Care For Justice

Letter 1,42 - to Peter, sub-deacon of Sicily. May 591.

"It has also come to our notice that in case of the farmer's marriages, immoderate taxes are being collected. On this matter we order that no marriage tax should ever exceed the sum of one gold coin. If some are poor, they ought to pay even less, but if some are rich, they should never pay more than the sum of the aforesaid gold coin.
We in no way want this marriage tax to be credited to our account, but rather to augment the profits for the tenants.
We have also learnt that as certain tenants are on their deathbed, their own parents are not permitted to have access to them, but their property is dragged of for Church use.
On this matter we advice that the parents of those dying who live on a Church property, ought to have access to them as their heirs, and that nothing else should be subtracted from the fortune of those dying.
But if someone leaves poor young sons, until they reach such an age that they can control their own property some sound people should be selected, and the property of the boy's parents should be handed over to them to watch over.
(...)
Read all of this again with great care, and put aside all that customary negligence of yours. See that the writing I have sent about the farmers are read throughout all the Church domains, so that they know how they should defend themselves through our authority against violent acts done to them, and let them be given the originals or copies of my writings"

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 162.