We have heretofore, in our fifth lesson, noticed the doctrine of the church, that the civil power had the prerogative of making laws in regard to slavery; although, at that time, paganism may be said to have governed the world. And while we travel rapidly through the seventh century, finding the Roman Empire, the mistress of the world, now tottering to decay; the Lombards firmlyestablished in Italy; the Franks in Gaul; the Goths in Spain; the Suevi in Portugal; and all Germany filled by various hordes, governed by their petty chieftains, just now showing some symptoms of civilization, and Christianity in the ascendant; yet we find this doctrine of the church unchanged.
The church may now be considered strong; and although the civil power is regarded as the legitimate legislative authority, yet, in no instance, are the laws found to run counter to the doctrines of the church on this subject.
In the precept of King Clotaire II. for endowing the abbey of Corbey, after the grant of the parcels of land therein recited, he adds,“unà cum terris, domibus, mancipiis, ædificiis, vineis, silvis, pratis, pascuis, farinariis, et cunctis appenditiis,”&c.—Together with the lands, houses, slaves, buildings, vineyards, woods, meadows, pastures, granaries, and all appendages.
And the abbey not only possessed the slaves as property, but by the same precept had civil jurisdiction over all its territory and all persons and things thereon, to the exclusion of all other judges.
The fourth council of Toledo, in 633, in its fifty-ninth canon, by the authority of King Sisenand and his nobles in Spain, restored to liberty any slaves whom the Jews should circumcise, and in the sixty-sixth canon, by the same authority, Jews were thenceforth rendered incapable of holding Christian slaves. The seventieth and the seventy-first canons regulated the process regarding the freed persons and colonists of the church, and the latter affixed a penalty of reduction to slavery for neglect of formal observances useful to preserve the evidence of title for the colonist. The seventy-second canon places the freed persons, whether wholly manumitted or only conditioned, when settled under patronage of the church, under the protection of the clergy.
The seventy-fourth allows the church to manumit worthy slaves belonging to herself, so that they may be ordained priests or deacons, but still keeps the property they may acquire, as belonging to the church which manumitted them, and restricts them even in their capacity as witnesses in several instances; and should they violate this condition, declares them suspended.
In the year 650, which was the sixth of King Clovis II., a council was held at Chalons. The canon begins with the announcement—
Pietatis est maximæ et religionis intuitus, ut captivitatis vinculum omnino à Christianis redimatur. Unde sancta synodus nosciturcensuisse, ut nullus mancipium extra fines vel terminos qui ad regnum domini Clodovei regis pertinent, penitus, debeat venumdare; ne, quod absit, per tale commercium aut captivitatis vinculo, vel, quod pejus est, Judaicâ servitute mancipia Christiana teneantur implicita.
“It is a work of the greatest piety, and the intent of religion, that the bond of captivity should be entirely redeemed from Christians. Whence it is known to be the opinion of the holy synod, that no one ought, at all, to sell a slave beyond the dominions of our lord Clovis the king; lest, which God forbid, Christian slaves should be kept entangled in the chains of captivity, or what is worse, under Jewish bondage.”
In the tenth council of Toledo, celebrated in the year 656, in the reign of Receswind, king of the Goths, the seventh chapter is a bitter complaint of the practice, which still prevailed among Christians, of selling Christian slaves to the Jews, to the subversion of their faith or their grievous oppression.
In the year 666, a council was held in Merida, in Spain. The eighteenth canon of which allows that, of the slaves belonging to the church, some may be ordained minor clerks, who shall serve the priests as their masters with due fidelity, receiving only food and raiment.
The twentieth chapter complains of many irregularities in the mode of making freedmen for the service of the church, regulates the mode of making them, and provides for the preservation of the evidence of their obligation and the security of their service.
The twenty-first regulates the extent to which a bishop shall be allowed to grant gifts to his friends, the slaves, the freedmen, or others.
The thirteenth council of Toledo was held in the year 683, in the reign of Ervigius, the successor of Wamba. There was an old law of the Goths, found in lib. v. tit. vii., and repeated in other forms in lib. x. and xi., regulating that no freedman should do an injury or an unkindness to his master, and authorizing the master who had suffered, to bring such offender back again to his state of slavery. And in lib. xvii. the freedman, and his progeny for ever, were prohibited from contracting marriage with the family of their patron or behaving with insolence to them. King Ervigius was reminded by many of his nobles that former kings, in derogation of this law, had given employments about the palace to slaves and to freedmen, and even sustained them in giving offence totheir masters, had even sometimes ordered them so to do, and protected them; for this the nobles sought redress. The king called upon the council to unite with him in putting a stop to this indignity. And in the sixth canon we have the detail of the evils set forth, and also the enactment, in concurrence with the king, that thenceforward it shall be unlawful to give any employment whatever about the palace, or in the concerns of the crown, to any slave or freedman.
The third council of Saragossa was celebrated in the year 691, in the reign of Egica, king of the Goths.
