Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 180.: Form for the Creation of an Antrustio by the King. - A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age

Return to Title Page for A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Collection: Primary Sources
Subject Area: History

180.: Form for the Creation of an Antrustio by the King. - Oliver J. Thatcher, A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age [1905]

Edition used:

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).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


180.

Form for the Creation of an Antrustio by the King.

Most of the following documents are taken from books of formulæ; that is, collections of forms of documents made by various persons to serve as examples for the drawing up of charters, etc. They were probably made from actual documents by leaving out the names and inserting ille (such an one) or similar expressions. The formulæ of Marculf were written at the end of the seventh century. We quote them from the edition in the Monumenta Germaniæ, Leges, vol. v, giving only the pages in that volume after the first reference.

It is right that those who have promised us unbroken faith should be rewarded by our aid and protection. Now since our faithful subject (name) with the will of God has come to our palace with his arms and has there sworn in our hands to keep his trust and fidelity to us, therefore we decree and command by the present writing that henceforth the said (name) is to be numbered among our antrustiones.1 If anyone shall presume to slay him, let him know that he shall have to pay 600 solidi as a wergeld for him.

[1 ] The position of the antrustio is explained in the note to the Salic law, XLI, no. 4. See also the reference to the leudes in no. 189.