Aristocratic exploitation of ecclesiastical property in the ninth century: The case of the villa Gendt

It is the aim of this article to reconstruct, on the basis of the extant charter material, the early medieval history of the Gendt estate, which in the course of the ninth century became a dependency of the monastery of Lorsch. Its main argument is to distinguish more sharply between ownership and usufruct rights: while the documentary evidence focuses on the former, they tend to turn a blind eye to the economic exploitation of these properties, which, in the case of the Gendt estate, remained in the hands of the original donors and their families.