In Toledo, it had been enacted, that any freedman of the church, who did not comply with certain regulations, should lose his freedom and be reduced to slavery. One of the conditions was, that any person pretending to have been manumitted, or claiming as the descendant of a freedman, should, upon the death of the bishop, exhibit his papers to the successor of the deceased, within a year, or, upon his neglect, should be declared a slave. The object of this was to discern those who were partially free from the perfect slave, and to cause the former to preserve their muniments.
The fathers of Saragossa, however, discovered that some of the bishops, studying their own gain, had been too rigid in enforcing this law, and thereby reduced several negligent or ignorant persons to bondage; in order then to do justice, they enacted in their fourth chapter, that the year within which the documents should be exhibited should not commence to run until after the new bishop, subsequently to his institution, should have given sufficient notice to those claiming to be put in partial service, to produce their papers.
The sixteenth council of Toledo was held in the year 693. The fifth chapter of the acts, determining when a priest may hold two churches, has the following passage:
Ut ecclesia, quæ usque ad decem habuerit mancipia, super se habeat sacerdotem, quæ vero minus decem mancipia habuerit aliis conjungatur ecclesiis.
“That the church which shall have as many as ten slaves shall have one priest over it, but that one which shall have less than ten slaves shall be united to other churches.”
In the tenth chapter of the acts of the same council, not only was excommunication pronounced against all who should be guilty of high treason against Egica, the king of the Gothic nation, but the bishops and clergy united with the nobles (palatii senioribus) and the popular representatives in condemning traitors and theirprogeny to perpetual slavery, (fisci viribus sub perpetuâ servitute maneant religati.)
The laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, about the year 692, were made for the regulation of religion:
Servus, si quid operis patrârit die Dominico ex præcepto domini sui, liber esto, dominus triginta solidos dependito. Verum si id operis injussu domini sui aggressus fuerit, verberibus cæditor, aut saltem virgarum metum precio redimito. Liber, si die hoc operetur injussu domini sui, aut servituti addicitor, aut sexaginta solidos dependito. Sacerdos, si in hanc partem deliquerit, pœna in duplum augeator.
“If a slave shall do any work on the Lord’s day, by order of his master, let him become free, and let the master pay thirty shillings, (another copy adds,‘ad witam,’as a fine.) But, if he went to this work without his master’s command, let him be cut with whips, (another copy has‘corium perdat,’let him lose his skin,) or at least, let him redeem the fear of the scourge by a price. A freeman, if on this day he shall work without the order of his lord, let him be reduced to slavery, or pay sixty shillings. Should a priest be delinquent in this respect, his penalty shall be increased to double.”
In the eighth, the division of the weregild for the killing of a stranger:
Wallus censum pendens annuum, 120 solidorum æstimatur, filius ejus 100. Servus, alias 60, alias 50, solidis valere putatur. Wallus virgarum metum 12 solidis redimito. Wallus quinque terræ hydas possidens 600 solidis æstimandus est.
“A stranger paying a yearly rent is to be rated at 120 shillings, his son at 100. A slave at either 50 or 60, is a fair estimation. Let a stranger redeem his fear of whipping for 12 shillings. A stranger being in possession of five hydes of land is to be valued at 600 shillings.”
The seventeenth council of Toledo was celebrated in 694, in the reign of Egica. It was enacted—
Si quis servum proprium sine conscientiâ judicis occiderit, excommunicatione biennii sanguinis se mundabit.
“If any one shall put his own slave to death, without the knowledge of the judge, he shall cleanse himself the blood by an excommunication of two years.”
In the council of Berghamstead, near Canterbury, held in 697, under Withred, king of Kent, at which Gebmund, bishop of Rochester,was present, and where a sort of parliament also assembled and gave a civil sanction to the temporal enactments and penalties of the canons, several regulations were made concerning slaves. The Saxon MS. is the adoption of the canons into the common law of Canterbury, anti is entitled “The Judgments of Withred.”
The ninth canon in this collection is the following:
Si quis servum suum ad altare manumiserit, liber esto, et habilis sit ad gaudendum hereditate et wirigildo, et fas sit ei ubi volet sine limite versari.
“If any person shall manumit his servant at the altar, let him be free, and capable of enjoying inheritance and weregild, and let it be lawful for him to dwell where he pleases without limit.”
The tenth canon is:
Si in vesperâ præcedente diem solis postquam sol occubuit, aut in vesperâ præcedente diem lunæ post occasum solis, servus ex mandato domini sui opus aliquod servile egerit, dominus factum octoginta solidis luito.
“If on the evening preceding Sunday, after the sun has set, or on the evening preceding Monday, after the setting of the sun, a slave shall do any servile work by command of his master, let the master compensate the deed by eighty shillings.”
The eleventh:
Si servus hisce diebus itineraverit, domino pendat sex solidos, aut flagello cædatur.
“If a servant shall have journeyed on these days, let him pay six shillings to his master, or be cut with a whip.”
