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How to Manage a Dark Ages Estate

107 points by hnmullany 6y ago

hnmullany 6y ago
This is a translation of the Capitulare de Villis - rules for managing Charlemagne's estates - written at the end of the 8th century.
BlameKaneda 6y ago
"25. They are to report on the first of September whether or not there will be food for the pigs." If there was no food, would the pigs have been slaughtered? Or maybe the underperforming staff would have been brought in instead.
- dmckeon 6y ago
  Pigs would have been expected to forage in the forests, for “mast” - acorns from oaks and other trees - and anything else a pig might eat. Oak trees tend to produce a small amount of acorns in most years, and much more in a “mast year” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(botany) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(botany) . Before refrigeration, meat animals might be kept alive as long as there was stored fodder to feed them, or slaughtered when the weather turned colder, or slaughtered when time and other tasks allowed for preserving meat by salting or sausage-making. So, think of this as an end-of-harvest status report on when the crown court can expect to start getting sides of bacon delivered, and how many of them.
pradn 6y ago
The term "Dark Ages" is not used by historians any more. And it's doubly odd because these rules, from Charlemagne's times, were the very cause of the "Carolingian renaissance" of the eighth and ninth centuries.
- whearyou 6y ago
  As far as I understand this would have been post-dark ages if it's during or after Charlemange
- elliekelly 6y ago
  Is there a good source where I can read more about this or can you elaborate a bit? Why don’t they use the term and what term is preferred instead? Edit: Oddly enough, the Wikipedia article[1] includes a few sentences/references about how and why the term is no longer considered accurate by historians (it “mischaracterises the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness“) yet Wikipedia continues to use the term “Dark Ages” as the article title. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
  - pradn 6y ago
    The article simply uses the term in the title so it can discuss it. Historians prefer the Middle Ages or the Medieval Period. Since this is relatively Europe-centric, historians are trying to go in the direction of "global Medieval studies", to form connections among various regions of the world. Our periodization is largely Eurocentric. The very long lineage of metallic/tool-based terms like the Bronze Age run into the obvious problem that bronze arrived in different regions at different times.
    - Karawebnetwork 6y ago
      > The article simply uses the term in the title so it can discuss it. The words "Dark Ages" do not appear in the text. This is the HN post title.
      - pradn 6y ago
        Oh, I thought they were talking about the Wikipedia article's title.
        Karawebnetwork 6y ago
        I think you're right. It was a bit vague and I thought it was about the article's title itself.
  - zippy5 6y ago
- Klwohu 6y ago
  Historians use the term frequently.
  - AlotOfReading 6y ago
    This doesn't match my experience at all, so can you expand on it? All of my medievalist friends all hate the term and both of the Wickham books in my possession have disclaimers about it in the intro.
- hnmullany 6y ago
  Yes the point of using "Dark Ages" was to point out the dissonance between the detailed instructions on how to manage an estate and the idea that this was a period of total chaos & disorder
cabaalis 6y ago
> 1. It is our wish that those of our estates which we have established to minister to our needs shall serve our purposes entirely and not those of other men. It seems like anti-moonlighting clauses are as old as time.
AnotherGoodName 6y ago
> they shall accept no gifts from them, neither a horse nor an ox, nor a cow, nor a pig, nor a sheep, nor a piglet, nor a lamb, nor anything other than bottles of wine, vegetables, fruit, chickens and eggs. Remarkably similar to most corporate anti-corruption policies of today. I've generally seen wording "No gifts over $50". So a bottle of wine is fine as a gesture but anything that's expensive enough that it likely influences decision making isn't allowed.
- foobarian 6y ago
  I find it fascinating how much further that society went toward looking like a corporation. It's almost as if everyone born was an employee by default, and the referenced "freemen" were the exception, being non-employees. And this document could be an acquisition contract where the acquired CEO tried to keep his company intact under the new owner (hence the words about not allowing the new owner to reassign people to different jobs).
  - phone8675309 6y ago
    > It's almost as if everyone born was an employee by default, and the referenced "freemen" were the exception, being non-employees. I don't know if you're joking, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism was a thing shortly after this text
    - foobarian 6y ago
      I'm not joking, and I know basics of history and feudalism, but I always found the definitions too abstract to grasp intuitively. Sure there is always the evil feudal lord oppressing the poor peasants. It's too hard for me to grok how that society worked, so I find it helpful to find modern structures that are close to isomorphic to feudalism for better intuitive understanding. "Ah it's like a company but each piece of land and everyone on it is automatically in it." That's a lot easier to see.
adaml_623 6y ago
I'm amused that these web pages are from 2008 which feels like the middle ages of the internet.
alekratz 6y ago
So I'm seeing that this is from the 8th century, but they make reference to corn and pumpkins, which were imports from North America. What's up with that?
- pja 6y ago
  It’s a mistranslation of melon I think.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  I think it’s a mistranslation. OF. popon -> pompon -> pompion, meaning a large melon or (later) pumpkin. I guess it was translated as pumpkin rather than melon.
- gh-throw 6y ago
  Corn just means grain. The shift to being equivalent to "maize" is later, and I think not universal in English-speaking dialects (and obviously only happened after the Columbian exchange).
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  "Corn" in UK English has historically meant cultivable grains in general, not "maize" specifically as in North America. Also, "pumpkin" is a standard English translation for the Latin and Greek terms that, if you want to be pedantic, were just "gourd". See e.g. The Pumpkinification of Claudius [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocolocyntosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocolocyntosis
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
and in addition let him be punished by whipping according to the law, except in the case of murder or arson, for which a fine may be exacted. Punishment for killing someone was only a fine? Dark Ages indeed.
- Muromec 6y ago
  Sending people to prison to do nothing is kinda self-defeating if it’s your people. And in this context fine is arguably worse than being whipped.
  - neaden 6y ago
    Prison in this time period wasn't really a punishment thing, it's what you did when you were trying to ransom someone you captured in battle mostly. Punishments would have mostly been fines, with some corporal punishment and of course capital punishment.
    - why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
      That applied to aristocracy only, didn't it? Peasants were considered as slightly more intelligent livestock, their lives nearly worthless.
      - neaden 6y ago
        No, peasants had rights which varied immensely depending on their exact status and where they were. Still the aristocracy couldn't just kill them or take their stuff, and one of the primary responsibilities of the aristocracy or other landholders was adjudicating disputes between peasants. So if we were two free peasants who got in a fight, we might end up in court with the lord or their representative deciding between us, with one or both of us possibly facing fines.
      - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
        Serfs had a lower maximum tax rate (33%) than we have in the USA. https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/apr/19/20010419-022058-4275r/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/apr/19/20010419-0220...
pugworthy 6y ago
> 9. It is our wish that each steward shall keep in his district measures for modii and sextaria, and vessels containing eight sextaria, and also baskets of the same capacity as we have in our palace. For those curious as to the meaning of this one, sextaria is a unit of liquid measure (a pint) and modii is a unit of dry measure (approximately a peck). So basically they are aiming to have a standard set of measures, which would be important for commerce or tithes of materials such as crops.
SeanFerree 6y ago
Love this! Great article!
ALittleLight 6y ago
I wonder to what extent this is like a statement of corporate leadership principles or actual instructions and tasks that would need to get done. As in, if I were a steward would I skim this, roll my eyes, tuck it away somewhere and get back to work, or would I run out and start counting geese to make sure I was in compliance?
- ajcp 6y ago
  I would imagine it would all depend on the same factors you would evaluate as a corporation: - How likely am I to get audited? - If I do get audited how much does the language in this document allow me to pin it on someone in my org, but not me? - How powerful am I? - How rich am I? - How much does the regime like me? - How much does the regime need me?

