Royal Carolingian Residential Villas

Carolingian kings had many palaces, villas and estates, but they only resided at the more important. Even a partial picture of all the farming estates of Carolingian kings cannot be painted because records survive for only some of the farms given away to churches, whose own records, on rare occasion, do survive. We assume that most agricultural estates were not far distant from the places of residence, as transport of food overland was expensive. Exceptions were luxury products, such as wine, and vineyard estates might be far distant. With the increased use of coin in paying rents, distance became less problematic.

Royal estates, however, were more than sources of financial gain or places to sleep, they had a political nature too. The great royal Carolingian villas of Aachen, Compiegne, Frankfurt, Herstal, Ingelheim, Nijmegen, Paderborn, Quierzy and Thionville were effectively centres of government. Here charters were witnessed, ambassadors met, great assemblies and even church synods convened, laws enacted.

The concentration of estates along the Rhine and between the Meuse and Moselle reflects the homeland of the Carolingian family. Visits to estates east of the Rhine reflect political activity,

Such as the planning of campaigns against the Saxons. The rarity of sojourns in southern France reveals a lack of personal wealth there but also an absence of important political threats or interests.

Where estates were left too long unvisited in the hands of officials, they were often usurped. Rarity of estates and weakness of political authority went hand in hand. The dissolution of the Carolingian fisc was the title given to the theory that Carolingian political power dwindled as estates were given away on a huge scale, but how much land was truly lost is not clear. As estates and palaces grew old, kings favoured newer ones. Thus the favourite royal Merovingian palaces, such as Berny-Riviere, while still owned by Carolingian kings, were rarely visited by them. Charlemagne and his son's most loved palaces, Aachen and Ingelheim, were those they had built anew.

R. Samson