But lest you suppose that you are burdened merely at the discretion of the appointed officials, if there be any who judges that he has cause to complain of their deed, let him resort to the remedies of our piety, so that we may correct the judges — we who have clemently granted benefits even unasked. For our glorious grandfather of blessed memory had also been moved by their tardiness, being a searcher of deep prudence, judging that those whom by repeated command he had already ordered to return were lingering in the province too long, not without your distress. But we, whom it befits to fulfil whatever he ordained in equity, now with God's help complete in you what he began. Render now to our bounty a most prosperous loyalty and faithful service.
For you have a prince who is proven to have arisen for you with benefits, and — what is sweeter to subjects — who grows in benevolent disposition together with the increase of his age. To which end we have resolved to direct to you Quidila, our saio, through whom most prosperous commands may be unfolded to you by God's bounty. To Victor and Witigisclus, the Respectable men, assessors of the province of Sicily, we have directed our precepts, that whatever they appear lately to have added to the tributary levy upon the possessors they should not exact from the fourth indiction, because the imposition of that thing is grievous whose justice is not yet proven.
But concerning their assessments we have caused instructions to be brought to us, so that if, the resources having been weighed, the arrangement was made with equality, it ought to remain moderate; but if it is established that anyone has been over-burdened contrary to reason, let him be relieved by our judgement — yet in such wise that, if anything is proven to have been brought in through the fourth indiction, it should be returned to the possessors without any diminution, because a burden imposed ought to be received without complaint when it is established that it must be borne for long times. Now for what remains, it is fitting that we admonish you provincials, that of those to whom we have given benefits we may in all things feel the devotion, and that what is owed to the prince may be seen to be paid with a grateful spirit.
Your tardiness with our lord grandfather of glorious memory deservedly made you suspect, you whom he thought ought to be admonished even by second precepts, that, the distress of the provincials being at last laid aside, you ought to hasten to his justice. And now too it has greatly increased suspicion, that you were unwilling to present yourselves even at our beginnings — something which a free conscience could have desired to do. And therefore by present authority we decree that, if you have exacted anything above the tributary solidus through the fourth indiction from the provincials, you should return it to them without any diminution, because beyond the old census we do not wish them to feel any losses of the aforesaid indiction.
We have thought this also ought to be added — since out of love of clemency we are unwilling to discover faults, lest, being compelled, we should rather cut away what, with justice preserved, we cannot dissemble — namely, that if you have injured anyone through depraved zeal, you should correct it rather by your own judgement, because to correct one's own offences is the same as not to have committed them. And lest perchance you suppose that what has been done lies hidden by the difficulty of distance, we have given the Sicilians confidence to pursue redress. See now whether you can endure querulous voices which even our authority has invited. We have therefore admonished those whom it befits to be dutiful: he already seems accused by his own fault who has been unwilling to be set right by his own free will.
From the report of Your Greatness we have learned, concerning the excesses of the domestics who attend the counts sent out, that the provincials have been burdened with very many losses — which we believe to have been nourished by the smallness of their emoluments, because one is thought to sin under a kind of excuse to whom necessities are not provided. And therefore, granting general advantages by a special benefit, we command Your Greatness by present authority that, above the two hundred solidi and ten allowances of provisions which they have hitherto received, you should without delay cause fifty solidi yearly to be added to them from the happily-numbered fifth indiction, which ought to be charged to your accounts, so that, the mother of crimes — necessity — being removed, the scope for sinning may be taken away.
But if any wicked violator of our commands shall arise, so that by some chance he becomes entangled in losses or prejudices of the provincials, let him be deprived of all emoluments, because he is worthy to obtain rewards who is known to obey equity: for he receives from us precisely that he may not seek from others. To give of our own is nobility: royal gifts, however small, ennoble, because he who is raised up by a princely gift is believed at the same time to have found the favour of merits. It has been declared to us by the report of the Sicilian provincials that certain things are done by your authority whereby their fortunes seem to be afflicted. This we have taken the more lightly because they themselves were unwilling to have the past avenged. For it stands as doubtful which an adversary concedes.
And he cannot rightly be struck down whom the complainant prefers to pardon. But that we may abolish unjust suspicions for future occasions, we decree by present command that the following be perpetually observed, so that neither may those men dread anything for the future, nor may you through ignorance incur what is alleged. In the first place, moneys are said to have been extorted from various provincials for the repair of the walls, while yet no promised construction has thence arisen. If this is established to have been committed, either let walls be thereupon built for their protection, or let each one recover what is proven to have been improperly taken from him. For it is exceedingly absurd to promise fortifications and to give the citizens execrable devastations.
