The Foundations of Royal Power in Early Medieval Germany by David S. Bachrach;

Author:David S. Bachrach;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 2022-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

4

Ecclesiastical Resources at the Ruler’s Disposal

The previous two chapters have considered the resources provided to the royal government from estates held by the fisc and the taxes, tolls, and other regalian revenues and rights that derived from the authority held by the king by virtue of his office. A third, equally important, source of resources for the royal government was provided by the bishoprics and monasteries within the East Frankish and German kingdoms. Certain elements of ecclesiastical support for the crown, as distinct from spiritual and moral support of the king and kingdom through prayer, have garnered significant attention, often in the context of the historiographical construct of the Imperial Church System (German Reichskirchensystem).1 Notable in this context are the provision of logistical support for the itinerant royal court, which is denoted under the general rubric of fodrum and gistum, and the supply of military contingents for expeditionary military campaigns.2 Significantly less attention has been devoted to other aspects of ecclesiastical support for the royal government including the resources devoted to defensive military efforts, and the requisitioning of church lands and assets either to be held directly by the ruler or to be granted out as beneficia to help support royal officials. One further aspect of royal demands on and use of ecclesiastical assets concerns the government’s role in imposing tithes as a universal tax. As will be discussed below, tithes provided an exceptionally important stream of revenue that served not only the specific interests of individual ecclesiastical institutions, but also was available in a variety of direct and indirect ways to the ruler as well. As has been true in the previous chapters, royal and ecclesiastical charters are the indispensible starting point for the discussion of royal use of the resources of individual churches, as well as the broad-based demands on “the Church” as a whole. Additional information is derived from historiographical texts, particularly the gestae of individual bishops and abbots, statutes of episcopal synods, as well as letters. The scale of the investments made by ecclesiastical officials in the construction of palaces, fortifications, and other public works, is made manifest in the considerable and growing body of archaeological studies.

Fodrum and Gistum

The terms fodrum and gistum are generally understood to denote the provision of fodder and housing to the royal court, although they could have broader implications as well, including the requirement to feed men as well as animals, and to pay for such provisioning. The basic study of these impositions on ecclesiastical institutions remains Carlrichard Brühl’s monumental investigation not only of fodrum and gistum but also of the broader matrix of obligations tied to the concept of servitium regis from the sixth to the fourteenth century in the Regnum Francorum and its German, French, and Italian successors.3 Brühl’s thesis in this study is spelled out quite clearly in the sub-title of the work which identifies these burdens on ecclesiastical institutions as providing the economic foundation for the kingdom as a whole.

Although Brühl’s effort to define the legal obligations

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