The Formularies of Angers and Marculf: Two Merovingian Legal Handbooks

Description

Translated with an introduction and notes by Alice Rio. This book offers the first full English translation of two major sources for the Merovingian kingdoms: the formularies of Angers and Marculf (sixth and seventh centuries). These collections of model legal documents, compiled by scribes as an aid to the composition of future documents, constitute an important source of evidence on government, legal practice and social life during the Merovingian period, both at the local level (for Angers) and at the level of the kingdom's elite and the entourage of the king (for Marculf). They illuminate aspects of life which would often have been considered too trivial to be worth mentioning in narrative sources, and can include instructions dealing with subjects as diverse as appointing a bishop, making a gift, borrowing money, divorcing, selling an infant child, confiscating property from a rebel, writing Christmas greetings, and settling disputes over murders, thefts or kidnappings. As well as presenting the translations, the introduction also gives a brief outline of the characteristics of this type of source as a whole, with the aim of putting these texts into perspective and providing a methodological handle for them. Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations viii Introduction 1 The scope of this book 1 The scope of formulae 4 The problem with formulae 6 Authorship and audience: what the manuscript evidence can tell us 8 The language of formulae 17 Formulae and the written word 22 Formulae and surviving documents 25 Dating formulae: original collections vs. manuscript tradition 28 Local context and diffusion 33 To conclude 34 A note on this translation 36 Part One: The Formulary of Angers 37 Introduction 38 Translation 47 Part Two: The Formulary of Marculf 103 Introduction 104 The scope of the collection 105 Date and place of origin 107 Marculf and Landeric 107 Dating the collection 110 Marculf and St Denis 113 A note on the printed editions 117 Translation 124 Book One 127 Book Two 177 Supplement 230 Additamenta: additional texts from the manuscripts of Marculf 235 a, b, c: three more texts from the manuscripts of Marculf 240 Appendix 1: The original date of the Angers collection: the state of the question 248 Appendix 2: The 'gesta municipalia' 255 Appendix 3: The Marculf collection: manuscripts and editions 259 The manuscript tradition 259 Editions of Marculf and the hierarchy of manuscripts 265 Map 280 Glossary 281 Bibliography 288 Index 304