Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/59

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 37 and Asia with blood, were compelled to reign ;is the ministers of charity and peace. I. The church of Rome, as it has been formerly observed, was endowed with ample possessions in Italy, Sicily, and the more distant provinces; and her agents, [Rectorw] who were commonly subdeacons, had acquired a civil, and even criminal, jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The hu estates successor of St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a vigilant and moderate landlord ; '^- and the epistles of Gregory are filled with salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or vexatious lawsuits, to preserve the integrity of weights and measures, to grant every reasonable delay, and to reduce the capitation of the slaves of the glebe, who purchased the right of marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine.**^ The rent or the produce of these estates was transported to the mouth of the Tiber, at the risk and expense of the pope ; in the use of wealth he acted like a faithful steward of the church and the poor, and liberally applied to their wants the inexhaustible resources of abstinence and order. The voluminous account of his receipts and disbursements was kept above three hundred years in the Lateran, as the model of Christian economy. On ^nd aims the four great festivals,**^ he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of burial, the alms-houses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the rest of the diocese. On the first day of every month, he distributed to the })oor, according to the season, their stated portion of corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, fresh pro- visions, cloths, and money ; and his treasurers were continually summoned to satisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands of indigence and merit. The instant distress of the sick and helpless, of strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day, and of every hour ; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own table to some objects deserving of his compassion. The 82 Baronius is unwilling to expatiate on the care of the patrimonies, lest he should betray that they consisted not of kingdoms but farms. The I-rench writers, the Benedictine editors (torn. i". 1. iii. p. 272, &c.), and Fleury (toni. viii. p. 29, &c. ) are not afraid of entering into these humble though useful details ; and the humanity of Fleury dwells on the social virtues of Gregory. [On the patrimonies see H. Grisar, Zeitsch. fiir kathol. Theologie, i. 321 sqq. 1877. j ^-^ I much suspect that this pecuniary fine on the marriages of villains produced the famous, and often fabulous, right dc cuissage, de marquette, &c. With the consent of her husband, an handsome bride might commute the payment in the arms of a young landlord, and the mutual favotir might afford a precedent of local rather than legal tyranny. '*'* [The four occasions were : Easterday, the birthday of the Apostles, the birth- day of St. . drew, Gregory's own birthday.]