Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/85

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CAP—CAP
73

&3 of all increase of population and civilized well-being (Some Leading Principles of Political JZconomy, by Professor

Cairnes, part ii. c. 3).

CAPITANATA, or Foggia, a province of Southern Italy, formerly belonging to the kingdom of Naples. It has an area of 2955 square miles, and is bounded on the N. and E. by the Adriatic Sea, on the S.E. by the province of Bari, on the S. by Basilicata and Principato Ulteriore, on the W. by Benevento and Molise. The south-west of the province is occupied by the slopes and underfalls of the Apennines, and on the north-east the mountain mass of Gargano covers an extent of more than 800 square miles. The central district, however, is very level, and is known as the Tavogliere di Puglie, or Chess-board of Apulia ; while the mountainous parts also enclose many fertile valleys. Except at the promontory of Gargano the coast is low, and is in many parts covered with lagoons, of which the principal are the Lago di Lesina, the Lago di Verana, and the Lago di Salpi. The harbours are few and unimportant. The Fortore, the Candelaro, and the Cervajo are the chief rivers, to which must be added the Ofanto, which forms the boundary towards the south. The products are wheat, maize, pulse, fruits, hemp, flax, oil, and wine; the breeding of horses and cattle is pursued to a considerable extent, and vast herds of sheep are pastured throughout the province. The manufactures are few and of no great importance; and the commerce consists mainly in the coasting trade. The province is divided into the three districts of Foggia, San Severo, and Manfredonia ; its capital is Foggia, and the other principal towns, besides those which give name to the districts, are Lucera, Bovino, Cerignola, Ascoli di Satriano, and Vieste. Population in 1871, 322,758.

CAPITO, or Koepflin, Wolfgang Fabricius (1478-1541), a Reformed divine, was born of humble parentage at Hagenau in Alsace. He was educated for the medical pro fession, and he also devoted some time to the study of law, in which he gained the degree of doctor. At the same time he applied himself so earnestly to theology that he received the doctorate in that faculty also, and taught for some time at Freiburg. He acted for three years as pastor in Bruchsal, and was then called to the cathedral church of Basel. In 1520 ha removed to Mainz, at the request of Albrecht, archbishop of that city. In 1523 he settled at Strasburg, where he remained till his death. He took a prominent part in the earlier ecclesiastical transactions of the 16th century, was present at the second conference of Zurich and at the conference of Marburg, and along with Bucer was appointed to present to the emperor the confession of Augsburg. From his endeavours to conciliate the Lutheran and Zwinglian parties in regard to the sacraments, he Beems to hive incurred the suspicions of his own friends ; while from his intimacy wi<-h several divines of the Socinian school he drew on himself the charge of Arianism. His principal works were., Institutionum Hebraicarum libri duo ; Enarrationes in Habacuc et Hoseam Prophetas; and Explicatio doctissima in Ilexaemeron.

CAPITOL, the great temple of Jupiter on the Tarpeian or Capitoline Hill at Rome. See Rome.

CAPITOLINUS, Julius, one of a number of historical writers who lived about the end of the 3d century. See Augustan History, vol. iii. p. 73.

CAPITULARIES are certain laws enacted under the auspices of kings of the Frankish race. They are called Capitularia, a name of no classical authority, but derived from capitulum, the diminutive of caput; and they are so described from the circumstance of their being enacted or digested capitulatim, by heads or chapters. The term is very frequently used in a general sense, but in other instances capitularies are distinguished from laws.

The laws of the Franks were enacted " consensu populi et constitutione regis." Liberty was the chief inheritance of the ancient people of Germany ; nor were they governed by laws which they had no share in enacting. It has been remarked by Dr Stuart, that " the short but comprehensive and sentimental work of Tacitus, on the manners of Germany, is the key to the institutions, the Capitularies, and the code of the barbarians." But the national assemblies of those who were capable and worthy of bearing arms appear to have been gradually superseded by a select council, composed of the two orders of the clergy and nobility ; and if the great body of the people attended their deliberations, it seems to have been more in the capacity of spectators than of actual legislators. The initiative in promulgating any resolution was always taken by the king or emperor, and the final adoption seems also to have been very much in his hands, the assembled magnates merely giving their advice on the circumstances of the case. This was the form of the constitution in the time of Charlemagne, in whose name a great proportion of the Capitularies are promulgated, though some of them belong to a more recent, and others to a much more early period, the collection commencing with an enactment of King Childebert, dated in the year 554. The Capitularies are written in the Latin language, and were doubtless drawn up by the ecclesiastics. The Latin copies were de posited among the national archives, but the laws were divulged to the people in their mother tongue.

Savigny gives the following summary of what is now known with regard to the Capitularies : " The imperial ordinances of the Franks (Capitularia), which, after the extension of their empire, were distinguished from the national laws (Leyes), arose from the enlargement of the same principle. All royal enactments, particularly in later times, were called Capitularia, or Capitula. The king had a double character, the one, as chief of each individual tribe, and the other as head of the whole nation. Hence the Capitularies also are of two classes, those defining the law of a particular race, e.g., Capi tula addita ad Legem Salicam/ and those of general application over the whole Frank territory. In the kingdom of the Franks, with which so many different nations were incorporated, the Capitularies are so frequently general under the Carlovingian dynasty, that when their character is not specially fixed they may be understood as belonging to that class. In Lombardic Italy, on the contrary, where the Lombards and Romans were the only distinct peoples, most of the ordinances of Charles a^d his successors must be understood as constituting exclusively Lombardic law. For this reason probably they have been inserted in all the early collections of that law, and were consequently never obligatory on the Romans. It is, however, of great importance to determine accurately the limits of the general Capitularies. The laws of the race of Charlemagne have been erroneously supposed to apply to all the subjects of their extensive empire. These princes reigned over three distinct kingdoms, the Frankish, the Lombardic, and that which under the name of Rome and the Exarchate had recently constituted part of the Greek empire. No Capitulary, however general, could overstep the boundaries of that state in which it had originated. The only excep tions to this rule were some clerical laws ; and their universal validity arose from the unity of the church, and from the common old ecclesiastical authorities, on which they were founded. No example of a similarly general application is found in any of the temporal ordinances."


The first collection of the Capitularies was made in the 9th century by Angesise, abbot of Fontenelle, one of the councillors of Charle magne. He collected the Capitula of Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire into four books. In 842 Benedict, deacon of Mainz, added three books, bringing up the number of Capitula to 1C97. Supplements were afterwards added, which increased the number to