THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
betook himself to the study of the Bible. He published the Psalter in the original (1516), became personally acquainted with Zwingli and from 1518 corresponded with Luther. Contrary to all expectation, he was appointed in 1519 chaplain to Albert, elector and archbishop of Mainz. For a time he tried to mediate with humanistic liberality between the elector and Luther, but in 1522 he was brought over completely to the cause of the Reformation, and resigned his position at Mainz. In May, 1523, he went to Strasburg and as provost of St. Thomas (a position obtained by the favor of Leo X.) preached in accordance with his conviction. In 1524 he married and became pastor of the Jung- St. Petergemeinde. From this time on, he belonged, with Butzer and the burgomaster Jacob Sturm, to the leaders of the Strasburg Reformation. In Lis Kinderbericht (1527 and 1529) he prepared a catechism, which, by its peculiar arrangement and characteristic treatment of the matter, forms a noteworthy pendant to Luther's contemporaneous smaller catechism. With Butzer, Capito prepared the Confessio Tetrapolitana (1530). His most important reformatory work is the Berner Synodus, the result of the synod held at Bern in 1532, a kind of church-discipline and pastoral instruction, distinguished by apostolic power and unction, great simplicity, and practical wisdom. He took an active part in Butzer's efforts to bring together the Evangelicals of Germany, France, and Switzerland. He also had part in bringing about the Wittenberg Concordia of 1536. Toward the Anabaptists and other sectaries who disturbed the church at Strasburg he was more friendly and confiding than Butzer, and for a time sided with them, thus destroying the good understanding between himself and Butzer. But in 1534 he became convinced of the necessity of stricter measures against the Anabaptists. Characteristic of Capito were not only his mildness and large-heartedness, but also a certain timidity and uncertainty in his theological and ecclesiastical position. However, this was not due to diplomatic opportunism, but to a sincere repugnance to unfruitful theological controversy and a religious individuality which had more regard to the inner possession of the fruits of salvation than to a dogmatic definition of the doctrine of salvation.
He died of the plague after having attended the Diet at Regensburg. Paul Grunberg.
Bibliography: J. W. Baum, Capito und Butzer, Elberfeld, 1860; ADB, iii. 772-775; A. Baum, Magistrat und Reformation in Strassburg big 1629, Strasburg, 1887; C. Gerbert, GetchiclUe der Strassbwger Sektenbewegung . 1524-1634, ib. 1889; A. Ernst and J. Adam, Katechetiscfie Geichichte des Elsasses, pp. 22-36, ib. 1897; S. M. Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, passim, New York, 1903; J. Ficker, Thetaurus Baumianus, pp. 52-57, Strasburg, 1905; A. Hulshof, Getchiedenis van de Doopsgezinden te Straatsburg van 1625 tot 1657, Amsterdam, 1905.
CAPITULARIES: A term which designates a certain class of royal edicts in the Carolingian period, and which is frequently employed not only for the Carolingian capitularia but also for the edicta, prwceptiones, decreta, or decretiones of the Merovingian kings and the mayors of the palace under Arnulf. They are distinguished from the other class of diplomata or mandata, not so much by the division into chapters, from which they get
their name, or by the general nature of their provisions as by their form and by the absence of any attestation in the way of signatures or seal. This absence is explained by the fact that they were either put into execution by the kings in person or had to pass through the hands of officials. They attained their highest importance under Charlemagne, and were scarcely less used under Louis the Pious; after his death they ceased in the East Frankish kingdom, to be kept up for a while in the West Frankish and in Italy by his sons and grandsons, disappearing here also toward the end of the ninth century. They contain partly instructions for officials, especially the missi dominici, and partly supplements or modifications of the old tribal law; but to a still greater extent they are substantive regulations for all departments of both secular and ecclesiastical life. The former include the most diverse matters, of administration, commerce, the army, markets, coinage, tolls, protection against robbers, etc. These substantive regulations go deeply into not merely the external organization of the Church and its relation to the temporal power, but also the monastic system, education, church discipline, and even liturgical matters.
The origin of the capitularies and the basis of their authority have been much discussed. The prevalent view, derived in the first instance from Boretius, distinguishes between capitularia legibus addenda and per se scribenda, which means practically a class of laws originating (like those specifically known as leges) in the assent of the whole people, and another clas3 originating from the king alone, at most with the advice of the nobles assembled in a diet. But there seems to be no sufficient ground for this distinction between popular and royal law; in so far as there is any contrast between leges and capitularia, it may be fully explained by the special reverence which was felt for the ancient tribal law. In the cases in which the capitularies do not contain merely instructions, to officials, they were less legislative enactments than promulgations of a law already existing. This law, so far as we can trace its origin, came intobeing with the assent of the temporal and spiritual lords, assembled in diets or synods. But the diet must not be conceived of as a representative assembly of the whole people; its decisions were held to be binding upon the individual by virtue of his allegiance to the sovereign, and the period of the capitularies is precisely that in which the oath of allegiance was most punctiliously required from all adults within the empire. The multiplication of capitularies led before long to the need of codification; for the collection made by Ansegis of Fontanella, see Ansegis, and for the forged capitularies appended to his collection by Benedictus Levita, see Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals.
(Siegfried Rietschel.) Bibliography: Critical editions of the Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. G. H. Pertz, are in MGH, Legum, i., ii., 1835, 1837; and, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause, ib. Leg., sectio II. i., ii., 1883-97 (cf. A. Boretius, inGGA, 1882, pp. 65 sqq., 1884, pp. 713 sqq.). Consult: A. Boretius, Die Kapitularien im Langobardenreich, Halle, 1864; idem, Beitr&ge zur Kapitularienkritik, Leipsic, 1874; R. Sohm, Die frankische Reichs- und Gerichtsrerfassung, pp. 102 sqq., Weimar, 1871; Fustel de Coulanges, De la confec-