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ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
We desire to adorn the worthy class of men with the impressed favour of dignity, so that each one may live the more praiseworthily, when he has known that he has received reverend honours. For thus one both fittingly ascends to the pursuits of virtue, and the commonwealth is the more loved by good citizens. And therefore We adorn you with the lustre of the spectabilis rank, so that you may know that your opinion is to be regarded in public assemblies, when you sit comely among the nobles, in order that, if you handle these matters with commendable conduct, you may in future be increased with better rewards. It is agreed that there is a pleasant savour to good things and a useful pursuit of praise, which is sought through the increases of virtue.
This zeal of provident liberality We infuse, so that there may be a greater cultivation of morals while the desires of rewards grow. The royal authority therefore bestows upon you the honour of the clarissimate, the ornaments of Our judgement, which both affords the testimony of a well-spent life and promises the increase of future prosperity. Wherefore now suffer yourself to do nothing obscure, you who shine resplendent with the dignity of the clarissimate. For it is a great testimony of life to be called not so much 'famous' (clarus) as 'most famous' (clarissimus), since well-nigh everything best is believed of him who is named with the superlative title of so great a brilliance. It seems indeed superfluous to seek protection specially from a prince, whose purpose it is to defend all in common.
But because the execrable rashness of certain violent men disturbs your security, it does not irk Us to be drawn by the complaints of the suffering to this part of pity, so that what We desire to grant to all We may confer chiefly upon the suppliant. And therefore We mercifully receive you, wounded, as you complain, by the losses inflicted by divers persons, into the camp of Our defence, so that you may seem to contend with your adversaries not, as hitherto, in open-field combat, but with the protection of a wall. Thus it comes about that, oppressed by savage forces, you are rendered made equal by royal aids. Wherefore Our authority grants you the protection of Our name, as it were a most strong tower, against uncivil assaults and the detriments of litigation.
Yet in such a way that, raised up by these presumptions, you do not disdain to give a civil response, and you yourself do not seem insolently to trample the public laws, you whom a detestable audacity first oppressed. And because Our precept ought to have effective ministers, nor is it fitting for a prince to say what cannot seem able to be fulfilled, by the command of the present benefit, against the Goths this man, against the Romans that man, faith and diligence have easily guarded you; since no one labours to defend what is feared to be offended, while the lord who grants is dreaded to become ungrateful. Enjoy therefore Our clemency; rejoice in the benefit received. For if you be thereafter assailed by anyone under incivility, you will the rather fulfil your vows against your enemies.
Eternal is the benefit that shall be conferred by favour upon posterity, nor is anything more becoming to a king than if he should bestow it upon human origin itself. For he who is about to come into the light does not deserve to undergo adverse fortunes, lest he incur the burden of strict judgement before he finds the joys of the supernal light. Therefore in the petition offered you declare that the woman whom a pleasing embrace has bound to you ought, by Our benefit, to be associated with you in conjugal honour, so that the children born of her may obtain the name of heirs. For since a spontaneous union joins together all living creatures, and to each it seems fitting that which has pleased him, it is hard that liberty should not be held free there whence free children are procreated.
And therefore that woman who, as is rightly enjoined, is proved not to have been your equal in respectability, We decree shall become your lawful wife, and the sons from this same spouse, whether those who have been begotten or those who are to be begotten, We will to obtain the rights of heirs, so that you may, under no doubt, love those whom you know shall be your successors without qualification. For nature has bestowed sons upon you, but We make them most dear by such security. Glorious is the supplication which seeks an indulgence of age, when one professes to receive gravity from his morals, which the maturity of life has not yet chanced to bring in. Younger in birth, you desire to be aged in counsel.
Thus what in human affairs is most audacious, you contemn the benefit of years for the aid of error. Wherefore in the supplication offered you declare that, since you possess a firm reckoning of prudence, your actions may not be left in doubt, lest by law that be invalidated which cannot waver in respect of utility. This We, to whom it is at heart to fulfil good desires, gladly accept, since he professes that he wishes to catch at no snares, whoever steadfastly aims to have free contracts.
And therefore, if it stands that the time has elapsed within which the laws willed that this indulgence be approached, We too do not deny licence to commendable desires, so that in a competent court those things which in such causes the venerable antiquity of the laws dictates may be solemnly transacted, in such wise that, in alienating rural or urban estates, the authority of the constitutions be observed: lest, while We wish to grant according to opinion, We seem to injure the advantage of the suppliant. Take therefore by Our benefit an age stronger than your years, and what you ask from the oracle, display in your morals. For the profession of an unripe maturity denies the place of action, since the fault is far graver which the authority of one's own promise assails.
Frequently We have learned that the saiones, whom We believed to be granted by Us with pious intent, have been aggravated by the greatest complaints. Corrupted, alas for grief! is Our benefit, and calamity has rather grown out of the medicine, while they have been transferred to other uses by the malignity of the petitioners than that Our remedies have transferred them. Whence it became necessary for Us to oppose pestilential wishes with a wholesome remedy, lest, while We are drawn by the zeal of piety toward equable benefits, We suffer the most iniquitous of surreptitious frauds.
And therefore by an edictal proclamation We define that, whosoever desires perchance to deserve a saio against violent snares on account of his unavoidable necessities, shall bind himself to Our penal office by the bond of a recognisance, so that, if by his blameworthy instigation he, in whose favour he deserves it, shall have transgressed Our precepts, he himself shall under the name of penalty give so many pounds of gold and shall promise to make satisfaction for whatever detriments his adversary may have sustained, both of advantage and of journey. For We, when We wish to repress uncivil tempers, ought not to overburden innocence.
