# Later-printed capitularies make royal law a copyable Latin text rather than only a spoken command

Date: 1880

## The fact

Capitulary English is a completed textualisation of command. The dated carrier is that later publication. Written law can be a death-for-rites heading and can also be a check on purely oral whim.

## Context

Twin of the Saxon death-penalty row. Medium confidence.

[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

Printed capitularies are not a parliament.

Printed capitularies are not a parliament.

## 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

- Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience

## Sources

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-political/
- https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/einhard.asp

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ch-written-capitularies-law