107 points by hnmullany 6y ago

This is a translation of the Capitulare de Villis - rules for managing Charlemagne's estates - written at the end of the 8th century.

BlameKaneda 6y ago

"25. They are to report on the first of September whether or not there will be food for the pigs." If there was no food, would the pigs have been slaughtered? Or maybe the underperforming staff would have been brought in instead.

dmckeon 6y ago
Pigs would have been expected to forage in the forests, for “mast” - acorns from oaks and other trees - and anything else a pig might eat. Oak trees tend to produce a small amount of acorns in most years, and much more in a “mast year” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(botany) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(botany) . Before refrigeration, meat animals might be kept alive as long as there was stored fodder to feed them, or slaughtered when the weather turned colder, or slaughtered when time and other tasks allowed for preserving meat by salting or sausage-making. So, think of this as an end-of-harvest status report on when the crown court can expect to start getting sides of bacon delivered, and how many of them.

pradn 6y ago

The term "Dark Ages" is not used by historians any more. And it's doubly odd because these rules, from Charlemagne's times, were the very cause of the "Carolingian renaissance" of the eighth and ninth centuries.

whearyou 6y ago
As far as I understand this would have been post-dark ages if it's during or after Charlemange
elliekelly 6y ago
Is there a good source where I can read more about this or can you elaborate a bit? Why don’t they use the term and what term is preferred instead? Edit: Oddly enough, the Wikipedia article[1] includes a few sentences/references about how and why the term is no longer considered accurate by historians (it “mischaracterises the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness“) yet Wikipedia continues to use the term “Dark Ages” as the article title. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
- pradn 6y ago
  The article simply uses the term in the title so it can discuss it. Historians prefer the Middle Ages or the Medieval Period. Since this is relatively Europe-centric, historians are trying to go in the direction of "global Medieval studies", to form connections among various regions of the world. Our periodization is largely Eurocentric. The very long lineage of metallic/tool-based terms like the Bronze Age run into the obvious problem that bronze arrived in different regions at different times.
  - Karawebnetwork 6y ago
    > The article simply uses the term in the title so it can discuss it. The words "Dark Ages" do not appear in the text. This is the HN post title.
    - pradn 6y ago
      Oh, I thought they were talking about the Wikipedia article's title.
      - Karawebnetwork 6y ago
        I think you're right. It was a bit vague and I thought it was about the article's title itself.
- zippy5 6y ago
Klwohu 6y ago
Historians use the term frequently.
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  This doesn't match my experience at all, so can you expand on it? All of my medievalist friends all hate the term and both of the Wickham books in my possession have disclaimers about it in the intro.
hnmullany 6y ago
Yes the point of using "Dark Ages" was to point out the dissonance between the detailed instructions on how to manage an estate and the idea that this was a period of total chaos & disorder

cabaalis 6y ago

> 1. It is our wish that those of our estates which we have established to minister to our needs shall serve our purposes entirely and not those of other men. It seems like anti-moonlighting clauses are as old as time.

