For generations, historians have argued that Carolingian free landowners were gradually impoverished by powerful magnates, transforming the military and social structure of the Frankish world. David Bachrach examines the surviving evidence to see if it actually supports this long-standing theory.
By David Bachrach
It is well understood that both moralists and governmental authorities, likely for very different reasons, routinely complained during the period of the Roman Republic about the impoverishment of the middling to small-scale farmers, who comprised the great majority of the rank and file of the armies of the state. In a similar vein, both moralists and governmental authorities in the ninth and tenth century East Roman (Byzantine) Empire routinely complained about the impoverishment of the middling to small-scale farmers, who likewise comprised a significant element in the armies of the state. In both of these cases, the agents of impoverishment were understood to be the great landowners, who were accused of using both economic and legal pressure to compel their neighbors to sell their lands and become tenants. Notably, in both of these examples the essentially militia-based armies of the state were transformed, albeit gradually, into military forces that were comprised overwhelmingly of paid professionals, who were maintained directly by the government.
Many scholars have argued that a similar process of impoverishment was inflicted on the middling- to small-scale landowners in the regnum Francorum. As had been true in the Roman Republic and in the East Roman Empire, these men provided the numerically preponderant element in the armies of the regnum Francorum, under both the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. The consequence of such an impoverishment, according to this theory, was the transformation of the military system of the regnum Francorum and its various successors. However, rather than the establishment of state-funded, professional armies, it has been argued that the new military system was based on the “feudal” “war bands” of the great magnates, which were comprised of heavily armed and mounted “warriors”, who were the ancestors of European “knights”.
The Case for Impoverishment
A labours of the month from the early 9th century – ÖNB, Cod. 387, fol. 90v
Among the most thorough efforts to describe the process of the impoverishment of the middling to small landowners and the consequent establishment of the “feudal” order is Karl der Grosse, Ludwig der Fromme und die Freien (Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and the Free), published the East German historian Eckhard Müller-Mertens in 1963. Müller-Mertens’ central argument in this regard was that Charlemagne tried, but failed, to protect the small to middling farmers from lay and ecclesiastical magnates. These allodial landowners, who were routinely identified in the capitularies as being mobilized for military service on campaign, were denoted as liberi homines (free men).
The evidence for both the effort and the failure to protect the liberi homines, according to Müller-Mertens, comes from the capitularies, which record the commands of the emperor to his missi (literally, those who were sent out) to intercede against abuses that were taking place at the local level. The missi were commanded either to assist the counts, that is the main royal officials at the local level, or to rebuke and even replace counts, who were not doing their duty. Many capitularies reiterate the command that missi were to take testimony from honest and upright local men regarding the behavior of local royal officials, including the count, and were to act on reports of corruption and other types of malfeasance.
The decision by Charlemagne to dispatch missi to undertake these tasks, and the concomitant commands to the counts to assist and obey the missi certainly is clear evidence that the emperor was committed to a policy of protecting the liberi homines from abuse. The need to dispatch missi to carry out these tasks also strongly suggests not only that abuses against liberi homines had taken place, but also that reports of such abuses had made their way to the imperial court.
Müller-Mertens’ argument that Charlemagne failed in his effort to protect the liberi homines from abuse and ultimately impoverishment was based on his assessment that the repetition of such orders from the emperor, as these are preserved in capitulary texts, entailed that earlier commands to missi had been unsuccessful. However, this argument is seriously flawed for several reasons.
A Different Reading of the Evidence
First, Müller-Mertens misunderstood the nature of capitularies and saw them as legislative documents, which were intended to provide a uniform set of regulations and laws for the entire empire. In reality, as scholars have come to understand over the past 30 years, capitularies record specific decisions made by Charlemagne and his advisors, and later by Louis the Pious and the latter’s sons with their advisors, regarding specific problems in a particular place at a particular time. Thus, the sending of missi to deal with the abuse of liberi homines at one place, and the sending of missi a year or two later to deal with the abuse of liberi homines in another place tells us nothing about the success of the previous mission.
