as a clergyman, ruotger's primary concern was the renewal of the lotharingian church in the aftermath of viking and hungarian raids, which had taken a physical toll on the churches and disrupted ecclesiastical structures. it was in this context that, in 927×929, ruotger held a provincial synod attended by the bishops of metz, toul and verdun. it was probably for this occasion that he composed a "capitula episcoporum", a manual for ecclesiastical practices and the subdiocesan level. such instruments were common during the earlier carolingian epoch, and ruotger's is the last one from lotharingia. only 28 of its chapters survive in later manuscripts: one tenth-century and another twelfth-century manuscript from west francia, and a twelfth-century east frankish manuscript. it probably never circulated much beyond the province of trier, and it owed more to west frankish exemplars than east frankish ones. it was partially modeled on the "capitula" drawn up by archbishop radulf of bourges in 853. several of its chapters match canons from the provincial synod, but it cannot be determined which came first. the provincial canons, titled "sermo in synodo faciendus" as if they were a sermon delivered by ruotger to his assembled bishops, were only discovered in a viennese manuscript in the early 1980s.