LESSON XVII.
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. The lidus or liddus or litus of 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 property were 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 called chartulani, 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 rights were 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 in any 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, Luke vi. 37, and the injunction of the apostle, 1 Thess. 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.