Secondly, Müller-Mertens applied an a priori assumption to his evaluation of the capitularies, and consequently to Charlemagne’s success, that was based on the historiographical model of the New Constitutional History, which was developed in the inter-war period. Historians in this school of thought held that the monarchy was in constant conflict with the “nobility” that enjoyed autogenous, that is in-born, rights equal and prior to the power and authority of the ruler. Most specialists in the Carolingian period have rejected this model and, indeed, the existence of a nobility (as contrasted with an aristocracy) in the Carolingian period. It is now well-understood that the ruler cooperated with the great aristocrats, but as the senior partner.
Thirdly, Müller-Mertens was unable to find any actual evidence for the impoverishment of liberi homines, during Charlemagne’s reign. There are no actual surviving quantitative sources from this period that address the economic standing of landowners. The main types of quantitative data from the ninth century, that is the estate records of churches, denoted as polyptiques, are focused on the economic relationships between the church as a landlord and its tenants. These documents do not illuminate the economic status of individuals who owned their own land, a fact that has often been overlooked by economic and social historians.
Using a scythe in the 9th century, from the Maryrologium des Wandalbert von Prüm – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Cod. Reg. Lat. 438
By contrast with the absence of quantitative evidence for the impoverishment of liberi homines, qualitative evidence of various types, including both narrative accounts and legal sources (including capitularies issued by Louis the Pious and his successors), make clear that small to middling landowners continued to be mobilized for military service throughout the regnum Francorum up through the end of the ninth century. Indeed, a vast array of sources make clear that these small to middling landowners continued to be mobilized for military service for centuries after the end of the Carolingian dynasty.
Indeed, this reality has been tacitly accepted even by Étienne Renaud, one of the foremost advocates in recent years for revival of the model set out by Müller-Mertens. Renaud has argued, in part, that: “Small landowners, weakened by heavy military obligations, several consecutive years of poor harvests, or an accumulation of debt, give their property to a church and then lease it back on a precarial basis, for themselves and their descendants, in exchange for a modest rent.” However, like Müller-Mertens, Renaud is not able to point to any evidence for the model of the large-scale impoverishment of even the poorest of the landowners, who had military obligations. He had to admit that “data is lacking for the ninth century.”
To replace this missing data, Renaud turns to 12th century documents from the region of Mâcon, which he argues provides the evidence to support a wholesale crisis among what he denotes as the “peasantry” during Charlemagne’s reign. Obviously, the use of sources from one small region that post-date the period in question by more than three centuries is methodologically unsound. Moreover, Renaud was forced to admit not only that middling to small-scale landowners continued to be mobilized up through the end of the ninth century, thus vitiating all of his claims about the period of Charlemagne’s reign, but also that this practice was still in force a century later during the reign of Otto I (936-973) in the East Frankish/German kingdom.
In sum, there is no quantitative or qualitative data to support the conclusion that the liberi homines were impoverished on anything approaching a large scale during Charlemagne’s reign or at any point during the ninth century in the regnum Francorum. Concomitantly, it is necessary to reject the economic argument for the supposed collapse of the traditional Frankish military system, in which militia forces made up of landowners comprised the numerically preponderant element.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Eckhard Müller-Mertens, Karl der Grosse, Ludwig der Fromme und die Freien: Wer waren die liberi homines der karolingischen Kapitularien (742/743-832)? Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte und Sozialpolitik des Frankenreiches (Berlin, 1963).
Étienne Renaud, “La politique militaire de Charlemagne et la paysannerie franque,” Francia 36 (2009), 1-33.
Étienne Renaud, “Un Élite paysanne en crise? Le poids des charges militaires pour les petits alleutiers entre Loire et Rhin au IX siècle,” in Élites au haut moyen âge: Crises et renouvellements, ed. Francois Bougard, Laurent Feller and Régine le Jan (Turnhout, 2006), 315-336.
