Bavarian Wine and Woolless Sheep: The Urbar of Count Sigiboto IV of Falkenstein (1126-ca. 1198)

The Codex Falkensteinensis, which was commissioned by Count Sigiboto IV of Falkenstein in 1166, is the oldest extent European family archive. Among its unique treasures is the Urbar, the oldest register of the manorial income from a German secular lordship and one of the first pieces of evidence for the breakup of the bipartite manors into rent-paying peasant holdings in Bavaria. The Urbar indicates that there was extensive viticulture in the upper reaches of the Inn Valley and that unlike today Bavarians raised sheep rather than cows for meat and the cheese that could be produced from their milk but apparently not for their wool. The article examines why Sigiboto commissioned the codex, how the information was assembled, the completeness and accuracy of the information it contains, how Sigiboto’s estates were organized, and the renders the peasants paid.