AnotherGoodName 6y ago

> they shall accept no gifts from them, neither a horse nor an ox, nor a cow, nor a pig, nor a sheep, nor a piglet, nor a lamb, nor anything other than bottles of wine, vegetables, fruit, chickens and eggs. Remarkably similar to most corporate anti-corruption policies of today. I've generally seen wording "No gifts over $50". So a bottle of wine is fine as a gesture but anything that's expensive enough that it likely influences decision making isn't allowed.

foobarian 6y ago
I find it fascinating how much further that society went toward looking like a corporation. It's almost as if everyone born was an employee by default, and the referenced "freemen" were the exception, being non-employees. And this document could be an acquisition contract where the acquired CEO tried to keep his company intact under the new owner (hence the words about not allowing the new owner to reassign people to different jobs).
- phone8675309 6y ago
  > It's almost as if everyone born was an employee by default, and the referenced "freemen" were the exception, being non-employees. I don't know if you're joking, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism was a thing shortly after this text
  - foobarian 6y ago
    I'm not joking, and I know basics of history and feudalism, but I always found the definitions too abstract to grasp intuitively. Sure there is always the evil feudal lord oppressing the poor peasants. It's too hard for me to grok how that society worked, so I find it helpful to find modern structures that are close to isomorphic to feudalism for better intuitive understanding. "Ah it's like a company but each piece of land and everyone on it is automatically in it." That's a lot easier to see.

adaml_623 6y ago

I'm amused that these web pages are from 2008 which feels like the middle ages of the internet.

alekratz 6y ago

So I'm seeing that this is from the 8th century, but they make reference to corn and pumpkins, which were imports from North America. What's up with that?

pja 6y ago
It’s a mistranslation of melon I think.
dan-robertson 6y ago
I think it’s a mistranslation. OF. popon -> pompon -> pompion, meaning a large melon or (later) pumpkin. I guess it was translated as pumpkin rather than melon.
gh-throw 6y ago
Corn just means grain. The shift to being equivalent to "maize" is later, and I think not universal in English-speaking dialects (and obviously only happened after the Columbian exchange).
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
"Corn" in UK English has historically meant cultivable grains in general, not "maize" specifically as in North America. Also, "pumpkin" is a standard English translation for the Latin and Greek terms that, if you want to be pedantic, were just "gourd". See e.g. The Pumpkinification of Claudius [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocolocyntosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocolocyntosis
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago

and in addition let him be punished by whipping according to the law, except in the case of murder or arson, for which a fine may be exacted. Punishment for killing someone was only a fine? Dark Ages indeed.

Muromec 6y ago
Sending people to prison to do nothing is kinda self-defeating if it’s your people. And in this context fine is arguably worse than being whipped.
- neaden 6y ago
  Prison in this time period wasn't really a punishment thing, it's what you did when you were trying to ransom someone you captured in battle mostly. Punishments would have mostly been fines, with some corporal punishment and of course capital punishment.
  - why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
    That applied to aristocracy only, didn't it? Peasants were considered as slightly more intelligent livestock, their lives nearly worthless.
    - neaden 6y ago
      No, peasants had rights which varied immensely depending on their exact status and where they were. Still the aristocracy couldn't just kill them or take their stuff, and one of the primary responsibilities of the aristocracy or other landholders was adjudicating disputes between peasants. So if we were two free peasants who got in a fight, we might end up in court with the lord or their representative deciding between us, with one or both of us possibly facing fines.
    - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
      Serfs had a lower maximum tax rate (33%) than we have in the USA. https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/apr/19/20010419-022058-4275r/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/apr/19/20010419-0220...

pugworthy 6y ago

> 9. It is our wish that each steward shall keep in his district measures for modii and sextaria, and vessels containing eight sextaria, and also baskets of the same capacity as we have in our palace. For those curious as to the meaning of this one, sextaria is a unit of liquid measure (a pint) and modii is a unit of dry measure (approximately a peck). So basically they are aiming to have a standard set of measures, which would be important for commerce or tithes of materials such as crops.

SeanFerree 6y ago

Love this! Great article!

ALittleLight 6y ago

I wonder to what extent this is like a statement of corporate leadership principles or actual instructions and tasks that would need to get done. As in, if I were a steward would I skim this, roll my eyes, tuck it away somewhere and get back to work, or would I run out and start counting geese to make sure I was in compliance?

ajcp 6y ago
I would imagine it would all depend on the same factors you would evaluate as a corporation: - How likely am I to get audited? - If I do get audited how much does the language in this document allow me to pin it on someone in my org, but not me? - How powerful am I? - How rich am I? - How much does the regime like me? - How much does the regime need me?