. Just as importantly, the individuals affected by Conrad’s edict were quite limited.
First, Conrad was not issuing a command about any miles of any senior, but rather was focused on the milites of secular and ecclesiastical office holders. Secondly and even more importantly, the edict only covered those milites whose beneficia consisted of fiscal or ecclesiastical assets. In this context, the rulers of the regnum Francorum and their successors throughout the erstwhile Carolingian Empire, consistently claimed ongoing oversight and control over both these classes of assets. Charlemagne (768-814), Louis the Pious (814-840), the latter’s sons Lothair I (840-854) and Charles the Bald (840-877), and Lothair’s son Louis II (844-875) all issued edicts regulating the possession of beneficia either from the royal fisc or churches.
These rulers mandated the proper maintenance of lands held in this manner on pain of confiscation, regulated the types of men who could receive beneficia from churches, and commanded that lists be made of everyone holding beneficia so that they could be assessed to perform duties on behalf of the res publica. Chief among these obligations was military service in the king’s army.
Looking Back: Earlier Efforts to Protect Land and Loyalty
Carolingian rulers also issued regulations protecting the rights of the holders of beneficia. In 865, Louis II issued a ruling that: “We do not wish that any of our faithful men shall be deprived of his beneficium without due legal process, and so we order that no one shall deprive him [of his beneficium] in any way, but rather that he shall hold it securely.” Conrad’s edict of 1037 clearly parallels this Carolingian mandate issued almost two centuries before.
In the post-Carolingian period, we see a similar concern by rulers for the protection of church assets, particularly when these had been granted as beneficia to the king’s milites, or to the milites of royal office holders. During the tenth and early eleventh century, the Ottonian rulers of Germany issued numerous regulations regarding the disposition of church property, both when assigning lands to their own milites and when recovering lands that had been usurped from churches by unscrupulous laymen.
This close control over church assets was particularly evident during the reign of Henry II (1002-1024), who routinely intervened to protect church lands and also routinely oversaw the granting of ecclesiastical estates to his own milites and those of his leading men. A generation before Conrad II issued the edictum de beneficiis, Henry II intervened in 1007 in a dispute over control of the assets of the church of Cremona. He placed the church under imperial protection and specifically warned that if any miles dared to misappropriate lands from the diocese he and his heirs should know: “he would be deprived forever of the entire benefice that he held from the assets of the church and would have to pay composition of 100 pounds of pure silver, half to our res publica and half to the aforementioned church.”
Like his Carolingian predecessors and his immediate successor Conrad II, Henry II asserted his control over the disposition of church assets that had been granted out as beneficia to milites. Just as importantly, the king’s charter reveals that a generation before the edictum de beneficiis the heir of the miles would have a claim to the beneficium held by his father or grandfather.
All in all, it would appear that Patzold is correct that Conrad II’s edictum de beneficiis should not be treated retrospectively as the beginning of something new, although later legal writers certainly did make use of this text. Rather, Conrad was drawing on a lengthy tradition that dated back to Charlemagne’s practice of asserting control over the assets of the church as well as of the fisc, and particularly as these concerned the support of milites. Indeed, Conrad can be seen as acting in precisely the same manner as his immediate predecessor Henry II.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Click here to read more from David Bachrach
Further Readings:
Steffen Patzold, “Konrads II. ‘iussio’ von 1037,” in Konrad II. (1024-1039): Die Anfänge des salischen Königtums in europäischer Perspektive, ed. Julia Exarchos and Florian Hartmann (Cologne, 2025), 215-235.
David S. Bachrach, “Royal Licensing of Ecclesiastical Property Exchanges in Eary Medieval Germany: Ottonian Practice on Carolingian Foundations,” Viator 48.2 (2017, appearing 2018), 93-114.
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