Part 67 (1/2)

[Footnote 601: 'Gothorum laus est civilitas custodita.']

'(6) You are also accused of insisting on buying the cargoes of vessels that come to the port at your own price [and selling again at a higher]--a practice the very suspicion of which is injurious to an official, even if it cannot be proved against him in fact[602].

Wherefore, if you wish to avoid the rumour of this deed, let the Bishop and people of the city come forward as witnesses on behalf of your conscience[603]. Prices ought to be fixed by the common deliberation [of buyer and seller]; since no one likes a commercial transaction which is forced upon the unwilling.

[Footnote 602: This seems a possible interpretation of a dark sentence: 'Navigiis vecta commercia te suggerunt occupare, et ambitu cupiditatis exosae solum antiqua pretia definire, quod non creditur a suspicione longinquum etiam si non sit actione vicinum.']

[Footnote 603: Is this a kind of compurgation which is here proposed?]

'Wherefore we have thought it proper to warn your Sublimity by these presents, since we do not like those whom we love to be guilty of excess, nor to hear evil reports of those who are charged with reforming the morals of others.'

[This is an important letter, especially when taken in connection with the words of Totila (Procopius, 'De Bello Gotthico' iii. 16), as to the exceptional indulgence with which the Gothic Kings had treated Sicily, 'leaving, at the request of the inhabitants, very few soldiers in the island, that there might be no distaste to their freedom or to their general prosperity.'

Gildias is evidently a Goth, and though a _Vir Spectabilis_ and holding a Roman office--the Comitiva Syracusanae Civitatis--still it is essentially a military office, and he has no business to divert causes from the Judices Ordinarii to his tribunal, though probably a Roman Comes might often do this without serious blame. But by his doing so, the general principle, that in purely Roman causes a Goth is not to interfere, seems to be infringed, and therefore he receives this sharp reprimand to prevent his doing it again.]

15. KING ATHALARIC TO POPE JOHN II (532).

[Sidenote: Against Simony at Papal elections.]

'The Defensor of the Roman Church hath informed us in his tearful pet.i.tion that lately, when a President was sought for the Papal chair, so much were the usual largesses to the poor augmented by the promises which had been extorted from the candidate, that, shameful to say, even the sacred vessels were exposed to sale in order to provide the necessary money[604].

[Footnote 604: 'Quosdam nefaria machinatione necessitatem temporis aucupatos, ita facultates pauperum extortis promissionibus ingrava.s.se, ut quod dictu nefas est, etiam sacra vasa emptioni publicae viderentur exposita.']

'Therefore let your Holiness know that by this present decree, which relates also to all the Patriarchs and Metropolitan Churches [the five Metropolitan Churches in Rome, and such Sees as Milan, Aquileia, Ravenna], we confirm the wise law pa.s.sed by the Senate in the time of the most holy Pope Boniface [predecessor of John II]. By it any contract or promise made by any person in order to obtain a Bishopric is declared void.

'Anyone refusing to refund money so received is to be declared guilty of sacrilege, and rest.i.tution is to be enforced by the Judge.'

'Should a contention arise as to an election to the Apostolic See, and the matter be brought to our Palace for decision, we direct that the maximum fee to be paid, on the completion of the necessary doc.u.ments (?), shall be 3,000 solidi [1,800][605]; but this is only to be exacted from persons of sufficient ability to pay it.

[Footnote 605: 'Et quia omnia decet sub ratione moderari, nec possunt dici justa quae nimia sunt, c.u.m de Apostolici consecratione Pontificis intentio forta.s.se pervenerit, et ad Palatium nostrum producta fuerit altercatio populorum, suggerentes (?) n.o.bis intra tria millia solidorum, c.u.m collectione cartarum censemus accipere.']

'Patriarchs [Archbishops of the other great Italian Sees] under similar circ.u.mstances are to pay not more than 2,000 solidi [1,200].

'No one is to give [on his consecration] more than 500 solidi [300]

to the poor.

'Anyone professing to obtain for money the suffrage of any one of our servants on behalf of a candidate for Papacy or Patriarchate, shall be forced to refund the money. If it cannot be recovered from him, it may be from his heirs. He himself shall be branded with infamy.

'Should the giver of the money have been bound by such oaths, that, without imperilling his soul, he cannot disclose the transaction, anyone else may inform, and on establis.h.i.+ng the truth of his accusation, receive a third part of the money so corruptly paid, the rest to go to the churches themselves, for the repair of the fabric or for the daily ministry. Remember the fate of Simon Magus. We have ordered that this decree be made known to the Senate and people by the Praefect of the City.'

[I think the early part of this letter gives us the clue to the pretext under which these simoniacal practices were introduced. It was usual for the Pope on his election to give a certain sum of money to the poor. Then at a vehemently contested election certain of the voters--perhaps especially the priests of the different _t.i.tuli_ of Rome--claimed to be distributors of the Papal bounty, a large part of which they no doubt kept for themselves.]

16. KING ATHALARIC TO SALVANTIUS, VIR ILl.u.s.tRIS, PRAEFECT OF THE CITY.

[Sidenote: The same subject.]

Rehea.r.s.es the motives of the previous edict, and directs that both it and the Senatus Consulta having reference to the same subject [and framed two years previously], be engraved on marble tablets, and fixed up in a conspicuous place, before the Atrium of St. Peter the Apostle.