Gregory the Great (Wisigothic)→Unknown|gregory great
Gregory to Anthemius, subdeacon [papal agent managing Church estates in Campania].
I recall that I have instructed you not only by frequent written orders, but also by admonishing you many times in person, that you should carry out your duties there in our place not so much for the business interests of the Church as for relieving the needs of the poor, and that you should above all defend them from anyone's oppression.
The bearer of this letter, Gaudiosus, has informed us that violence is being done to him by the agents of the holy Roman Church, over which by God's authority we preside. He claims that the men of the said Church wish to claim his sons as Church property [i.e., as servi, bound laborers attached to Church estates]. Having examined the documents he presented, we have determined that Sirica, the wife of the bearer of this letter, was given by Ecia of glorious memory [a former owner] to a certain woman named Morena by a deed of donation, and was then manumitted by that same Morena through a letter of emancipation. We therefore consider it improper that her children, born of a free woman, should be dragged back into servitude.
For this reason, we command your Experience [a formal address for papal agents] by this present authority to examine these very documents carefully and with an untroubled mind, just as we ourselves have done. If there are no documents on the Church's side that should contradict this man's papers, you are to cease troubling him without any further delay. For it is a harsh thing that those whom others have freed for the sake of their own souls should be reclaimed by the very Church that ought to have protected their liberty.
Therefore, again and again we urgently remind your Experience that if any disputes arise there between the poor and the holy Roman Church, you are to investigate them with complete integrity of mind, and so manage the interests of the Church's estates that you never depart from the kindness that justice demands.
Gregory to Anthemius, subdeacon [papal agent managing Church estates in Campania].
I recall that I have instructed you not only by frequent written orders, but also by admonishing you many times in person, that you should carry out your duties there in our place not so much for the business interests of the Church as for relieving the needs of the poor, and that you should above all defend them from anyone's oppression.
The bearer of this letter, Gaudiosus, has informed us that violence is being done to him by the agents of the holy Roman Church, over which by God's authority we preside. He claims that the men of the said Church wish to claim his sons as Church property [i.e., as servi, bound laborers attached to Church estates]. Having examined the documents he presented, we have determined that Sirica, the wife of the bearer of this letter, was given by Ecia of glorious memory [a former owner] to a certain woman named Morena by a deed of donation, and was then manumitted by that same Morena through a letter of emancipation. We therefore consider it improper that her children, born of a free woman, should be dragged back into servitude.
For this reason, we command your Experience [a formal address for papal agents] by this present authority to examine these very documents carefully and with an untroubled mind, just as we ourselves have done. If there are no documents on the Church's side that should contradict this man's papers, you are to cease troubling him without any further delay. For it is a harsh thing that those whom others have freed for the sake of their own souls should be reclaimed by the very Church that ought to have protected their liberty.
Therefore, again and again we urgently remind your Experience that if any disputes arise there between the poor and the holy Roman Church, you are to investigate them with complete integrity of mind, and so manage the interests of the Church's estates that you never depart from the kindness that justice demands.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.