Capitulare de villis

The Capitulare de villis is a text composed sometime in the late 8th or early 9th century that guided the governance of the royal estates, possibly during the later years of the reign of Charlemagne (c. 768–814). It lists, in no particular order, a series of rules and regulations on how to manage the lands, animals, justice, and overall administration of the king's property and assets. The document was meant to lay out the instructions and criteria for managing Charlemagne's estates and was thus an important part of his reform of Carolingian government and administration.

A comparison with the Brevium Exempla, which records actual audits of several estates, shows that de Villis was a largely aspirational document which did not always (if ever) correspond to reality.