Tractoriae and the logistics of Carolingian entourages

Abstract

Entourages played a central role in Carolingian politics and militaryorganization. Yet historians have neglected the important question of howkings and magnates supplied their retinues. This article investigates thattopic by examining an overlooked genre of evidence: tractoriae or royal lettersof requisition. Louis the Pious revived the use of these late Roman andMerovingian documents to authorize magnates to collect supplies for theirfollowers and horses. The provisions enumerated in tractoriae give us rareinsight into the composition and scale of ninth-century retinues and armies.Their disappearance during the reign of Charles the Bald was bound upwith larger transformations of late Carolingian politics.