medieval worlds • no. 10 • 2019
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at |
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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medieval worlds • no. 10 • 2019 ISSN 2412-3196 Online Edition ISBN 978-3-7001-8663-2 Online Edition
Stefan Esders
S. 17 - 45 doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no10_2019s17 Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no10_2019s17
Abstract: Taking the Alpine region of Churraetia as a case study, this paper investigates processes of fiscal delegation, their preconditions, their legal construction, and their consequences. As Churraetia maintained many features of Roman provincial administration and statehood well into the Carolingian period, the article’s first part traces how fiscal revenues and rights came to be delegated to the episcopal church of Chur via royal privilege from the mid-9th century until 960. The delegation of fiscal rights usually happened in special situations when kings and grantees agreed on a closer cooperation in the future. In the course of this process, which in the case of Churraetia eventually turned a former Roman province into an ecclesiastical principality, the episcopal church became a governance actor that would play a crucial rule in exercising public functions such as tax collection, jurisdiction and military recruitment. Ecclesiastical property (often deriving from royal munificence) and fiscal income became indispensable means for performing these functions. The article’s second part focuses on the situation of 912 when the newly elected East Frankish king Conrad I, the first ruler of non-Carolingian stock, conferred two special privileges on the episcopal church of Chur: Conrad’s grant of the right to conduct inquisition procedure by compulsory witness in order to protect ecclesiastical property effectively meant that procedural law typical for the »public sphere« now came into the hands of the bishop of Chur. Conrad’s second stipulation, that the thirty-year period of proscription should not to be applied against the interest of the bishop of Chur, has to be seen against the background of legal pluralism in this region, in which several legal traditions were in conflict: while Roman law allowed a slave to rid himself of his master after thirty years, Aleman law forbade this, just as the idea that ecclesiastical property was regarded as inalienable spoke against the application of the thirty-years rule to the detriment of the church. Responding to ecclesiastical networks supporting his rule, Conrad thus had the Roman legal rule of prescription branded as a »bad custom« (mala consuetudo). As is finally argued in a more general perspective, in historical situations of political transition legal pluralism and legal change could lead to a new qualification of what had formerly been seen in more positive terms as »custom«. Keywords: law; custom; fiscal rights; inquisition procedure; prescription; slavery and serfdom; delegation; Churraetia; polyptychs; royal charters Published Online: 2019/11/28 19:50:40 Object Identifier: 0xc1aa5572 0x003b0d6a Rights: .
medieval worlds provides a forum for comparative, interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Its aim is to overcome disciplinary boundaries, regional limits and national research traditions in Medieval Studies, to open up new spaces for discussion, and to help developing global perspectives. We focus on the period from c. 400 to 1500 CE but do not stick to rigid periodization.
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at |