Cartularies

collections of copies of the documents legally registering gifts, primarily of land, for the use of the church in medieval Western Europe. Copies of royal grants and sometimes copies of agreements between secular persons were also included in the cartularies. The copies did not always agree with the originals. The earliest examples of cartularies date to the late seventh and the eighth centuries; they ceased to be compiled in the late 13th and the 14th centuries. The cartularies of the large monasteries often contain thousands of documents. Cartularies are one of the most important sources for the investigation of the social and economic processes of the feudal countryside. Such data as the size and structure of the landholdings of the various social strata, the duties of the peasants, and the means by which the feudal dependence of the peasants was formed can be determined from the cartularies.

In the broadest sense, cartularies were understood in the Middle Ages to be collections of any sort of documents.