Admonitio generalis (General Admonition)

Issued in the name of Charlemagne23 March AD 789

The capitulary of 82 chapters in which Charlemagne, as king of the Franks, calls on bishops and clergy to correct the life, worship and teaching of the church in his kingdom. It is the programme of the Carolingian reform.

The text opens in the king’s own voice. He calls himself king and ruler of the kingdom of the Franks by the grace of God, and the devoted defender and humble helper of holy church. It is addressed to all ranks of the clergy and to those who hold secular power. The first fifty-nine chapters repeat rulings of earlier councils and popes, taken from the collection of canon law that Pope Hadrian had sent to the Frankish court. The remaining chapters are the king’s own instructions, among them rules on Sunday rest, on the Roman chant, on what priests must know and preach, and on schools and the copying of books.

The edict issued to the royal envoys on the same occasion gives the date and place: the year of the incarnation 789, the twenty-first of the reign, at the palace of Aachen, 23 March. The preface says that the king drew it up together with his bishops and counsellors. It is evidence for what the king and his advisers wanted, not for how far it was carried out.

Cited in