Medieval Sourcebook:
Otto the Great:
Grant of Market, Coinage, and Taxation Privileges to Bishopric of Osnabrück, 952
Otto the Great, A.D. 936-973, showed great favor to the Church as is illustrated by
the grants he made bestowing counties and duchies with temporal jurisdiction including
rights of coinage, taxation, and markets.
In the name of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, Otto, by the grace of God, King.
Be it known to all our faithful, both present and future, that, at the intervention of
the venerable bishop, Drugo, of the see of Osnabrück, we have granted a public market and
the right to make money in the place called Wyddenbrugge; for the redemption of our soul
we have given to the same church whatever the fisc or royal power held there. Rights of
coinage and taxation and other public rights, hitherto under our authority, we grant to
the said bishop, or his successors, and we firmly command that no judge exercise any
authority to disturb him in these rights, or do him harm.
And in order that the bishop and his successors may hold this from us and from our
successors inviolably, and that it may be diligently adhered to by all people, we have
ordered this charter to be sealed by the impression of our seal, confirming it with our
own signature.
The year of the Incarnation of the Lord 952, June twenty-eighth, in the sixteenth year
of the reign of King Otto.
Source.
From: N. Schaten, S.J., ed., Annales Paderbornenses, (Neuhaus, 1693), Vol. I, p.
295; reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, eds., A Source Book for
Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed.,
New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), p.136.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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© Paul Halsall, October 1998
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