Tafelgüterverzeichnis
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The ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' is a list of the "courts which belong to the table of the king of the Romans" (''curie que pertinent ad mensam regis Romanorum''), that is, a register of the lands belonging to the royal demesne (or fisc) and of the payments in cash or in kind which each estate owed annually. The title "
king of the Romans King of the Romans (; ) was the title used by the king of East Francia following his election by the princes from the reign of Henry II (1002–1024) onward. The title originally referred to any German king between his election and coronatio ...
" was the preferred official title of the medieval Kings of Germany if they had not yet been crowned
Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans (disambiguation), Emperor of the Romans (; ) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period (; ), was the ruler and h ...
. Besides Germany, they also ruled the kingdoms of
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
and
Burgundy Burgundy ( ; ; Burgundian: ''Bregogne'') is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. ...
. The ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' lists lands in both Germany and Italy.


Manuscript and date

The ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' is found, alongside ten other documents pertaining to the Kornelimünster in Aachen and dating to the last quarter of the twelfth century, in manuscript "Bonn S. 1559" in the library of the
University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...
. It is a "draft of a letter sent by a canon of Aachen to someone of high rank in the king's entourage, perhaps his chancellor andnot really part of a survey policy oran administrative document in the strict sense of the word." It is nevertheless the closest thing to a fiscal record of the German monarchy in the twelfth century. The date of the ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' has been a matter of debate for over a century. It was probably drawn up after the first coronation of a king (as "King of the Romans") and before his imperial coronation, since the compiler is uncertain about the Italian estates: "How much they give no one can relate or find out unless we come to Lombardy." The use of the "Roman" title precludes its being earlier than the reign of Henry IV, leading to an earliest dating of 1064/5. Most commonly it is dated either to the first year (1152) of the reign of Frederick I or to the eve of his fifth visit to Italy (1173/4). It has been dated as late as 1185/9 by Wolfgang Metz, who argues that the ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' was compiled in three phases and only took on its final form through the work of a ''
ministerialis The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a legally unfree but socially elite class of knights, administrators, and officials in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire, drawn from a mix of servile origins, free commoners, and ...
'', perhaps William of Aachen, under Henry VI.


Contents

The ''curie'' (singular ''curia'') of the register were royal farmlands associated with manors, castles or towns. There were 20 recorded in
Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
, 21 in "Franconia along the Rhine" (''Francia circa Rhenum'', including
Lotharingia Lotharingia was a historical region and an early medieval polity that existed during the late Carolingian and early Ottonian era, from the middle of the 9th to the middle of the 10th century. It was established in 855 by the Treaty of Prüm, a ...
), 12 in
Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
and 28 in
Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...
. The register is divided between these four regions, but while its information on the German regions is detailed and consistent, that for Lombardy is uneven. It is not a complete list of lands owned by the crown, much of which was enfeoffed, nor even a complete list of crown lands that were directly exploited by the monarchs. No lands in
Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...
or
Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...
are included, possibly because these had been informally attached as an
appanage An appanage, or apanage (; ), is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger child of a monarch, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture (where only the eldest inherits). It was ...
to the
Duchy of Swabia The Duchy of Swabia (; ) was one of the five stem duchy, stem duchies of the medieval Kingdom of Germany, German Kingdom. It arose in the 10th century in the southwestern area that had been settled by Alemanni tribes in Late Antiquity. While th ...
. This would place the date of composition of the ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' after the election of Conrad III of the Swabian
House of Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty ...
in 1138. On the other hand, the total number of services (''servitia'') owed by the Saxon estates is greater than that owed by all the other estates combined. This is best explained by dating the register to the reign of Lothair III (1125–37), who was a Saxon and whose court was dominated by Saxons. A Saxon ''servitium'' consisted of "thirty large pigs, three cows, five suckling pigs, fifty hens, fifty eggs, ninety cheeses, ten geese, five barrels of beer, five pounds of pepper, ten pounds of wax, wine from cellars all over Saxony." The ''servitia'' in the other German regions consisted of the same products in different proportions, with the Bavarian and Franconian ''servitia'' being the same. The high burden of the ''servitia'' suggests they were for the support of an army or of the royal palace year-round, but there is no indication of the period of time which a ''servitium'' was supposed to cover. The totals of ''servitia'' owed in Saxony and Bavaria are given by the scribe as "as many days as are in year plus 40" (''quot sunt dies in anno, et XL plus'') and 26, respectively. Since specific service requirements are only given for two Saxon estates, and a total of 405 were owed by the 20 estates, the average number owed by the other 18 for which now specific requirement is given must be 20 ''servitia'', a very high number, given that only one other estate in the entire register owed more than eight. Nine of the 28 Lombard estates owed cash payments totaling 5,600
marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks A collective trademark, collective trade mark, or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such ...
(''marcas''). None of the German estates owed any. The imperial crown—and the authority in Italy that was established with it—were appealing to the German kings largely for the monetary resources that the advance economy of Lombardy provided. The ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' does not mention any tolls, although these were increasingly the main means of raising cash in Germany. Sixteen of the estates in the register are known to have had royal toll stations, but these are not mentioned. The most common meat in the ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' is pork, although archaeological evidence suggests that beef was more common.


Other theories

Caroline Göldel argues that the ''Tafelgüterverzeichnis'' is not a list of renders owed to the king and his entourage, but was drawn up in 1165 by Otto of Andechs, then provost of the Kornelimünster, in connexion with the canonisation of
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...
. She believes Frederick I was made a canon of Aachen at that time, and that the register records the benefices associated with this honorary canonry. John Freed states that it was compiled in 1173 or 1174 to protect the interests of the diocese of Bamberg.


Table

This table is derived from Ludwig Weiland's
critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range i ...
of 1893. — — —


Notes


Sources

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Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tafelguterverzeichnis Medieval documents of Germany 12th century in the Holy Roman Empire 12th-century manuscripts