(1) That the slavery of the slaves or servi on the ecclesiastical estates had already, in A.D. 622, become modified and restricted as a matter of general ecclesiastical custom to a three days' week-work.
(2) That the proper tribute (or gafol) of persons becoming servi of the Church by surrender under this edict was to be as stated; the resemblance of the details of this tribute with those mentioned in the St. Gall surrenders showing the servile nature of the status into which those making the surrender placed themselves thereby.
(3) Freemen of the Church called 'coloni' were [p324] to pay to the Church as the coloni on the terra regis did to the king.
In other words, a whole villa or manor, with the village community of 'free coloni' and the 'servi' upon it, might be handed over as a whole to the Church: in which case the free coloni were to remain free and pay tribute to the Church as they would have done to the king if they had been 'coloni' on the terra regis.
After thus becoming 'free coloni' of the Church they might, if they chose, by a second act surrender their freedom and become servi of the Church, just as 'free coloni' on royal villas or on the terra regis might do under this edict.
This evidence relates, it will be remembered, to the district on the left bank of the Rhine, which so abounded with 'heims' and 'villas,' as well as to that portion of the 'Agri Decumates' which was included in the province of Germania Prima.
There is still clearer evidence for the district to the east of the 'Agri Decumates,' comprehended in the Roman province of Rhætia.
Rhætia, it will be remembered, was the province, in edicts relating to which the 'sordida munera' were most clearly defined. We have seen traces of some of these 'base services,' especially the boon-work and the 'angariæ,' in the St. Gall charters. Still clearer traces of them are found in the services described in the early 'Bavarian laws' of the seventh century. These laws, as has been seen, expressly allowed 'surrenders' by freemen of their property to the Church, and the services of the servi and coloni of the Church are described with remarkable clearness. [p325]
The section is headed—
Tribute services and three days' 'week-work' under the Bavarian laws.