Letter 12013: The generosity bestowed by our sovereigns must be preserved with the united effort of all, since what they have been...

13. EDICT. [1] The generous expenditure of all lords ought to be sustained by effort, since whatever they shall have been proven to accomplish at the impulse of divinity must necessarily benefit everyone. For the piety of princes preserves the whole empire, and while a worthy recompense is rendered to them, the members of the commonwealth are kept unharmed. Some while ago the imperial enactments aided the most holy churches throughout Bruttium and Lucania with a certain devout bestowal of gifts. But, as it is customary for sacrilegious minds to sin even in the very reverence due to the divine, the canonical collectors, under the name of accountants, were withdrawing some portion thereof, turning the substance of the clergy into a layman's gain. [2] But the accountants of our See, rejecting this with detestable abhorrence, declare that such a thing was never brought upon them, that their impious hands defrauded anyone of so wicked a crime. What further, O least human audacity, will you attempt, if you stretch out your thefts even there where you know you can least lie hidden? To mock perhaps the eyes of mortals, however unjust, still seems to be some presumption: but with how great a blindness is he condemned who supposes that he can perpetrate what the divinity cannot perceive! [3] But lest a like presumption should perhaps stalk abroad any further, or frequent excess should be able to provoke the divine patience, we determine by edictal proclamation that whoever shall henceforth be involved in this fraud shall both be deprived of his office and lose the profit of his own resources. For he must be punished with a heavier penalty who has stretched his audacity even to the point of injury against the divine. Let the poor have the gifts of those who reign: let those who have no resources possess something. [4] Why is another's substance, placed within the royal bounty, invaded? Its possession is the prince's gift. How may a subject presume to lay hold of what regards God, to offer up the humility of the one who rules? It is added that, toward such people, not to give is to have taken away, and rightly so: since he who is able to relieve the hungry, if he does not feed them, destroys them. Let it shame them to take from those to whom we are commanded to give. It is beyond all cruelties to wish to become rich from the meagerness of a beggar. Let honest gains be loved, let ruinous profits be abhorred: let no one dare to take from that source what, once gathered, he may scatter. He loses by adding who has gathered by retaining, and he rather draws poverty to himself if he does not drive away the moneys of the needy.

XIII. EDICTUM. [1] Nisu contineri debet omnium largitas impensa dominorum, quando necesse est universis proficere, quod illos impulsu divinitatis probatum fuerit effecisse. pietas siquidem principum totum custodit imperium et dum illis vicissitudo digna redditur, incolumia rei publicae membra servantur. dudum siquidem imperialia constituta per Bruttios atque Lucaniam sacrosanctas ecclesias aliqua munerum devotione iuverunt. sed ut est sacrilegis mentibus familiare et in ipsa quoque divina reverentia peccare, nonnullam exinde partem numerariorum nomine canonicarii subtrahebant, facientes laicum commodum substantiam clericorum. [2] Quod sedis nostrae numerarii execratione detestabili respuentes numquam sibi illatum fuisse suggerunt, quod de tali scelere manus impiae fraudaverunt. quid adhuc, minime humana audacia, temptabis, si et ibi furta porrigis, ubi te minime latere posse cognoscis? ut inludas oculis fortasse mortalibus, quamvis iniqua, tamen aliqua videtur esse praesumptio: quanta vero caecitate damnatus est, qui se aestimat perpetrare quod divinitas non possit advertere! [3] Sed ne ulterius similis grassetur forte praesumptio aut divinam patientiam frequens provocare possit excessus, edictali programmate definimus, ut qui in hac fuerit ulterius fraude versatus, et militia careat et compendium propriae facultatis amittat. graviore siquidem poena plectendus est, qui usque ad iniuriam divinam suam nihilominus tetendit audaciam. habeant pauperes dona regnantum: possideant aliquid quibus nulla facultas est. [4] Cur aliena substantia in regali posita largitate pervaditur? possessio eius principis munus est. quemadmodum praesumat subiectus contingere quod deo respicit humilitatem dominantis offerre? additur quod talibus non dare tulisse est, et merito: quando qui potest esurientibus subvenire, si non pascit, extinguit. pudeat illis tollere, quibus iubemur offerre. ultra omnes crudelitates est divitem velle fieri de exiguitate mendici. amentur honesta lucra, horreantur damnosa compendia: nullus audeat inde tollere quod possit collecta dispergere. addendo perdit, qui retinendo collegerit et paupertatem potius ad se trahit, si egentium pecunias non repellit.