The thirteenth:
Si paganus uxore nesciâ diabolo quid obtulerit, omnibus fortunis suis plectatur et collistrigio. Sin et ambo pariter itidem fecerint, omnium bonorum suorum amissione ipsa etiam luat et collistrigio.
“If a villain, without the knowledge of his wife, shall have offered any thing to the devil, let him be punished by the loss of all his fortune and by the pillory. And if both did so together, let her also lose all her goods and be punished by the pillory.”
The Englishvillainwas thecolonistof the European continent, and in the Speculum Saxonicum, lib. i. art. 3, his imperfect liberty is compared with the freeman. Also in Du Cange, Paganus, Pagenses, &c.
The fourteenth:
Si servus diabolo offerat, sex dependat solidos, aut flagro vapulet.
“If a slave offers to the devil, let him pay six shillings, or be whipped.”
The fifteenth:
Si quis servo carnem in jejunio dederit comedendam, servus liber exeat.
“If any one shall give his slave flesh-meat to eat on a fast-day, let the slave go out free.”
The sixteenth:
Si servus ex sponte suâ eam ederit, aut sex solidis aut flagello.
“If the slave shall eat it of his own motion, let the penalty be either six shillings or a whipping.”
After regulating the mode of declaration of swearing and of compurgation, for the king, the bishop, the abbot, the priest, the deacon, the cleric, the stranger, and the king’s thane, the twenty-first canon enacts—
Paganus cum quatuor compurgatoribus, capite suo ad altare inclinato, semet eximat.
“Let the villain deliver himself with four compurgators, with his head bowed down to the altar.”
The twenty-third:
Si quis Dei mancipium in conventu suo accusaverit, dominus ejus eum simplici suo juramento purgabit, si eucharistiam susceperit. Ad eucharistiam autem si nusquam venerit, habeat in juramento fidejussorem bonum, vel solvat, vel se tradat flagellandum.
“If any person shall accuse a slave of God in his convent, his lord shall purge him with a simple oath, if he shall have received the eucharist. But if he has never come to the eucharist, let him in his oath have a good surety to answer, or let him pay or give himself up to be whipped.”
The slave of God was one belonging to a monastery, of whom there appear to have been a good number in England, at that period, as well as on the continent. The previous canon had legislated for the bishop’s dependants as distinguished from the slave of the monastery.
The twenty-fourth canon is:
Si servus viri popularis servum viri ecclesiastici accusaverit, vel servus ecclesiastici servum viri popularis, dominus ejus singulari suo juramento eum expurgabit.
“If the slave of a lay person shall accuse the slave of a clergyman, or if the slave of a clergyman shall accuse the slave of a layman, let his master purge him by his single oath.”
The twenty-seventh regulated the punishment of the person who permitted a thievish slave to escape, and, respecting the slave himself, concluded thus:
Si quis eum occiderit, domino ejus dimidium pendito.
“If any one shall slay him, let him pay to his master one-half.”
In Germany, however, as yet, in most places paganism prevailed, and human sacrifices were offered. St. Boniface had been sent by the Holy See to endeavour to reclaim to religion and to civilization the nations or tribes that composed this undefined extent of territory. We find in a letter of Pope Gregory III., written in answer to his request for special instructions, about the year 735, the following paragraph:
Hæc quoque inter alia crimina agi in partibus illis dixisti, quod quidam ex fidelibus ad immolandum paganis sua venumdent mancipia. Quod ut magnopere corrigere debeas, frater, commonemus, nec sinas fieri ultra: scelus est enim et impietas. Eis ergo qui hæc perpetraverunt, similem homicidæ indices pœnitentiam.
“You have said that, among other crimes, this was done in those parts, that some of the faithful sold their slaves to pagans to be immolated. Which you should use all your power to correct, nor allow it to be done any more: for it is wickedness and impiety. Impose then upon its perpetrators the same penance as for homicide.”
Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, governed the English church from 670 to 690, when he died. The following extracts are from his canonical regulations:
VII. Græci et Romani dant servis suis vestimenta, et laborant excepto Dominico die. Græcorum monachi servos non habent, Romani habent.
“The Greeks and Romans give clothing to their slaves, and they work except on the Lord’s day. The Greek monks have not slaves, the Romans have.”
XVII. Ingenuus cum ingenuâ conjungi debet.
“A free man should be married to a free woman.”
LXV.Qui per jussionem domini sui occiderit hominem, dies xl. jejunet.
“He who, by the command of his master, shall kill a man, shall fast forty days.”
The seventy-first prohibits the intermarriages of those slaves whose owners will prevent their living together.
The seventy-fourth regulates, that if a free pregnant-woman be sold into slavery, the child that she bears shall be free; all subsequently born shall be slaves.
LXXIX. Pater filium necessitate coactus in servitium sine voluntate filii tradat.
“A father, compelled by necessity, may deliver his son into slavery without the will of that son.”
