A Fair Election Of A Bishop

Letter 3,22 - to Antoninus, sub-deacon in charge of the patrimony in Dalmatia. March 593

"In fact let it be your concern before all else, that in this election the offer of bribes does not intervene in any way, and that the candidatures are not strengthened by any patronage of any persons at all. For if someone has been elected of certain people, once he has been consecrated, he is forced to obey their wishes under the pressure of fear, and it comes about that the property of that church is diminished, and the ecclesiastical order is not preserved.
And so they ought to elect such a person, with you watching over them, as is not a slave to anyone's inconsistent wish, but can be found worthy of such a rank, distinguished in his life and morality.
As for the property and decoration of that same church, make sure that a faithful inventory of the property is written down in your presence. And so that nothing could be lost from this same property, advise the Deacon Respectus, and the first notary, Stephen, to keep a total guard of the same property, warning them that if anything should be removed from them through negligence, they will make it up from their own property."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 249.