"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, fortyeight 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 called

Dingolvinga, 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. By noble we are here to understand free, as distinguished from ignoble, 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 the nobilis of 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 If she separate, without however the marriage-bond being rent. 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 ini 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 assembled episcopis,

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, but quorum vitæ libertas nescitur, those who 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 personæ, 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 died A. D., 109; Pius, who died A. 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-Chapelle (Aquisgranum) in 789, in

which 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.