University of Virginia Library

The Carolingian inflation of capacity measures

The leaders of the Church, under Charlemagne, and
even more so under Louis the Pious, had some reason to
be concerned with this issue, since in the lifetime of these
two rulers, the hemina had more than doubled its value.
The base of the Carolingian system of capacity measure,
as that of the Romans, was the modius internally divided
into 2 situlae, 16 sextarii, and 32 heminae. The classical
Roman modius had a capacity equivalent to 8.49 liters, the
hemina to 0.2736 liters.[235] Between the fall of the Roman
Empire and its renovation under Charlemagne the capacity

of these measures increased considerably. The modius in
use in the Frankish kingdom and in the early years of the
reign of Charlemagne was equivalent to 34.8 liters. In a
capitulary of 794, Charlemagne instituted a new modius,
larger by one third than the preceding one, which brought
the modius up to an equivalent of 52.2 liters. Before 822,
Louis the Pious increased again the newly established
modius of his father, this time by one fourth of its current
value, which brought it up to an equivalent of 68 liters.
Thus in the short span of not more than 25 years, the
hemina had risen from a capacity equivalent to 1.06 liters
(in use when Charlemagne acceded to his throne) to one
equivalent to 1.46 liters (instituted by Charlemagne in 794)
and finally to one equivalent to 2.12 liters (instituted by
Louis the Pious, prior to 822).[236] The inflation clearly
worked in favor of the monks, with proportions that must
have taxed the wit of even the most astute monastic leaders.
St. Benedict may have foreseen such possibilities when he
foreclosed all future abuse with the qualifying clause that
whatever measure of wine the abbot should be willing to
grant, "he always take care that neither surfeit nor drunkeness
supervene,"[237] a directive that as the centuries passed
by must have proved to be a more trustworthy guide than
any reliance on capriciously changing physical capacity
measures.