ABSTRACT
The ques(ion now anses as to whether the ecoilomJc and political conditions on which this theory is baseci really prevailed during the period in question. The views which have been widely held concerning the primitive character of German economy in pre-Carolingian times are no longer tenable, based as they are on pure theory and absolutely irreconcilable with concemporary sources. The srudy of pre-hisrory has made it clear that German civilization is far older than has been supposed, and had reached an advanced stage long before the Christian era.3 Finds attributed to the Bronze Age have led Varges to the conclusion that at that time there were professional craftsmen among the Germans turning out piOducts intended for sale and not for personal use. 4 After the period of the migrations, however, when the Germans settled down permanently in the old Roman provinces, there is r.o doubt that a '' pure household economy" no longer existed. The C:escnpuon of general social and economic conC:itiom given earlier in this book muse have made it sufhciently obvious that such a self-supporting domestic economy was not the general rule, either among the mass of common freemen, whose holdings, even at this time, were of widely different sizes, or among the great estates, the lands composing which often consisted of a number of lots sca((ered and intermingled with those of other landowners. 5
The whole theory of the closed household economy and the "autarchy" (i.e. self-sufllcient production) of the great estate of the Middle Ages is clearly based una very shaky foundation. Its main argument is derived from two Carolingian documents, the Capitulare de Villis and the plan of St. Gall. Earlier scholars were completely misled by the statement in the former that a great number ofhandicraftsmen were kept on royal domains. But the Brevium Exempla of the same period has already shown that in actual practice those regulations were not adhered to, even on the royallands.1 On a previous occasion, in challenging the earlier interpretation of this decree, I pointed out that c. 42 clearly shows how few of the necessary utensils were already in the possession of the domains and how they had, in fact, to be bought from outside.2 The importance of the plan of St. Gall, in which we find quarters for numerous different industrial workers, has greatly diminished to-day, for we know that it is merely a general '>Cherne, an ideal picture,3 which comes nowhere near the reality.4 The plan was never carried out and was merely an aclvi~ory document issued in connection with the Aachen Reform of816. Moreover, it Ins hitherto passed unnoticed that the demand that industry should be carried on within the walls of the monastery was decidely inspired by the negative principle of the monastic rule, i.e. the desire to shut off the outside world (claustrare), 5 and not by the possession of positive economic resources, or any intention of producing everything "within the house".
