# Later-printed Saxon capitularies prescribe death for pagan practice as received law

Date: 1880

## The fact

Capitulary texts as later public English (Fordham/encyclopedia tradition) prescribe capital penalties for refusing baptism or practising Saxon rites. The dated carrier is that modern publication of received law.

## Context

Royal law is not an independent bench. Medium confidence on enforcement coefficients; high that the printed headings exist.

[Charlemagne](/people/charlemagne) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official heritage, Vatican-adjacent, or annalistic edition pages and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Fordham Internet History Sourcebooks — Einhard, Vita Karoli (https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/einhard.asp; Fordham University).

## Significance

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Charlemagne: https://factrail.ai/people/charlemagne

## Drivers

- Judicial independence erosion (court capture): https://factrail.ai/drivers/justice-judicial-independence-erosion

## Sources

- https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03610c.htm
- https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/einhard.asp

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ch-capitulary-saxon-terror