Ubique intra Italiam, sive regius, sive ecclesiasticus, vel cujuslibet
alterius hominis servus fugitivus inventus fuerit à domino suo sine ullâ
annorum præscriptione vindicetur, eâ tamen ratione, si dominus Francus
sive Alemannus, aut alterius cujuslibet nationis sit. Si vero
Longobardus aut Romanus fuerit, eâ lege servos suos vel adquirat vel
admittat, quæ antiquitùs inter eos constitutus est.
“_Concerning runaway slaves._
“Wheresoever within the bounds of Italy, either the runaway slave of the
king or of the church or of any other man shall be found by his master,
he shall be restored without any bar of prescription of years; yet upon
the provision that the master be a Frank or a German or of any other
nation, (foreign.) But if he be a Lombard or a Roman, he shall acquire
or receive his slaves by that law which has been established from
ancient times among them.”
Here is evidence of the prevalent usage of the church holding property
in slaves, just as commonly as did the king or any other person.
In the year 805, Charlemagne published a capitulary at Thionville, in
the department of Moselle, France, (Theodonis villa.) In the chap. xi.
we read—
_De servis propriis vel ancillis._
De propriis servis et ancillis, ut non suprà modum in monasteria
sumantur, ne deserentur villæ.
“_Concerning their own male or female slaves._
“Let not an excessive number of their own male or female slaves be taken
into the monasteries, lest the farms be deserted.”
This capitulary regards principally the regulation of monasteries.
St. Pachomius, who was born in Upper Egypt, in 292, and who was the
first that drew up a regular monastic rule, would never admit a slave
into a monastery. _Tillemont_, vii. p. 180.
In the year 813, a council was held at Chalons, the portions of whose
enactments in any way affecting property or civil rights were confirmed
by Charlemagne and made a portion of the law of the empire.
Many of the churches, especially in the country, were curtailed in their
income and reduced to difficulties, because the bishops and abbots had
large estates within their parishes, and many servants occupied in their
cultivation, and the prelates prevented these servants paying tithes to
the parish clergy, claiming for themselves an exemption from the
obligation. The canon xix. is the following:
Questi sunt præterea quidam fratres, quod essent quidam episcopi et
abbates, qui decimas non sinerent dari ecclesiis ubi illi coloni missas
audiunt. Proinde decrevit sacer ille conventus, ut episcopi et abbates
de agris et vineis, quæ ad suum vel fratrum stipendium habent, decimas
ad ecclesias deferri faciant: familiæ vero ibi dent decimas suas, ubi
infantes eorum baptizantur, et ubi per totum anni circulum missas
audiunt.
“Moreover some brethren have complained, that there were some bishops
and abbots who would not permit tithes to be given to those churches
where colonists hear mass. Wherefore that holy assembly decreed, that,
for those fields and vineyards which they have for their own support or
that of their brethren, the bishops and abbots should cause the tithe to
be paid to the churches. And let the servants pay their tithes to the
church where their infants are baptized, and where during the year they
hear mass.”
In this we have additional evidence of the fact that large bodies of
land, and numerous servants attached to them, were held by bishops and
abbots, not only for themselves, but for their churches and their
monasteries. The canon xxx. is the following:
Dictum nobis est quod quidam legitima servorum matrimonia potestivâ
quâdam præsumptione dirimant, non attendentes illud evangelicum: _Quod
Deus conjunxit, homo non separet._ Unde nobis visum est, ut conjugia
servorum non dirimantur, etiam si diversos dominos habeant: sed in uno
conjugio permanentes dominis suis serviant. Et hoc in illis observandum
est, ubi legalis conjunctio fuit, et per voluntatem dominorum.
“It has been stated to us that some persons, by a sort of magisterial
presumption, dissolve the lawful marriages of slaves; not regarding that
evangelical maxim, _What God hath put together, let man not separate_.
Whence it appears to us, that the wedlock of slaves may not be
dissolved, even though they have different masters; but let them serve
their masters, remaining in one wedlock. And this is to be observed with
regard to those where there has been a lawful union, and with the will
of the owners.”
