Minecraft wiki entry for Villager_(old), associated text: Villagers have eight hidden inventory slots, which start empty whenever the villager is spawned. Villagers will not intentionally seek out items to pick up, but they will collect any bread, carrots, potatoes, wheat, seeds, beetroot and beetroot seeds they happen to come within range of. These are the only items they are able to pick up, though the player may use the /replaceitem command to put an arbitrary item into a villager's inventory. If a player and a villager are in the pickup range of an item at the same time, the player will always pick it up first.