But the saio, who of his own will shall have exceeded the measure of the precept, shall know that he is to be stripped of his donative and can incur peril to Our grace, which is graver than all losses, and that he is no longer to be trusted, if he has stood forth as a violator of Our command, of which he ought to have been the executor. It is agreed that that soldiery is well discharged which is seen to be imposed upon proved morals, when a man can himself revolve within himself what the judge ought to have admonished him: especially when such a one deserves to come to the patrimonies of the divine house, so that he cannot be inflamed by detestable cupidity.
Then, since this most splendid office shines forth with a certain censorial gravity, and it is base for one to be mingled with it who cannot be approved by worthy morals, it seems fitting to seek out such men as ought in no respect to displease. And therefore, the suggestion of the tribune of the registrars having been ascertained, with whom rests the worthy reverence of the office, We will that from that day you obtain the name of registrar (chartarius), so that you who are promised to be about to act well for Us may be approved by laudable proofs. Shun avarice; flee far from iniquitous gains. Far better is the profit, if one serves by good works. I know not what great thing he seems to promise of himself, who desires to possess public offices.
For this ought so to be done, if a squalid thing be transferred into a better appearance of the place and what long ago seemed to lie uncultivated be recalled to adornment. And therefore to you, who desire it, We grant that place by proprietary right, save for bronze or lead or marbles, if any be found lying hidden there. Act therefore so that through you that may take on beauty which had lain neglected through careless antiquity, in order that you may deserve to win the praise of a good citizen, if you adorn the face of your city, secure too to transmit to any persons or to posterity what shall have been composed by your own labour. For each one shall possess such things the more firmly, the more he shall have proved that he and his predecessors have expended upon them.
Since men live from the produce of the field, and it is certain for all that a just gain comes therefrom, you complain that that tribute of the holding established in that province is so burdensome that the vastest chasm of the public charge has devoured all your means, and that what can be gathered elsewhere with great labour seems to be consumed through it, whose advantage an excessive impost surpasses, while more is rendered to the collectors than is furnished by the diligent cultivator. Wherefore We believe that you can escape destitution, if you relinquish the ownership of this estate, to which a continual sterility comes from the collectors, lest in a wretched condition you serve necessity, whose master you have deserved to be.
But because the most sacred laws have decreed that this kind of benefit be afforded to persons of middling means, so that he who is depressed by the enormity of one plot and is not relieved by the advantage of another ought, with moderation observed, to be succoured, We decree by present authority to your Magnitude, whose care it is to ponder justice, that, if it be so, you shall cause so many solidi of tribute of the aforesaid holding, by the issued precepts, to be diligently erased from the public registers in favour of those whom it concerns, so that no double trace of this matter ought to be found, but that throughout the ages there be preserved without error what is comprised in one single sum only.
The institution of divine laws furnished the beginning for human right, since in those chapters is read the precept which is proved to be inscribed upon two tablets. For holy Moses, formed by divine instruction, among other things defined for the Israelite people that they should abstain in their unions from the nearness of kindred blood, lest both by returning into propinquity they should defile themselves, and they should not have a provident expansion into a foreign stock. Following this example, prudent men transmitted to posterity a chaste observance much further still, reserving to the prince so great a benefit in the joining of cousins in nuptial union, understanding that what they had ordained to be requested of the prince could the more rarely be presumed.
We marvel at the device and with astonished consideration We praise the temperance of the matter, that this was left to the prince's discretion, so that he who governed the morals of the peoples should himself also relax the moderated reins of concupiscence. And therefore, moved by the tenor of your supplications, if she alone is joined to you by that nearness of a cousin's blood and you are proved no nearer by any other degree, We decree that she is to be associated to you in matrimony, and We command that no question be thereafter raised against you, since both the laws permit this with Our willing consent and your vows have confirmed the benefits of the present authority.
You shall therefore, by God's favour, have posterity as solemn heirs, a chaste matrimony, a glorious union, since whatever is commanded by Us to be done must needs be applied not to faults but to praises. The improvident condition of mortals oftentimes suffers this, that, when it is thought to injure, it consults the good, and when it seems to consult, it afflicts. But that is rather to be chosen which is recognised to profit. For poisons themselves, if they are proved to help, are welcome; and on the contrary the sweetness of honey is to be shunned, which is known to inflict injuries. The end therefore of the wise man is to love what is expedient: thus he who strives to profit does not regard even the wish of the sick.
Prudent antiquity decreed that the estates of curials should not be readily sold off, so that they might better suffice for public needs, since they would have greater resources of substance. Yet in this same matter it again made provision, so that, if an inescapable necessity should appear among you, the sale of his own property might come to his relief. For what does it profit a man, if he seems fit for office yet cannot be freed from the bonds of his entanglements? He is like a pauper who cannot repay what is another's, nor can that be called his own which is not seen to open the way for the owner's release.
But although this has been granted to your authority by the sanction of the laws, nevertheless, lest you should incur the ill-will of an exceedingly rare act, moved by the plea of that townsman, we too, by this present command, permit your Eminence that, the truth having been clearly sifted, if the contracted obligations cannot otherwise be discharged, he shall have license to sell that estate of his which he shall have chosen of his own will, on condition that he repay the debt which is proven to have been contracted, lest, steeped in the vice of greed, he be thought permitted to swallow up his own resources. Let the just cause of his losses be established in your sight, since we wish relief to be brought to him who is proven to be bound fast by harsh necessities:
For either course can be blameworthy: either to loosen the reins to evil habits, or again to shut out just complaints. Wherefore antiquity providently permitted you to decide concerning that matter, for which it is profitable to safeguard the curia. For by whom can the burdens of the cities be sustained, if the sinews of the civic communities are seen to be cut away on every side?