LXXXIX. Episcopus et abbas hominem sceleratum servum possunt habere, si precium redimendi non habet.
“A bishop or an abbot can hold a criminal in slavery, if he have not the price of his redemption.”
CXVII. Servo pecuniam per laborem comparatam nulli licet auferre.
“It is not lawful for any one to take away from a slave the money made by labour.”
In the council of Verberie, held in a palace of King Pepin, the sixth canon made regulations in the case of marriage between free persons and slaves. The following are its provisions:
1. If any free person contracted marriage with a slave, being at the time ignorant of the state of bondage of that party, the marriage was invalid.
2. If a person under bond should have a semblance of freedom by reason of condition, and the free person be ignorant of the bondage, and this bond person should be brought into servitude, the marriage was declared originally void.
3. An exception was made where the bond person, by reason of want, should, with the consent of the free party, sell himself or herself into perfect slavery with the consent of the free party; then the marriage was to stand good, because the free party had consented to the enslavement, and profited of its gains.
The seventh canon would seem to show that a slave could hold property in slaves:
Si servus suam ancillam concubinam habuerit, si ita placet, potest illâ dimissâ comparem suam ancillam domini sui accipere: sed melius est suam ancillam tenere.
“If a man-servant shall have his own female slave as a concubine, he shall have power, if he wishes, leaving her, to marry his equal, the female servant of his master: but it is better that he should keep his own servant in wedlock.”
The eighth canon provided, in the case of a freedman who, subsequently to his liberation, committed sin with the female slave of his former master, that the master should have power, whether the freedman would or not, to compel him to marry that female slave; and should this man leave her, and attempt a marriage with another woman, this latter must be separated from him.
The thirteenth declares that when a freeman, knowing that the woman whom he is about to marry is a slave, or, not having known it until after marriage, voluntarily upon the discovery consents to the marriage, it is thenceforth indissoluble.
The nineteenth declares that the separation of married parties, by the sale of one who is a slave, does not affect the marriage. They must be admonished, if they cannot be reunited, to remain continent.
The twentieth provides for the case of a male slave freed by letter, (chartellarius,) who, having for his wife taken a slave with the lawful consent of her master, and leaving her, takes another as his wife. The latter contract is void, and the parties must separate.
Another assembly was held by King Pepin, in Compeigne, forty-eight miles north-east of Paris, where he had a country-seat. At this assembly also the prelates held a council in 757, and made eighteen canons. The fourth makes provision for the case of a man’s giving his free step-daughter in wedlock to a freeman or to a slave. The fifth declares void the marriage between a free person and a slave, where the former was ignorant of the condition of the latter. The sixth regards a case of a complicated description, where a freeman got a civil benefice from his lord, and takes his own vassal with him, and dies upon the benefice, leaving after him the vassal. Another freeman becomes invested with the benefice, and, anxious to induce the vassal to remain, gives him a female serf attached to the soil as his wife. Having lived with her for a time, the vassal leaves her, and returns to the lord’s family, to which he owed his services, and there he contracts a marriage with one of the same allegiance. His first contract was invalid, the second was the marriage.
In the year 772, a council was held in Bavaria, at a place calledDingolvinga, the present city of Ingolstadt, in the reign of Tassilo, duke of Bavaria. The tenth canon of this council decides that a noble woman, who had contracted marriage with a slave, not being aware of his condition, is at liberty to leave him, the contract being void, and she is to be considered free and not to be reduced to slavery. Bynoblewe are here to understandfree, as distinguished fromignoble, that is, a slave.
We have then sixteen amendments of the national law.
The first regulates, by the authority of the prince and consent of the whole assembly, that henceforth no slave, whether fugitive or other, should be sold beyond the limits of the territory, under penalty of the payment of his weregild.
In the second, among other things, it is enacted that if a slave should be killed in the commission of house-breaking, his owner is to receive no compensation; and should the felon who is killed in man-stealing, when he could not be taken, whether it be a freeman or a slave that he is carrying off, no weregild shall be paid by the slayer, but he shall be bound to prove his case before a court.
The seventh regards the trial by ordeal of slaves freed by the duke’s hand.
The eighth establishes and guards the freedom, not only of themselves, but of their posterity, of those freed in the church, unless when they may be reduced to slavery from inability to pay for damages which they had committed.
The ninth contains, among other enactments, those which explain the tenth canon of the council. After specifying different weregilds for freed persons, it says—
Si ancilla libera dimissa fuerit per chartam aut in ecclesiâ, et post hæc servo nupserit, ecclesiæ ancilla permanebit.
“Should a female slave be emancipated by deed or in the church, and afterwards marry a slave, she shall be a slave to the church.”
It then continues, respecting a woman originally free, and thenobilisof canon x.:
Si autem libera Bajoaria servo ecclesiæ nupserit, et servile opus ancilla contradixerit, abscedat.
“But if a free Bavarian female shall have married a servant of the church, and the maid will not submit to servile work, she may depart.”