They report also that you claim the estates of certain deceased persons, without any discernment of justice, under the title of property lapsed to the fisc, when this only seems to have been entrusted to you concerning foreigners for whom no heir, whether testamentary or legitimate, is found. For it is impious that what is commanded by us should be claimed by you in our name through wrongdoing. Moreover, they lament that they are in every way burdened by summonses, so that in being brought to judgement they seem to lose almost as much as those condemned are scarcely proven to sustain in penalties. For the summons of a judge ought to be a hope of justice, not a fine. For he himself is justly rendered suspect, before whose hearing grievances are felt.
Wherefore we decree that, if our decrees befit those summoned, the executor should receive only so much advantage as our glorious lord grandfather established that the saiones ought to receive, by an expressed amount, according to the ranks of persons. For an advantage (commodum) ought to be in measure (cum modo): for if it exceeds the measure of equality, it will not have the force of its own name. But if a summons is directed by your command — only in those cases and persons where the edicts have willed you to be involved — let the executor receive a middle portion of what he could have taken from the royal precepts, because it cannot accord with justice that as much should be granted at your direction as is offered out of reverence for our command.
But if any violator of this most wholesome ordinance shall arise, we command that what was taken away be restored fourfold, so that what is taken through the delight of cupidity may be avenged by the harshness of loss. But the edicts of our glorious lord grandfather, and all the precepts which he directed to Sicily for the admonishing of the morals of all, we wish to be kept with such great obedience that whoever, stirred up by bestial impulses, shall have attempted to break in upon the bulwark of our commands, may be held guilty of sacrilege. You are said to summon the affairs of two Romans to your judgement even against their will: if you recognise these to have been done, presume no further, lest, while you wish to seek a judgement improperly, you should rather be seen to find guilt.
For you ought first to be mindful of the edict, you who prefer that among others things to be followed be established by you: otherwise all your authority of decreeing is taken away, if that rule is in no way kept by you. To the ordinary judges let the power of their administrations be preserved unimpaired. Let their proper retinue accompany the cognitores. Be not stung with envy of those observances. The praise of the Goths is civility preserved. All renown flows to you, if your litigant rarely waits upon you. Defend the laws by arms; let the Romans contend at law in the peace of statutes. You are reported to monopolise the merchandise conveyed by ships, and through a grasping of hateful cupidity to fix narrow prices for the soil's produce alone: which is not believed to be far from suspicion, even if it be not vicious in the act.
Wherefore, if you hasten, as is fitting, to avoid a rumour of this kind, let the bishop of the city and the people stand as witnesses of your conscience. Let that be pleasing to all which must of necessity pertain to the fortunes of all. Prices ought to be fixed by common deliberation, because there is no delight in commerce which is enjoined upon the unwilling. Therefore we have thought Your Sublimity should be admonished by these present commands, because we are unwilling to find at fault those whom we love, nor do we suffer anything sinister to be said of such men through whom we think the morals of others can be corrected. If it was the zeal of the ancient princes to seek out laws, that the subject peoples might enjoy delightful tranquillity, far more excellent is it to decree such things as can accord with the sacred canons.
For let ruinous gains be absent from our age. That alone can we truly call gain which is established not to be punished by the divine judgements. Recently indeed the defender of the Roman Church came to us with a tearful representation that, while a bishop was being sought for the apostolic see, certain men by nefarious machination, seizing upon the necessity of the time, so burdened the resources of the poor with extorted promises that — what is impious to say — even the sacred vessels seemed exposed to public sale. As cruel as this was to be committed, so glorious is it to be cut away by applied piety.
And therefore let Your Holiness know that we have established by the present definition — which we wish to pertain also to all patriarchs and metropolitan churches — that, from the time of the most holy pope Boniface, when, for the prohibiting of such suffrages, the conscript fathers, mindful of their nobility, framed senatorial decrees, whosoever in obtaining a bishopric is declared, whether through himself or through any other person whatsoever, to have promised anything, the execrable contract shall be voided with all its force.
But if anyone is caught to have been involved in this crime, we leave him no voice; nay rather, even if he should believe that what was received ought either to be reclaimed or not returned, let him forthwith be held guilty of sacrilege, restoring what was received under compulsion of the competent judge. For most just laws, as they open action to the good, so they close it to evil characters. Moreover, whatever was decreed in that decree of the senate, we command to be kept in every way against those who in any manner whatsoever, or by interposing any persons whomsoever, have mingled themselves in such wicked contracts.
