Medieval Sourcebook:
Louis the Pious:
Two Grants of Extraction of Salt, 821-833
Capitulary of Diedenhofen (Thionville), 821.
C.8. Concerning the land on the seashore, where they make salt, we wish that some
of them come to our court so that their case may be heard, and then we shall decide
equitably between them.
Grant of Salt Springs to Abbey of Nieuw Corvey, 833.
In the name of our Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Louis, by the grace of Divine
Providence, Emperor Augustus.... We wish it to be known to all our people, both present
and future, that . . . we have founded . . . a monastery in Saxony, in honor of St.
Stephen, the first martyr for Christ, and have given it the name of New Corvey....
Warenne, whom we have made abbot of thasame monastery, has sought to put in mind of our
highness that we should have provided in the Duchy of Saxony a place where salt might be
obtained for seasoning and salting the food of the monks dwelling for all time in that
monastery. Moreover he said that we had promised what salt there was, as much as it was in
our power, in the county of Logi, in the Duchy of Budinisvelt, which is beyond the Weser.
Therefore we have decreed that there shall remain under the authority of that monastery as
much right as we appear to have in that salt, just as we said, for securing what is
necessary for the servants of God dwelling in that monastery. And that this grant may
remain secure we have ordered it to be sealed below with our seal.
Source.
From: J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Vol. XCVII, p. 445 (Paris,
1862); N. Schaten, S.J., ed., Annales Paderbornenses, Vol. I, p. 92 ( Neuhaus,
1693); both reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Hebert H. Coulson, eds., A Source Book for
Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed.,
New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 76-77.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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© Paul Halsall, September 1998
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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