The Merovingian accounting documents of Tours: form and function

A little fewer than thirty Merovingian accounting documents which originated from the Abbey of St Martin of Tours, though fragmentary, provide for the historians of early medieval Europe an unexpected tool with which the latter could cast a new light over actual conditions in tribute collection and the management system for the fiscal administration of the abbey. The present article asks some basic questions about these accounting documents in the hope of casting further light on their form and function: which form did take the documents while they had been used for the collection of dues? At which stage of collecting procedure they served in the abbey as a tool for the keeping of records? When was each document prepared? In which historical context could be placed the birth of fiscal document of the abbey? All of these question are important for an understanding of the history of St Martin's of Tours and of the use of documents in general in the Merovingian era.