Bernard S. Bachrach, “Charlemagne’s Expeditionary Levy: Observations Regarding Liberi Homines,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History third series 12 (2015) 1-65.
For generations, historians have argued that Carolingian free landowners were gradually impoverished by powerful magnates, transforming the military and social structure of the Frankish world. David Bachrach examines the surviving evidence to see if it actually supports this long-standing theory.
By David Bachrach
It is well understood that both moralists and governmental authorities, likely for very different reasons, routinely complained during the period of the Roman Republic about the impoverishment of the middling to small-scale farmers, who comprised the great majority of the rank and file of the armies of the state. In a similar vein, both moralists and governmental authorities in the ninth and tenth century East Roman (Byzantine) Empire routinely complained about the impoverishment of the middling to small-scale farmers, who likewise comprised a significant element in the armies of the state. In both of these cases, the agents of impoverishment were understood to be the great landowners, who were accused of using both economic and legal pressure to compel their neighbors to sell their lands and become tenants. Notably, in both of these examples the essentially militia-based armies of the state were transformed, albeit gradually, into military forces that were comprised overwhelmingly of paid professionals, who were maintained directly by the government.
Many scholars have argued that a similar process of impoverishment was inflicted on the middling- to small-scale landowners in the regnum Francorum. As had been true in the Roman Republic and in the East Roman Empire, these men provided the numerically preponderant element in the armies of the regnum Francorum, under both the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. The consequence of such an impoverishment, according to this theory, was the transformation of the military system of the regnum Francorum and its various successors. However, rather than the establishment of state-funded, professional armies, it has been argued that the new military system was based on the “feudal” “war bands” of the great magnates, which were comprised of heavily armed and mounted “warriors”, who were the ancestors of European “knights”.
The Case for Impoverishment
Among the most thorough efforts to describe the process of the impoverishment of the middling to small landowners and the consequent establishment of the “feudal” order is Karl der Grosse, Ludwig der Fromme und die Freien (Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and the Free), published the East German historian Eckhard Müller-Mertens in 1963. Müller-Mertens’ central argument in this regard was that Charlemagne tried, but failed, to protect the small to middling farmers from lay and ecclesiastical magnates. These allodial landowners, who were routinely identified in the capitularies as being mobilized for military service on campaign, were denoted as liberi homines (free men).
The evidence for both the effort and the failure to protect the liberi homines, according to Müller-Mertens, comes from the capitularies, which record the commands of the emperor to his missi (literally, those who were sent out) to intercede against abuses that were taking place at the local level. The missi were commanded either to assist the counts, that is the main royal officials at the local level, or to rebuke and even replace counts, who were not doing their duty. Many capitularies reiterate the command that missi were to take testimony from honest and upright local men regarding the behavior of local royal officials, including the count, and were to act on reports of corruption and other types of malfeasance.
The decision by Charlemagne to dispatch missi to undertake these tasks, and the concomitant commands to the counts to assist and obey the missi certainly is clear evidence that the emperor was committed to a policy of protecting the liberi homines from abuse. The need to dispatch missi to carry out these tasks also strongly suggests not only that abuses against liberi homines had taken place, but also that reports of such abuses had made their way to the imperial court.
Müller-Mertens’ argument that Charlemagne failed in his effort to protect the liberi homines from abuse and ultimately impoverishment was based on his assessment that the repetition of such orders from the emperor, as these are preserved in capitulary texts, entailed that earlier commands to missi had been unsuccessful. However, this argument is seriously flawed for several reasons.
A Different Reading of the Evidence
First, Müller-Mertens misunderstood the nature of capitularies and saw them as legislative documents, which were intended to provide a uniform set of regulations and laws for the entire empire. In reality, as scholars have come to understand over the past 30 years, capitularies record specific decisions made by Charlemagne and his advisors, and later by Louis the Pious and the latter’s sons with their advisors, regarding specific problems in a particular place at a particular time. Thus, the sending of missi to deal with the abuse of liberi homines at one place, and the sending of missi a year or two later to deal with the abuse of liberi homines in another place tells us nothing about the success of the previous mission.