In the year 816, a council was held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in which a large
portion of the canon law then in force regarding the clergy was imbodied
into one hundred and forty-five chapters. After the session of the
council, the emperor published a capitulary containing thirty chapters;
the sixth of which complains of the continued indiscretion of bishops in
ordaining servants, contrary to the canons, and forbids such ordinations
except upon the master’s giving full liberty to the slave. If a servant
shall impose upon a bishop by false witnesses or documents of freedom,
and thus procure ordination, he shall be deposed and taken back by his
owner. If the descendant of a slave who came from abroad shall have been
educated and ordained, where there was no knowledge of his condition,
should his owner subsequently discover him and prove his property, if
this owner grants him liberty, he may keep his clerical rank; but if the
master asserts his right and carries him away, though the slave does not
lose his character of order, he loses his rank, and cannot officiate.
Should masters give servants freedom that they may be capable of
ordination, it shall be in the master’s discretion to give or to
withhold the property necessary to enable the person to get orders.
The archbishops are to have in each province the emperor’s authority in
the original, to authorize their ordaining the servants of the church,
and the suffragan bishops are to have copies of this original, and when
such servant is to be ordained, this authority must be read for the
people from the pulpit or at the corner of the altar. The like form was
to be observed when any of the laity desired to have any servant of the
church promoted to orders, or when the like promotion was petitioned for
by the prior of a chapter or of a monastery. Lotharius, the emperor,
published a capitulary in Rome, in 842.
In the third chapter of the first part, we find the following
expression:
In electione autem Romani pontificis nullus, sive liber sive servus,
præsumat aliquod impedimentum facere.
“Let no one, whether freeman or slave, presume to create any impediment
in the election of the Roman pontiff.”
Which leads us to suspect that some slaves possessed considerable power
or influence.
In the second chapter, fines are imposed for creating riots in any
church. And the chapter concludes in the following words:
Et qui non habet unde ad ecclesiam persolvat, tradat se in servitio
eidem ecclesiæ, usque dam totum debitum persolvat.
“And let him who has not the means of paying the church, give himself in
servitude to that same church until he pays the whole debt.”
By the tenth chapter he restrained the power of manumission.
Quod per xxx annos servus liber fieri non possit, si pater illius
servus, aut mater ancilla fuit. Similiter de Aldionibus præcipimus.
“That a slave whose father or whose mother was a slave cannot become
free before thirty years of age. We order that the same shall be the
case respecting Aldions.”
In the twelfth he states that these are but a continuance of the laws of
his grandfather Charles and of his father Louis. And in tit. i. 12 of
Ulpian, reference is made to a variety of enactments of the ancient
Roman law, that a slave manumitted under the age of thirty could not be
a Roman citizen except by a special grant of a court.
The thirteenth declares that free women who unite with their own slaves
are in the royal power, and are given up, together with their children,
to slavery among the Lombards.
The fourteenth enacts that a free woman who shall unite herself to the
male slave of another, and remain so for a year and a day, shall,
together with her children, become enslaved to her husband’s owner.
The fifteenth regulates that if the free husband of a free woman shall,
for crime or debt, bring himself into servitude to another, and she not
consent to remain with him, the children are free; but if she die, and
another free woman, knowing his condition, marries him, the children of
this latter shall be slaves.
A number of chapters are also on these records showing the insufficiency
of servile testimony. Others provide against the oppression of poor
freemen, so that they shall not be easily compelled to sell themselves
into slavery.
About the year 860, Pope Nicholas I. sent to the newly converted
Christians of Bulgaria answers to several inquiries which they made for
the regulation of their conduct. The ninety-seventh regards slaves who
accuse their masters to the prince or to the court: and the pope refers
them to the obligation of the master as given in chapter vi. of the
epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, (not to use threatenings towards
their servants,) and then asks, how much more strongly does the spirit
of this maxim of kindness and affection bear upon the servant, and teach
him to be of an humble and forgiving disposition, such as that chapter
enjoins; referring also to the direction of our Saviour, _Luke_ vi. 37,
and the injunction of the apostle, 1 _Thess._ v. 15, for their
direction.
At this period of time, the piratical wars of the Northmen, who were
perpetually making inroads on the rest of Europe, kept the whole of
Christendom in commotion, and marked perhaps the darkest period of the
dark ages.
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