Fourth Council of Toledo: On the Keeping of Slaves
(633 CE)
The Council of Toledo in the Visigothic kingdom
in Spain took the place of the Witenagemot among the English and was
dominated by the clergy. Among other provisions for the year 633 it
decreed that Jews might not possess Christian slaves, that freedmen
under Church patronage might not withdraw from it, that the children
of freedmen might not lose their status, and that qualified freedom
might prevent ordination.
66. By the decree of the most glorious prince this
sacred council ordered that Jews should not be allowed to have Christian
slaves nor to buy Christian slaves, nor to obtain them by the kindness
of any one; for it is not right that the members of Christ should serve
the ministers of Anti-Christ. But if henceforward Jews presume to have
Christian slaves or handmaidens they shall be taken from their domination
and shall go free.
70. Men freed by the Church (since the one who freed
them will never die) must never withdraw from the Church's patronage.
Neither, indeed, must their posterity, according to the decrees of former
canons. But lest perchance their freedom should not be apparent in their
children, and lest their posterity should struggle against their natural
state of being free, and remove themselves from the patronage of the
Church, it is necessary that these same freedmen as well as their children
should make a profession before their bishop, by which they acknowledge
that from being slaves of the Church they have been made freedmen. And
they must never leave the patronage of the Church, but let them rather,
according to its value render submission or obedience to this patronage
or protection.
73. Those who have been so freed by their masters,
that the patron requires absolutely no submission from them-those, if
they be free from all crime, may freely take clerical orders; for it
is known that they are absolved by direct manumission. Those who are
manumitted, yet owe some submission to their patron, for the reason
that they are held subject by the patron in servitude, are positively
not to be promoted to the ecclesiastical order, lest when the master
so wishes slaves should be made from clerics.
74. Concerning the slaves of the Church, it is allowed
to make them priests and deacons in parishes; nevertheless, let right
living and honest habits commend them; also for that reason let them
be previously manumitted and receive the full liberty of their new status,
and at length let them succeed to ecclesiastical honors; for it is contrary
to religion for those to remain subject to serfdom, who have received
the dignity of holy orders. But whatever has been granted to such men
through their freedom, or whatever has been theirs by right of inheritance,
or conferred by anyone in any manner whatsoever, they may not transfer
to other people in any way; but all their goods ought to belong after
their death to the Church by which they were manumitted. Moreover, all
opportunity is forbidden them, just as to the other freedmen of the
Church, of accusing or testifying against the Church; but if they aspire
to this, not only shall they lose the benefit of liberty but also the
promotion they have deserved, not by the worthiness of their nature
but from the necessity of the times.
Sources: J. D. Mansi, ed., Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, (Paris: H. Welter, 1901), Vol. X, pp. 635-637; reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 283-284. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg. Medieval Sourcebook |