Secondly, Müller-Mertens applied an a priori assumption to his evaluation of the capitularies, and consequently to Charlemagne’s success, that was based on the historiographical model of the New Constitutional History, which was developed in the inter-war period. Historians in this school of thought held that the monarchy was in constant conflict with the “nobility” that enjoyed autogenous, that is in-born, rights equal and prior to the power and authority of the ruler. Most specialists in the Carolingian period have rejected this model and, indeed, the existence of a nobility (as contrasted with an aristocracy) in the Carolingian period. It is now well-understood that the ruler cooperated with the great aristocrats, but as the senior partner.
Thirdly, Müller-Mertens was unable to find any actual evidence for the impoverishment of liberi homines, during Charlemagne’s reign. There are no actual surviving quantitative sources from this period that address the economic standing of landowners. The main types of quantitative data from the ninth century, that is the estate records of churches, denoted as polyptiques, are focused on the economic relationships between the church as a landlord and its tenants. These documents do not illuminate the economic status of individuals who owned their own land, a fact that has often been overlooked by economic and social historians.
By contrast with the absence of quantitative evidence for the impoverishment of liberi homines, qualitative evidence of various types, including both narrative accounts and legal sources (including capitularies issued by Louis the Pious and his successors), make clear that small to middling landowners continued to be mobilized for military service throughout the regnum Francorum up through the end of the ninth century. Indeed, a vast array of sources make clear that these small to middling landowners continued to be mobilized for military service for centuries after the end of the Carolingian dynasty.
Indeed, this reality has been tacitly accepted even by Étienne Renaud, one of the foremost advocates in recent years for revival of the model set out by Müller-Mertens. Renaud has argued, in part, that: “Small landowners, weakened by heavy military obligations, several consecutive years of poor harvests, or an accumulation of debt, give their property to a church and then lease it back on a precarial basis, for themselves and their descendants, in exchange for a modest rent.” However, like Müller-Mertens, Renaud is not able to point to any evidence for the model of the large-scale impoverishment of even the poorest of the landowners, who had military obligations. He had to admit that “data is lacking for the ninth century.”
To replace this missing data, Renaud turns to 12th century documents from the region of Mâcon, which he argues provides the evidence to support a wholesale crisis among what he denotes as the “peasantry” during Charlemagne’s reign. Obviously, the use of sources from one small region that post-date the period in question by more than three centuries is methodologically unsound. Moreover, Renaud was forced to admit not only that middling to small-scale landowners continued to be mobilized up through the end of the ninth century, thus vitiating all of his claims about the period of Charlemagne’s reign, but also that this practice was still in force a century later during the reign of Otto I (936-973) in the East Frankish/German kingdom.
In sum, there is no quantitative or qualitative data to support the conclusion that the liberi homines were impoverished on anything approaching a large scale during Charlemagne’s reign or at any point during the ninth century in the regnum Francorum. Concomitantly, it is necessary to reject the economic argument for the supposed collapse of the traditional Frankish military system, in which militia forces made up of landowners comprised the numerically preponderant element.
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:
Eckhard Müller-Mertens, Karl der Grosse, Ludwig der Fromme und die Freien: Wer waren die liberi homines der karolingischen Kapitularien (742/743-832)? Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte und Sozialpolitik des Frankenreiches (Berlin, 1963).
Étienne Renaud, “La politique militaire de Charlemagne et la paysannerie franque,” Francia 36 (2009), 1-33.
Étienne Renaud, “Un Élite paysanne en crise? Le poids des charges militaires pour les petits alleutiers entre Loire et Rhin au IX siècle,” in Élites au haut moyen âge: Crises et renouvellements, ed. Francois Bougard, Laurent Feller and Régine le Jan (Turnhout, 2006), 315-336.
Bernard S. Bachrach, “Charlemagne’s Expeditionary Levy: Observations Regarding Liberi Homines,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History third series 12 (2015) 1-65.
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