Land, Wealth and the Economy

Because the endowment of the new monasteries and decoration of their shrines and churches involved considerable alienation of land and wealth, the growth of monasticism in the seventh century necessarily had an impact on the economy of the Merovingian kingdom. From the historian's point of view the increase in monastic foundations is not only a significant development in itself, but also has important evidential ramifications. This is not because new methods of conveyancing were developed in order to transfer land to the monasteries, although such was to be the case in Anglo-Saxon England; the seventh-century Merovingian charter probably descends more or less directly from Roman prototypes. ¹ Rather, it is a matter of preservation: like most powerful individuals and institutions in the early Middle Ages, monasteries were concerned to keep a record of their possessions and their rights, but whereas no public or private secular archive has survived at all, some holdings of monastic archives, especially from that of St Denis, have come down to us, largely because they were preserved in their original institutions until the French Revolution. Among these holdings were charters, detailing and confirming the alienation of land, grants of immunity, which circumscribed and even prevented the activities of royal officials on the exempt ecclesiastical land, and wills. In addition to such official documentation, there are the writings of hagiographers, who took a keen interest in the treasures offered to the shrines of the saints. Thus, while the seventh century may well have seen an escalation of the alienation of land to the Church, and almost certainly saw a radical extension of the granting of rights of immunity over land, it also provides material from which to make an assessment of land-holding throughout the Merovingian period. Further, while describing the wealth of the shrines of seventh-century saints, the hagiographers also provide useful information to add to what else is known about treasure in the Merovingian kingdom.