Si autem ibi filios et filias generaverit, ipsi servi et ancillæ permaneant, potestatem exinde (exeundi) non habeant.
“But if she shall have there borne sons and daughters, they shall continue slaves, and not have power of going forth.”
Her freedom was not, however, immediately destroyed, for the law proceeds—
Illa autem mater eorum, quando exire voluerit, ante annos iii, liberam habeat potestatem.
“But she, their mother, when she may desire to go forth before three years, shall have free power therefor.”
In this case the marriage subsisted, but the free woman could separate, without however the marriage-bond being rent. If she remained beyond the time of three years, she lost her freedom; and it shows us that, probably, previous to this amendment, any free woman who married a slave, thereby lost her own freedom; and that the tenth canon, showing the marriage of which it treated to be invalid, showed that the woman should not lose her liberty. The concluding provision of the ninth law is as follows:
Si autem iii annos induraverit opus ancillæ, et parentes ejus non exadomaverunt eam ut libera fuisset, nec ante comitem, ducem, nec ante regem, nec in publico mallo, transactis tribus kalendis Martis, (Martu,) post hæc ancilla permaneat in perpetuum, et quicumque ex ea nati fuerint servi et ancillæ sunt.
“But if she shall have continued three years doing the work of a slave, and her relations have not brought her out so that she should be free, either before the count, or the duke, or the king, or in the public high court, (mall,) when the kalends of March shall have thrice passed, after this she shall remain perpetually a slave, and they who shall be born of her, male and female, shall be slaves.”
In 774, Pope Adrian I. delivered to Charlemagne a digest of canon law, then in force, in which we find—
“The third of Gangræ, condemning as guilty of heresy those who taught that religion sanctioned the slave in despising his master; the thirtieth in the African collection, which showed that the power of manumission in the church was derived from the civil authority; the one hundred and second of the same, which declared slaves and freed persons disqualified to prosecute, except in certain cases and for injuries done to themselves.”
In a capitulary of Charlemagne, published in such a synod and general assembly in 779, in the month of March, in the eleventh year of his reign, at Duren, on the Roer, (Villa Duria,) between Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, there being assembledepiscopis,abbatibus, virisque illustribus, comitibus, unà cum piissimo domino nostro,—“the bishops, abbots, and the illustrious men, the counts, together with our most pious lord,”—we find the following chapter:
XX.De mancipiis quæ venduntur, ut in præsentiâ episcopi vel comitis sit, aut in præsentiâ archdiaconi, aut centenarii, aut in præsentiâ vicedomini, aut judicis comitis, aut ante bene nota testimonia. Et foras marcham nemo mancipium vendat. Qui fecerit, tantis vicibus bannos solvet, quanta mancipia vendidit. Et si non habet precium vivadio, pro servo semetipsum donet comiti, usquèdum ipsos bannos solvat.
“Concerning slaves that are sold, let it be in presence of the bishop, or of the count, or in presence of the archdeacon, or of the judge of the hundred, or in presence of the lord’s deputy, or of the judge of the county, or of well known witnesses. And let no one sell a slave beyond the boundary. Whosoever shall do so shall pay as many fines as he sold slaves. And if he has not the money, let him deliver himself to the count in pledge as a slave until he shall pay the fines.”
In a capitulary of Pope Adrian I., containing the summary of the chief part of the canon law then in force, as collected from the ancient councils and other sources, delivered to Ingilram, bishop of Metz, or, as it was then called, Divodurum, or oppidum Mediomatricorum, on the 19th of September, xiii. kalendas Octobris, indic. ix. 785, the sixteenth chapter, describing those who cannot be witnesses against priests, mentions not merely slaves, butquorum vitæ libertas nescitur, thosewho are not known to be free; and in the notes of Anthony Augustus, bishop of Tarragona, on this capitulary, he refers for this and another passage, viles personae,persons of vile condition, which is the appellation of slaves, to decrees of the earliest of popes, viz., Anacletus,A.D.91, and Clement his immediate successor; Evaristus, who was the next, and diedA.D., 109; Pius, who diedA.D.157; Calistus, in 222; Fabian, 250; and several others. In chapter xxi. among incompetent witnesses, are recited, nullus servus, nullus libertus—no slave, no freedman. The notes of the same author inform us that this portion of the chapter is the copy of an extract from the first council of Nice, and that it is also substantially found in a passage from Pope Pontianus, who died in 235, as well as in several of the early African and Spanish councils, which he quotes.
One of these assemblies, in which Charlemagne published a capitulary, was held at Aix-la-Chapèlle (Aquisgranum) in 789, inwhich eighty-two chapters were enacted. No. xxiii. is founded upon canon iv. of the council of Chalcedon, and upon an enactment of Leo the Great. It prohibited all attempts to induce a slave to embrace either the clerical or monastical state without the will and license of the master. No. xlv. prohibits, among others, slaves from being competent witnesses, or freedmen against their patrons: founded upon the ninety-sixth canon of the African councils. No. lvii. referring to the third canon of the council of Gangræ, prohibits bishops ordaining slaves without the master’s license.