And because it is fitting that all things be moderated under reason, nor can those things be called just which are excessive, when perchance a contention shall have arisen concerning the consecration of the apostolic pontiff, and the strife of the peoples shall have been brought to our palace, we decree, upon their petitioning us, that within three thousand solidi, together with the assembling of the documents, be received. From which sum, however, we exclude all who by consideration of the matter itself are eligible, because out of the ecclesiastical resource counsel should rather be taken for the poor. But other patriarchs, when their ordination is treated of at our court, we command to expend, in the aforesaid conditions and persons, within two thousand solidi.
But in their own cities let them know that they are to distribute no more than five hundred solidi to the most lowly common folk. Let the penalty of the present edict and of the senatorial decree lately enacted constrain those who receive the rest; and let the severity of the canons also pursue the givers. But you, who in the honour of patriarchs preside over the remaining churches, since our constitution has freed you from unlawful promising, it remains that, imitating good examples, you should offer pontiffs worthy of majesty without any loss to the churches. For it is iniquitous that ambition should have a place among you, which we, out of divine consideration, have shut out from laymen.
Wherefore, if any prelate of the apostolic church, or bishop of the patriarchs, whether through himself, or through his kinsmen, or any persons whatsoever of his servants, shall have believed that he is to be promoted by any ambitious soliciting of suffrage, we determine both that he himself shall return what was received, and that he shall in every way undergo what is established by the canons. But if anyone, while the same man survives, shall fear to make public what he gave or promised, let the church, by whose suffrage the prelate is found to have been ordained, reclaim it from his heirs or co-heirs, the mark of infamy nonetheless branding the survivors. We command the remaining orders also to be conducted under the same strictness.
But if perchance, by the invention of a crafty machination, a person shall have been bound by intervening oaths, so that, with the soul's state being safe, he can neither approve the iniquity committed nor dare to accuse it, we give licence to any honourable persons in each and every city to bring this crime before the competent judges; and whatever can be recovered from that proof — that we may encourage those who pursue it to the proof — let him receive a third part of the matter disclosed who shall have willed to prove such a deed; let the rest accrue to the churches themselves, what appears to have been extorted, being likewise to profit either in their fabrics or in their ministries. For it is fitting to convert to good uses what iniquitous perversity wished to defraud.
Let the depraved cupidity of the malignant, therefore, be at rest. Whither do they tend, who are shut off from the fountainhead? Let the just condemnation of Simon be recalled and feared, who believed that the Author of all bounty could be bought. Pray, therefore, for us, keeping our edicts, which you know to accord with the divine mysteries. But that the prince's wish may the more easily become known to the minds of all, we command that this be made known to the senate, this to the peoples, through the prefect of the city, so that the generality may recognise that we persecute those who rather seem opposed to majesty. You too make this known to all the bishops whom you govern, God being propitious, lest anyone who could recognise the things established be a stranger to the guilt.
It is a welcome thing to publish abroad what will profit all, so that there may become a general joy what could have been an object of prayer. Otherwise it is known to be a cause of injury, if benefits are rather concealed. Some time ago indeed the most ample senate, desiring to scrape away from its own splendour the stain of a most foul suspicion, by provident deliberation established that in the consecration of the most blessed pope no one should pollute himself with abominable cupidity, a penalty also being established for him who should have attempted to presume such things: not unjustly, because then the merit of the elected is truly sought, when money is not loved. Praising and augmenting this invention, we have directed to the most blessed pope the constitutions which shine pre-eminent above these foregoing, that profane ambition may be removed from the honour of the holy Church.
This we wish you to bring to the notice of the senate and of the Roman people without any delay, that it may be fixed in the heart of all which we desire to be kept by the zeal of all. But that this princely benefit may cleave both to present ages and to future ones, we command that our definitions as well as the senatorial decrees be becomingly engraved on marble tablets, and set up before the atrium of the blessed apostle Peter as a public testimony: for it is a worthy place which may contain both our glorious recompense and the praiseworthy decrees of the most ample senate. To which end we have directed that man, upon whose return we may learn that what we commanded has been fulfilled. For he seems to hold uncertainly what he commands, to whom the effect of things becomes known too tardily.
