monasteries and their lands under his protection; established (literally
‘stabilized’) liberties, in one case of ‘the bishop of the Jews’ of Worms;
made grants ‘in proprietary right’ for the most part to clergy, sometimes
adding ‘hereditary right’ and full ‘power of disposition (facultatem
disponendi)’ as it was enjoyed by ‘other imperial churches’; and
confirmed his ministeriales’ pious grants of their hereditary property.^57
On the other hand, lay advocates were forbidden to acquire ‘in heredi-
tary right’, or grant benefices from, the property of the churches they
were intended to protect, and an abbot who disposed of his inheritance
was enjoined to do so only ‘for the greater benefit (maiori utilitate)’ of
his house and by the counsel of his brother canons.^58 The property
rights of the church were not to be alienated lightly: they were possessed
for higher purposes, and the property of the king was for the same
reason on a different plane from that of the baronage. Bishops might be
endowed with whole counties by the emperor, but they were not to let
the office of the counts they appointed become hereditary. The castles
and the lands of a margrave which were ‘established’ by the emperor as
the property of the monastery which the fidelishad founded were said
to be taken from ‘the proprietary right of the kingdom’.^59 Because it
was for the imperial majesty always to increase public property (rem
publicam), not diminish it for the sake of any reason or person,
Frederick’s grant of lands to his nephew Henry the Lion, duke of
Bavaria and Saxony, had to be balanced by Henry’s transfer to
Frederick of the castle of Baden, along with a hundred ministeriales and
other estates, and by the emperor’s acquisition, formally approved by
the princes, of further lands to be ‘the right and property of the king-
dom’.^60
A subject’s ‘ownership’ of property was qualified by the condition,
stated or implied, of loyal service to the king in return for the ‘benefice
and privilege’ given him. ‘Benefice’ was the general term for property
bestowed and protected by royal benevolence, ranging from the
counties and their jurisdiction delegated to magnates, through the lands
with which bishoprics and abbeys were endowed in return for the
service of prayers for the king’s state, to the holdings given to men of
varying status with military service as the underlying obligation.^61
202 Legal Ordering of ‘the State of the Realm’
(^57) Formulae, 54, 135–6; examples in Friderici I Diplomata, 1152–1158, 16, 18–19, 19–22,
46–7, 142–3, 164, 175–6, 180–1, 181–2, 186–7, 285 (the ‘bishop’ of the Jews of Worms),
323–5, 357–9; 1158–1167, 59–64, 82, 83–4, 110–11, 130–1, 138–9, 166–8, 305, 332, 455–6,
459–60; 1168–1180, 9–10, 11, 92–3, 149, 186–9; 1181–1190, 8, 26, 121–5; 128–31, 181–3,
229, 258–9, 267–8, 504.
(^58) Friderici I Diplomata, 1152–1158,119, 121; 1158–1167,164, 183, 197; 1168–1180,
34–5, 52. 37 ; 1181–1190,100.
(^59) Ibid.1152–1158, 251–3; 1158–1167,168. 15.
(^60) Ibid.1152–1158, 332–3; cf. 1158–1167, 53.20..
(^61) Capitularia Regum Francorum, i. 93 (c.6), 104 (49,50), 131 (6,7), 132 (18), 136 (4), 330