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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 103.: Definition of Regalia or Crown Rights, Given at the Diet Held on the Roncalian Plain, 1158. - A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age

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Collection: Primary Sources
Subject Area: History

103.: Definition of Regalia or Crown Rights, Given at the Diet Held on the Roncalian Plain, 1158. - Oliver J. Thatcher, A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age [1905]

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A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age, ed. Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905).

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103.

Definition of Regalia or Crown Rights, Given at the Diet Held on the Roncalian Plain, 1158.

The rights of the crown were called “regalia.” When Frederick I went into Italy (1158) he found that the royal rights had been usurped by the cities and nobles. At the diet which he held on the Roncalian plain he consulted lawyers who had been trained in the law of Justinian, and asked them what the imperial rights in Italy were. Their decision, which is here given, was largely influenced by their study of the Roman law. The account which Ragewin (IV, 7) gives of this diet is as follows: “Frederick then examined into the matter of the royal jurisdiction and the regalia, which for a long time had been lost to the empire because they had been usurped and the kings had neglected to recover them. The bishops, the nobles, and the cities, since they could find no excuse for retaining these rights, resigned them to the emperor. Milan was the first to surrender them. When the emperor asked what these rights were, the decision was given that they were the right to appoint dukes, marquises, counts, and consuls [in the cities]; to coin money; to levy tolls; to collect the fodrum [a tax in provisions for the support of the emperor and his army when passing through the territory]; to collect customs and harbor dues; to furnish safe-conducts; to control mills, fish-ponds, bridges, and all the water-ways, and to demand an annual tax not only from the land, but also from each person.”

These are the regalian rights or rights of the crown: Arimanniæ,1 public roads, navigable rivers and those which unite to form navigable rivers, harbors, and the banks of rivers; tolls, coinage, profits from fines and penalties; ownerless and confiscated lands, and the property of those who have contracted incestuous marriages or have been outlawed for crimes mentioned in the Novellæ of Justinian; rights of conveyance on direct routes and cross-roads2 (angariæ and parangariæ), and the prestation of ships;3 the special taxes for the royal expedition; the appointment of officials for the administration of justice; mines; royal palaces in the customary cities; the profits of fisheries and salt-works; the property of those who are guilty of offence against the majesty of the emperor; half the treasure discovered in places belonging to the emperor or dedicated to religious purposes, and all of it if the finder was aided by the emperor.

[1 ] Arimanniæ: Taxes paid by those who held certain lands or estates which had once been held by the arimanni, or free Lombards.

[2 ] When the emperor travelled he had the right to demand conveyances of various kinds from the people of the territory through which he was passing. Angariæ were conveyances for the “direct roads”; parangariæ, conveyances for the “cross-roads.” By “direct roads” are meant the chief roads; in Italy, those which led directly to Rome, and along which the emperor must pass when going to Rome. The “cross-roads” were the less important roads, which ran at right angles to the direct roads.

[3 ] In the same way the emperor had the right to demand ships for the transport of himself and his men.