help, the monastery has been established according to the regulations of his will; you, experienced sir, will without delay use your best efforts to aid the bearers of these presents, who are sent thither, to collect those slaves: and when they shall be collected, let them hire lands under your countenance, where they may labour; keeping them out of their produce of labour, whatever may be necessary for their support; let the remainder, under the care of you, experienced sir, be sent, with God's help, every year to the foresaid monastery."

GREGORIUS, Vitali Defensori Sardinia.

De Barbaricinis mancipiis comparandis.

Bonifacium præsentium portitorem, notarium scilicet nostrum, nos experientia tua illuc transmisisse cognoscat, ut in utilitatem parochiæ Barbaricina debeat mancipia comparare. Et ideo experientia tua omnino et studio sesolliciteque concurrat, ut bono pretio, et talia debeat comparare, quæ inministerio parochiæ utilia valeant inveniri, atque emptis eis huc Deo protegente is ipse celerius possit remeare. Ita ergo te in hac re exhibere festina, ut te quasi servientium amatorem, quorum usibus emuntur, ostendas, et nobis ipsi te de tuâ valeant sollicitudine commendare.

"GREGORY, to Vitalis, Proctor of Sardinia.

"Know, experienced sir, that Boniface, our notary, the bearer of these presents, has been sent by us to your place to purchase some Barbary slaves for the use of the hospital. And therefore, you will be careful to concur diligently and attentively with him, that he may buy them at a good rate, and such as would be found useful for the service of the hospital. And that having bought them, he may, under the protection of God, very speedily return hither. Do you then be prompt to show yourself in this business so as to exhibit your affection for those who serve the hospital, and for whose use the purchase is made, and that they may have it in their power to commend you to us for your zeal in their regard.”

The word parochia, which is translated "hospital," is more properly ptochia in some of the ancient MSS., which is a sort of Latinized imitation of Toxiα-a house for feeding the poor. Gregory had a large establishment of this description in Rome, attended by pious monks, for whose service those barbarians were purchased. Procopius informs us, lib. ii. de Bello Vandanco, cap. 13, who these Barbary slaves were. 'When the Vandals had conquered

the Moors of Africa, they were annoyed by the incursions of some of the barbarians of the southern part of Numidia. In order to prevent this, they seized upon them, their wives and children, and transported them to the island of Sardinia: kept prisoners and slaves for some time here, they escaped to the vicinity of Cagliari, and, forming a body of 3000 men, they regained a sort of freedom. Gregory made various efforts to convert them. They who were kept in thraldom were frequently purchased, as in this instance, by the Italians and others."

This is the first instance on record of the purchase of negro slaves by the church, and occurred about the year 600. At that time, white slaves cost less than the expense of importation from Africa.

In his sixth book, ep. 21, Gregory commands the priest Candidus, who was his agent in Gaul, to purchase four of the brothers of one Dominic, who complained to him that they were redeemed from their captors by Jews in Narbonne, and held by them in slavery.

The seventh book, ep. 22, to John, the bishop of Syracuse, is a very curious document. It recites the case of one Felix, who was a slave born of Christian parents, and given in his youth as a present to a Jew by a Christian owner: he served illegally during nineteen years the Jew who, was disqualified from holding a Christian slave; but Maximinian the former bishop of Syracuse, learning the facts, had, as in duty bound, Felix discharged from this service and made free. Five years subsequently, a son of the Jew became, or pretended to become, a Christian, and being thus qualified to hold a Christian slave, claimed Felix as his property. Felix appealed to the pope, and the letter to the bishop of Syracuse is a decision in favour of his freedom, containing also an order to the bishop to protect him and defend his liberty.

LESSON XV.

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 firmly

established 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 announce

ment

Pietatis est maximæ et religionis intuitus, ut captivitatis vinculum omnino à Christianis redimatur. Unde sancta synodus noscitur

censuisse, 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 to

their 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 ard clergy united with the nobles (palatii senioribus) and the popular representatives in condemning traitors and their