In 794 a council was held at Frankfort on the Maine, at which the bishops of a large portion of Europe assisted; the twenty-third canon of which is the following:
De servis alienis, ut a nemine recipiantur, neque ab episcopis sacrentur sine licentiâ dominorum.
“Of servants belonging to others: they shall be received by no one, nor admitted to orders by bishops, without their masters’ license.”
In the year 697, at another assembly held at Aix-la-Chapelle, the capitulary for the pacification and government of Saxony was enacted by Charlemagne. The eighth chapter is—
Si quis hominem diabolo sacrificaverit, et hostiam in more paganorum dæmonibus obtulerit, morte moriatur.
“If any person shall sacrifice a man to the devil, and offer him as a victim to devils after the fashion of pagans, he shall be put to death.”
An explanation of this will be found where Pope Gregory III. answers St. Boniface, who informed him that unfortunate slaves were bought to be thus immolated.
XI.Si quis filiam domini sui rapuerit, morte moriatur.
“If any one shall do violence to his master’s daughter, he shall be put to death.”
XII.Si quis dominum suum vel dominam suam interfecerit, simili modo puniatur.
“If any one shall kill his master or his mistress, he shall be punished in like manner.”
XIV.De minoribus capitulis consenserunt omnes, ad unamquamque ecclesiam curtem et duas mansas terræ pagenses ad ecclesiam recurrentes condonent: et inter centum viginti homines nobiles et ingenuos, similiter et litos, servum et ancillam eidem ecclesiæ tribuant.
“All agreed concerning the smaller congregations, that the colonists frequenting each church should bestow upon it one dwelling, with proper out-offices, and two manses (24 acres) of land; and that they should give to the same church one male slave and one female slave between one hundred and twenty noble and free men, and counting also the conditioned servants.”
In this newly settled ecclesiastical province the provision made for the support of religion consisted of land and slaves.
Upon the ascension of Charlemagne to the imperial throne, the Roman Empire may date its extinction. But, in the reign of the Franks, in their succession to the throne of the western empire, we fail to find any change of doctrine on the subject of slavery. But the Lombards had long disturbed Italy: Charlemagne succeeded in reducing them to better order, and, in the year 801, amended their laws. One chapter assimilated to that of France and of Germany:
VI.De Aldionibus publicis ad jus publicum pertinentibus.
Aldiones vel Aldianes eâ lege vivant in Italiâ, in servitute dominorum suorum, quâ fiscalini vel liddi vivunt in Franciâ.
“Of the public Aldions, belonging to the public estate.
“The Aldions, or Aldians, shall in Italy exist upon the same principle in the service of their masters that the fiscals and lids do exist in France.”
The Aldions were bond-men or bond-women, whose persons were not at the disposal of their masters, nor did they pass with the land as colonists did, but their masters or patrons had certain claims upon stated services from them. They were generally either freed persons or the descendants of those who had been manumitted upon the condition of performing stipulated services; and if they failed to perform these, they were liable to be reduced to slavery. Thelidusorliddusorlitusof the Saxon was so called from being spared in the conquest, and left on the land, with the obligation of paying the master, who owned it and himself, a certain portion of its produce, and doing him other fixed services. Thus neither of them was an absolute slave whose person and propertywere at the owner’s disposal. The slave was manumitted, but this latter description of servants were generally released by deed or charter: hence, when so freed, they were calledchartulani,chartellani, or “chartered.” The transition from slavery to this latter kind of servitude was, at the commencement of the ninth century, greatly on the increase.
VIII.De servis fugacibus.
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 rightswere 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 inany 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,Lukevi. 37, and the injunction of the apostle, 1Thess.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.
UNCONNECTED FACTS.
In 1030, Peter, bishop of Girona, in Spain, came to Rome, and begged leave of the pope (John XIX.) to wear the pall twelve days in the year, promising to redeem thirty slaves then in captivity among the Saracens, provided his holiness granted him this request. It was readily granted. See Bower, vol. v. p. 153.
Shortly after the 30th October, 1051, Pope Leo IX., having visited Vercelli and Augsburg, returned to Rome, and held a council soon after Easter, in which he excommunicated Gregory, bishop of Vercelli, for committing adultery with a widow betrothed to his uncle. The bishop was absent when this sentence was given, but he flew to Rome as soon as he heard of it; and upon his promising to perform the penance that his holiness imposed upon him, he was absolved from the excommunication, and restored to the functions of his office. On that occasion the canons issued by other councils against the incontinence of the clergy were confirmed, and “some new ones were added, and, in order to check more effectually the scandalous irregularity of theRomanclergy in particular, it was decreed, at the request of the pope, that all women who should for the future prostitute themselves to the priests within the walls of Rome should be condemned to serve as slaves in the Lateran palace.” See Herman, ad an. 1051; also Bower, idem, p. 183.
