Gregory to Theoderic, king of the Franks. We gladly received the eloquent words of your letters signifying your good health, from which we recognized that you so surpass your age in prudence that it clearly appears that, for the felicity of the Frankish peoples, the helm of the royal power of your Excellency has been committed by the favour of heavenly grace. Among which things this too is quite praiseworthy and to be marvelled at in you, that in those matters which you know our most excellent daughter, your grandmother, to desire for the love of almighty God, you so most zealously hasten to help, that through this you may both here hold your kingdom happily and in the life to come hold it with the angels.
Since therefore this comes, by God's gift, from great discernment of judgment, we have fulfilled everything that your Excellency wished the more quickly and willingly, so that we might demonstrate by the speed of our action how much your good deeds have pleased us. Moreover, greeting you with fatherly sweetness, we make known that everything which you commanded to be done with us through the illustrious men your servants, Burgoald and Warmaricarius, our sons, was made plain to us in a private conference. And we greatly praised it, because you both wisely attend to present matters, as is fitting, and so hasten to secure things to come by the intervention of everlasting peace between you and the commonwealth, that, being made one, you may healthfully extend the firmness of your kingdom forever.
Concerning which matters, in the time that follows, we shall announce to you the things that are pleasing to God. For we desire whatever is useful, whatever is proved to be peaceful, and strive that it may be able to be accomplished. Only let there be, as ours, so also God's will—without whom we can do nothing—in those things which they promote. May the Holy Trinity ever make you advance in His fear, and so dispose your heart to what is pleasing to Him, that both now He may grant to your subjects joy concerning you, and afterward to you joy concerning Himself without end. Gregory to Senator, priest and abbot of a hospice.
When to those things toward which the hearts of catholic kings are to be provoked by pontifical admonitions they are so kindled with ardent desire, by divine grace going before, that these things are asked of them of their own accord, they are to be granted with a mind so much the more eager and joyful, inasmuch as those very things which they desire ought to have been begged of them, had they been unwilling to do them.
Accordingly, in accordance with the writings of our most excellent sons the sovereigns, king Brunichild and her grandson Theoderic, to the hospice which was constructed in the city of Autun by Syagrius, bishop of reverend memory, and by our aforesaid most excellent daughter the queen, over which you are known to preside, we grant, concede, and confirm privileges of this kind by the decree of our present authority, ordaining that no king, no bishop, no one endowed with any dignity whatsoever, nor any other person, may under the pretext of any cause or occasion diminish or take away, or apply to his own uses, or grant to others as though for pious causes as an excuse for his greed, any of those things which have already been given to the hospice by our above-mentioned most excellent sons the kings, or which in future may be conferred upon it by any others out of their own right.
But all things that have been offered there, or that may happen to be offered, we will that they be possessed both by you and by those who shall succeed to your office and place, in perpetuity, undiminished and without any disturbance—yet in every way to be profitable for the uses of those for whose sustenance and governance they were granted. Moreover, we have established that, when the abbot and priest of the above-written hospice and monastery dies, no other be ordained there by any cunning of stealth, but only him whom the king of that province, with the consent of the monks, according to the fear of God, shall have chosen and provided for ordination.
This also we append by the present chapter, in order to shut out any place for greed: that none of the kings, none of the bishops, nor any other, by himself or by an interposed person, may dare to receive, in gold or in any other kind of gain, anything concerning the ordination of that abbot or in any matters pertaining to the hospice itself; nor may that abbot presume to give anything on account of his ordination—lest on this occasion those things which are offered by the faithful to pious places, or have already been offered, be consumed.
And since many occasions are sought out, as is said, for the deceiving of religious persons by those depraved men, we judge that the abbot and priest of the aforesaid hospice is in no way to be deprived or deposed, except when a case of crime specifically demands it. Whence it is necessary that, if any such complaint should arise against him, not the bishop of the city of Autun alone should examine the case, but, taking to himself six other of his fellow bishops, should investigate this by subtle inquiry, so that, with all judging in concord, the censure of canonical strictness may either strike the guilty or be able to absolve the innocent.
By a like definition also, in accordance with the desire of the founders, we decree that none of those who shall in future be ordained abbot or priest for that same hospice and monastery may by any stealth dare to advance to the office of the episcopate, unless he has first been deprived of the office of abbot and another substituted in his place—lest, consuming the goods of the hospice or monastery by wicked expenditure, he beget the most grievous distress of destitution for the poor and the pilgrims and the others living from it. But that a bishop should have licence to take a monk from that same place for promotion to ecclesiastical order, or for any cause whatsoever, without the consent of the abbot and priest,
we forbid him to have such licence, lest the usurpation of this thing be carried so far that the places which ought to be built up by the acquisition of men be destroyed by their removal. All these things therefore which the page of this precept and decree of ours contains, we decree are to be observed in perpetuity, both by you and by all who shall succeed you in that order and place in which you are, and by those whose interest it may be. But if any of the kings, priests, judges, or secular persons, recognizing this page of our constitution, shall attempt to come against it, let him be deprived of the dignity of his power and honour, and let him know himself to stand guilty before the divine judgment for the iniquity he has perpetrated.
And unless he either restores those things which have been wrongfully taken away by him, or bewails with worthy penance the deeds unlawfully done, let him be made a stranger to the most sacred body and blood of our God and Lord the Redeemer Jesus Christ, and let him lie subject to strict vengeance at the eternal examination. But to all who observe what is just toward that same place, may there be the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that both here they may receive the fruit of good action, and before the strict Judge they may find the rewards of eternal peace.