If the ancient princes sought out the walls of Rome for the gladness of the peoples, lest those citizens, deservedly singular, should possess anything in common with the rest, it is impious that amid so many pleasant things they should sustain a long sadness, because the exultation of that city is a general vow, since the rest must of necessity rejoice if it comes to pass that the head of the world is glad. For from the report of the apostolic pope John and of our nobles we have learned that such-and-such Romans, for mere suspicion of sedition, were worn down by the penalty of so long a custody that the whole city contracted mourning over their continual calamity, so that neither the festivity of days, nor any dignity of its name — which among us is most welcome — availed them.
This displeased us for the bitterness of its doing, that men who are by no means reported convicted in judgement should have endured torments and tortures due to evildoers. And therefore we admonish Your Greatness by these present commands, that wherever you can find them, you should not delay to release them; and even if it has become clear that they are involved in some guilt, by the aforesaid intercessions we judge that they are now free from fear. But if they trust that they have, while innocent, sustained torments, we give a free voice to their complaints, that by just laws they may avenge what they have suffered by iniquitous outrages, because we do not wish the innocent to be oppressed by the judges who are established to be raised up for their protection.
Let the Romans now recall their spirits to their former gladness, and let them not believe that any can please us save those who treat them with modest equality in their choosing. Let them understand that our forebears underwent toilsome perils for their repose, and that we ourselves act with many expenses, that they may rejoice with garrulous exultation. For even if they have hitherto endured anything unjustly or harshly, let them not believe it to be neglected by our gentleness — we who give ourselves no leisure, that they may enjoy untroubled peace and tranquil gladness: they quickly perceive that we cannot love those whom they have shuddered at for their excesses.
For whose favour can they obtain, who have deserved to displease their own fellow-citizens and, while they had a time for public love, acted in such wise that they ought justly to be execrated? Antiquity providently decreed that the whole community be admonished by general edicts, through which both every offence is corrected and the modesty of the transgressor is not burdened. For all reckon that it is spoken to themselves, where it is established that no one is singled out, and he becomes like an innocent man whom it has befallen to be purged under a common amnesty. Hence too our piety is truly preserved, while, the sword being on holiday, fear is born and correction comes about without bloodshed. For we are moved when appeased, we threaten when at leisure, and we are angry with clemency, when we condemn faults alone.
It is long since the complaints of divers people have sounded in our ears with frequent whisperings, that certain men, despising civility, affect to live with bestial savagery, while, returning to a wild beginning, they reckon human law to be brutishly hateful to themselves. These we have now fitly judged ought to be restrained, so that at the very time when by divine power we resist the enemies of the commonwealth, we may also pursue the crimes hostile to good morals. Both indeed are harmful, both to be driven out: but vices rage the more grievously the more they are proven to be internal. The one reclines upon the other. For the battle-lines of enemies fall the more easily, if we withdraw the offences of our own.
The foremost injury to the human race — usurpation, under which civility can neither be spoken of nor held — we condemn with the severity of the laws and our indignation, decreeing that the sanction of the divine Valentinian should rise up against those, long most wretchedly neglected, who, despising the order of law, shall have presumed through themselves and their men to enter violently upon urban or rustic estates, the possessor having been expelled. Nor do we wish anything of its detestable strictness to be softened by any tempering; adding moreover that, if any free-born man is not held capable of satisfying the law defined above, he shall forthwith lie under the vengeance of deportation, because he ought rather to have considered the public laws who knew that he could nowhere else sustain punishment.
The competent judges, therefore, to whom the committed crime can pertain, if they shall have suffered an invader to hold his presumptions when they could remove him, shall both be deprived of the honour of the belt they have attained, and shall become liable to our fisc for as much as the presumptuous one could have been adjudged — the authors of the crime nonetheless remaining under the established penalties. But if anyone, carried away into such madness with a tyrannical spirit, shall have neglected to obey the public law, and, being over-mighty in forces, shall have spurned the fewness of the office appointed against him, let him be made notable to our ears by the report of the judge, so that, execution by the saiones being granted, he may feel the vengeance of royal vigour, who was unwilling to obey the cognitor.
And because supreme princes must live in the common bond of law, if anyone, the order of laws being passed over, shall have presumed in the public name to set up notices of confiscation — or has presumed it — let him become liable to the possessor for as much as the sanction mentioned above attests. For deservedly is he struck also with the penalty of sacrilege, who by the iniquitous weight of usurpation has dared to burden the majesty of the royal name. Let him also, being overcome in judgement, pay the costs of the suit, because hence are given the fuels of detestable wrangling, when the wicked are overcome unharmed, nor does the loss of honour grieve the calumniators, if they have escaped the expenses of their fortunes.