By one of Constantine’s laws, they who ravished virgins or stole them, even with their consent, against the will of their parents,(with the view to make slaves of them or not,) were burned alive. Cod. Theodos. 1. ix. tit. 29, leg. 1. The severity of this law was somewhat mitigated by Constantius, but he still made it a capital offence. Ibid. leg. 2. It was upon this law, Pope Hadrian II. applied to the emperor for redress againstEleutherius, who had carried off his daughterStephaniaby force, and married her, although she was betrothed to another. See Bower, idem, p. 11. We have a remarkable letter, written by Gregory VII., in January, 1080, in answer to one he had received from Vratislaus, duke of Bohemia, desiring leave to have Divine service performed in the Sclavonian tongue, that is, in the language of the country. That letter the pope answered in the following words:
“As you desire us to allow Divine service to be performed among you in the Sclavonian tongue, know that by no means can I grant your request, it being manifest to all, who will but reflect, that it has pleased the Almighty that the Scripture should be withheld from some, and not understood by all, lest it should fall into contempt, or lead the unlearned into error. And it must not be alleged that all were allowed, in theprimitive times, to read the Scriptures, it being well known that in those early times the churchconnivedat many things, which the holy fathers disapproved and corrected when the Christian religion was firmly established. He cannot therefore grant, but absolutely forbid, by the authority of Almighty God and his blessed apostle Peter, what you ask, and command you to oppose to the utmost of your power all who require it.” Greg. l. vii. ep. ii.; also Bower, idem, p. 279.
On the subject of the above letter, it should be remembered none spoke the Sclavonic at that day except the Sclavonians themselves; that the great mass of that people were slaves, either to some few individuals of their own nation, or to the other European nations, by whom they had been captured, or to whom they had been sold. They were a nation of slaves, and hence the Romans called their languageServian, fromservus, a slave. There is still extant among the ancient German archives some account of the physical and moral appearance of this people, representing them as robust, filthy, faithless, and extremely wicked. They called themselvessclavaorsclavas, &c., which word, in their language, implied an elevated distinction, and was in common use as asuffixto individual names, indicating that the person was highly elevated among his countrymen, as in this case, Vrati-Slaus—indicatingthe fact thatVratiwas famous, elevated, a man of high and honourable distinction. Such men often held immense numbers of their less elevated countrymen in bondage. From the form and meaning of thissuffix, some modern scholars have erroneously supposed it to have come from the Latin,laus. We may form some idea of the feelings of Pope Gregory VII., upon this application, by imagining what would have been the feelings of a Virginia legislature, fifty years ago, had some free African, then there, petitioned to have the laws published inEboe, for the benefit of the slaves. In the above letter, the meaning of the assertion, “in those early times the churchconnived atmany things which the holy fathers disapproved,” &c., at this late day is very liable to be misconceived. He does not allude to any thing said or done by Jesus Christ or his apostles, but to the action of his predecessors in the pontificate on this very subject. About the year 860, Pope Nicholas I. granted this very privilege to the Sclavonians in Moravia; and about ten years after, the same was renewed by Hadrian II., upon the request of St. Cyril, the apostle of the Moravians. See the Life of Cyril, (Latin,) page 22. And John VIII., in the year 882, confirmed the same, at the request ofSfento Pulcher, prince of Moravia, calling it thelicensegranted by Pope Nicholas, “of saying the canonical hours and celebrating mass in their native language.”
“The Sclavonian language we justly commend,” says the pope in his letter to the prince, “and order the praise and the works of Christ our Lord to be celebrated in that tongue, being directed by Divine authority to praise the Lord, not in three only, but in all languages, agreeably to what we find in holy writ—‘Praise ye the Lord, all ye nations, and bless him, all ye people.’The apostles announced the wonderful works of God in all languages,” &c., “and he who made the three chief languages, the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin, created all the rest for his praise and glory.” See Johan. ep. 247.
