nly borrowed prescriptions from the
capitularies; he has introduced other documents into his collection,
fragments of Roman laws, canons of the councils and especially spurious
provisions very similar in character to those of the same date found in
the _False Decretals_. His contemporaries did not notice these spurious
documents, but accepted the whole collection as authentic, and
incorporated the four books of Ansegisus and the three of Benedictus
Levita into a single collection in seven books. The serious historian of
to-day, however, is careful not to use books v., vi. and vii. for
purposes of reference.

Early editors chose to republish this collection of Ansegisus and
Benedictus as they found it. It was a distinguished French scholar,
Etienne Baluze, who led the way to a fresh classification. In 1677 he
brought out the _Capitularia regum francorum_, in two folio volumes, in
which he published first the capitularies of the Merovingian kings, then
those of Pippin, of Charles and of Louis the Pious, which he had found
complete in various manuscripts. After the date of 840, he published as
supplements the unreliable collection of Ansegisus and Benedictus
Levita, with the warning that the latter was quite untrustworthy. He
then gave the capitularies of Charles the Bald, and of other Carolingian
kings, either contemporaries or successors of Charles, which he had
discovered in various places. A second edition of Baluze was published
in 1780 in 2 volumes folio by Pierre de Chiniac.

The edition of the Capitularies made in 1835 by George Pertz, in the
_Monumenta Germaniae_ (folio edition, vol. i., of the _Leges_) was not
much advance on that of Baluze. A fresh revision was required, and the
editors of the _Monumenta_ decided to reissue it in their quarto series,
entrusting the work to Dr Alfred Boretius. In 1883 Boretius published
his first volume, containing all the detached capitularies up to 827,
together with various appendices bearing on them, and the collection of
Ansegisus. Boretius, whose health had been ruined by overwork, was
unable to finish his work; it was continued by Victor Krause, who
collected in vol. ii. the scattered capitularies of a date posterior to
828. Karl Zeumer and Albrecht Werminghoff drew up a detailed index of
both volumes, in which all the essential words are noted. A third
volume, prepared by Emil Seckel, was to include the collection of
Benedictus Levita.

(2) Among the capitularies are t