But if anyone thinks he has obtained something worthy of favour from our archives, let him judge that, as far as concerns his case, nothing of the established sequence of the orders is to be suppressed from his adversary. If he fails to do this, let him lose what he has obtained; or if he attempts to act upon any part of it, let it nonetheless be held invalid, since we wish only those to enjoy our benefits whom we do not perceive to be devoted to cunning tricks. He who by punishable persuasion strives to break apart the marriages of others, let his own wedlock be held unlawful, so that he may feel that what the malicious man attempted to practise upon another has rather befallen himself.
Or rather, since he is deprived of the affection of union, we by right deny him a future marriage, because he does not deserve to attain the rewards of conjugal reverence who has dared to rage in the breaking up of the marriage-bed. But lest our vengeance leave any guilty of this crime unpunished, those who have no hope of a present or future marriage, if they presume anything against the marriage-chambers of others by deceitful contrivance, shall be deprived of the middle portion of their property, which is at once to be applied to the resources of the treasury. But if, prevented by poverty, satisfaction cannot be exacted from the substance of any such persons, let them be bound by the penalty of exile, lest — a thing unspeakable to utter — they should seem to escape the threat of the public law because they are known to lie under the meanest fortune.
But these things our piety has decreed concerning those who solicit the affection of another. As for adulterers, however, we wish everything to be most strictly observed, whatever could be decreed by imperial enactment. Let no one at one time be joined to two wives, since he should know that he is to be punished by the loss of his property. For it is either lust, and he is not permitted to enjoy it lawfully; or it is greed, and he is by right condemned to nakedness. But if anyone, with superfluous and base desire, scorning conjugal honour, chooses to come to a concubine's embraces — if she be free-born, let her by every means be assigned to his wife together with her children under the yoke of servitude, so that he may feel himself subjected through honourable judgments to her over whom he believed, through unlawful lust, that he could be set as master.
But if a slave-woman has come to such disgrace, apart from the penalty of blood let her be subject to the matron's vengeance, so that she may endure as judge the very woman whom she ought to have feared even in her absence. Let no man's terror extort gifts; let no one covet to acquire by fraud or detestable wantonness, for honesty alone with merit desires gains. Concerning the laws, in the pleading of most just liberality, we wish that strictness to be observed which careful legal antiquity sanctioned for the sake of truth. For thus, as it itself testifies, no occasion will lie open to fraud, and greater authority grows for truth. Otherwise we ordain that nothing shall be deemed valid which the very author, by not fulfilling what the laws or statutes prescribe, has rendered uncertain.
Let the severity of the laws also pursue sorcerers, and those who think anything should be sought from their wicked arts, for it is impious that we should be lenient to those whom heavenly piety does not allow to go unpunished. For what folly is it to abandon the Creator of life and rather to follow the author of death? Let every shameful act be wholly alien to the judges. Let no one do what the statutes condemn, for those are to be punished by the prescribed penalty who have mingled themselves in forbidden excesses. For what shall they condemn in others, if they themselves defile themselves with dishonourable contact? Let modest means also be safe under the rich. Let the madness of slaughter be restrained, for the violence of hands is shown to be the act of war, especially in those whom the authority of our protection defends.
But if anyone with wicked presumption attempts to act contrary to this, let him be held a violator of our command. We do not permit an appeal to be made a second time in one case from a suspected magistrate to the ordinary judges, lest what was devised as a remedy for the innocent should in some way seem to become a refuge for the guilty. But if anyone attempts to repeat what is forbidden, let him depart deprived of his suit. But lest, in touching upon a few matters, we be thought to have wished the rest not to be preserved, we decree that all edicts, both our own and those of our lord grandfather, which were formed with venerable deliberation, and the customary public laws, are to be observed with all the strength of strictness — laws which protect themselves with so great a defence that they are girded even by the interposition of our oath. Why do we run on through many words?
Let the customary rule of the laws and the integrity of our precepts be everywhere observed. The praiseworthy causes of laudable enactments are for the most part furnished by another's blameworthy excess, and in a wondrous manner the impulses of justice arise from the occasion of iniquity. For equity is silent if no admitted fault cries out, and the prince's genius rests idle which has not been provoked by some complaint. Indeed, driven by the voices of those who complain, and admonished by the frequent appeals of peoples concerning certain matters, we have set down in writing, by an edictal proclamation in twelve chapters — just as the civil law is read to have been instituted — certain things necessary for Roman tranquillity, to be preserved forever; which, when observed, may seem not to weaken the remaining law but rather to strengthen it.