The same privilege was granted by theGreekchurch to theRussians, who speak theSclavonianlanguage; and they perform, to this day, as well as the Moravians, Divine service in their native language. The pope, however, ordered the gospel to be first read inLatin, and afterwards, for the sake of those who understood not that language, in theSclavonian. (See Bower, idem, p. 37.) It is not relevant to our subject to inquire what facts presented themselves to the mind of Gregory VII., whereby he apprehended that the Scripture might “fall into contempt,” or they “lead the unlearnedinto error.” But we have seen, in our own day, a wide deviation from the instruction of St. Paul, in a version of the New Testament in Romaic, or modern Greek, evidently translated from our English version, instead of from the ancient Greek; wherein Paul is made to say, 1Tim.i. 10,anthropokleptas, which indicates the stealing of a free man—instead of what Paul did say,andrapodistais, which indicates the stealing of a slave. It is true, King James’s translators substituted “men-stealers,” without any further allusion that themenwho were to be thethings stolenwere slaves. It does not appear to have occurred to them that afree mancould bestolen, since in no sense could he beproperty. In said version are other errors of equal magnitude; and we have it from good authority that the Greek patriarch, after an examination of said version, most strictly forbad his people to read it, and, also, to introduce it among them. If such errors were incident to theSclavonic, Gregory VII. had at least some ground for his apprehensions. But the Sclavonians were of the same colour and physical formation of the northern tribes to whom they were in bondage. There was no physical or moral degradation consequent to an amalgamation with them; and such connection did happen to a very great extent, and at this day has very nearly extinguished all caste between them. But in the days of Gregory VII., and long since, the politer nations of the south of Europe regarded those of the north, whether free or in servitude, as but a mere grade, if at all, above barbarians; and this pope seems to have been disposed to have fed them with “milk,” and not with “strong meat.”Heb.v. 12. We may perceive how the south estimated the north at those early times, by an incident related by D'Aubigne, vol. i. p. 96. Reuchlin, a native of Pforzheim, had made himself a distinguished scholar for any age. In 1498, he found his way to Rome, when Argyropylos, a celebrated Greek professor, was lecturing on the elevated standing in literature to which the Greeks had formerly arrived, &c. Reuchlin, highly delighted with the lecture, visited the professor, and addressed him in Greek. Argyropylos, perceiving him to be a German, says, “Whence come you, and do you understand Greek?” Reuchlin replies, “I am a German, and am not quite ignorant of your language.” He took up Thucydides and read; when Argyropylos said, in grief, tears, and astonishment, “Alas, alas, Greece cast out and fugitive, is gone to hide herself beyond the Alps!” But the funeral fire of Greece and Rome illumed the extreme north, and by its light the savage freemanand his more savage slave were taught their religion, civilization, and science. “It was thus,” says D'Aubigne, “that the sons of barbarous Germany and those of ancient Greece met together in the palaces of Rome; thus it was that the east and the west gave each other the right hand of fellowship in this rendezvous of the world, and that the former poured into the hands of the latter those intellectual treasures which it had carried off in its escape from the barbarism of the Turks. God, when his plans require it, brings together in an instant, by some unlooked-for catastrophe, those who seemed for ever removed from each other.” This improved condition of the northern nations was foreseen, perhaps already felt, by Innocent IV., in 1254, when he permitted Divine service to be performed in the Sclavonic language, which is noticed by Bower, vol. vi. p. 254. At the close of his remarks on Pope Innocent IV., he says—“We have a great number of letters written by this pope on different occasions, and a decree allowing theSclavoniansto perform Divine service in their mother tongue, contrary to a decree of Gregory VII.” We beg to notice Pope Gregory IX.; for, “by this pope was confirmed the religious order ofSt. Mary de Mercede, as it is called, an order instituted to make gatherings all over the Christian world for the redemption of Christians taken and kept inslaveryby the infidels.” Bower, idem, p. 236. This order was instituted by James, king of Arragon, about the year 1223, and was confirmed by Gregory on the 17th of January, 1230. The general of this order resides constantly at Barcelona, where it was instituted by the king of Arragon, under the direction ofRaimund de Pennefort, then canon of that city. SeeOldoinus in notis ad Ciacon. Bullarium in Greg. IX. constit. 9. About the year 1312, charges of the most wicked and gross nature were had against theKnights Templars. Their chief persecutor was King Philip, who suspected them to have encouraged an insurrection during his war in Flanders. Through his influence the whole order were arrested, not only in France, but in all Christendom. Pope Clement V. took charge of their prosecution. But it appearing that thousands of them had and were ready to defend the Christian religion at the expense of their lives, and that many of their order were then inslaveryamong the Saracens, from which they might redeem themselves by repudiating Jesus Christ and his religion, yet they preferred rather to live and die in chains than to purchase freedom at so high a price, their judges considered these facts to overbalance theevidence against them. But through Philip’s influence the order was suppressed. See Bower, vol. vi. p. 39. By the laws of Moses, when the Hebrews found it necessary to make war and subdue their enemies in battle, they were directed to put all the men to death, and to make slaves of the women and children. SeeDeuteronomyxx. 13, 14. The milder treatment of the women and children was in mercy, predicated on the presumption of their being more tractable and less unalterably sunk in sin. We perceive the same state of facts when the Lord commanded the Hebrews to put the Canaanites to death. “Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them: neither shalt thou make marriages with them,” &c.Deut.vii. 2, 3. Whereas the adjoining and kindred tribes were only devoted to slavery. “Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids.”Lev.xxv. 44. It is, and ever has been, the universal rule to destroy from the earth, whenever sin has sunk its votary so low in the depths of crime that there is no longer even hope of reform. Whereas, for a less degree of depravity, mercy intercedes for the reformation of the victim, by placing him someway in surveillance, either for life or for a term of years. On the same principle is founded the distinction of punishment between homicide attended with premeditated malice, and that which is not so attended.
“Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering, said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I may dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.”Lukexiii. 7.