SERVITIUM REGIS AND MONASTIC PROPERTY

Abstract

In the Carolingian Empire, and especially in the German realm from the mid-tenth to the mid-eleventh century, as the great ecclesiastical institutions – the bishoprics and the royal monasteries – gradually became integrated into the structure of feudal government, they had to serve the realm in a secular as well as a religious capacity. This new legal relationship between the bishoprics and royal monasteries and their ‘protector’, the king, brought with it manifold obligations to the king, which we call the servitium regis described above. These services for the king generally tended to ‘secularize’ the royal monasteries, and seriously affected the monastic ideal as well as the development of monasticism in Germany. For instance, the monastic ideal required the relinquishment of private property and avow of poverty. Yet in order to fulfil the servitium regis , the royal monasteries had to have property far beyond their needs for subsistence. Likewise, the monastic conception of the ascetic life was partially compromised by increased contact with the secular world. As father of his congregation and as the king's vassal (or royal representative), the abbot no longer stood within the congregation, but outside and above it, a prince of the realm between the monastery and the king. This progressive secularization of the abbot's position and of monastic property began to threaten the brothers' endowment and, consequently, their ability to lead the ascetic life unencumbered and to offer constant prayer for the king and the realm.