Letter 3019: It is right that we should look after the just compensation of those who serve our palace, because public labor...

19. A WRIT OF INSTRUCTION. KING THEODERIC TO DANIEL. [1] It is fitting that we provide just advantages for those who serve our palace, since public labor ought to be profitable, so that, although dutiful services are owed to us by right without charge, we may nonetheless encourage such services through moderate rewards. And therefore, delighted by the skill of your craft, which you diligently practice in carving out and adorning marbles, by the present authority we grant that, with you arranging matters reasonably, there be dispensed the sarcophagi which are sold in the city of Ravenna for the laying away of the dead, by whose benefit corpses are buried above ground, no small consolation to those who mourn, since souls alone depart from their dealings with the world, but the bodies do not abandon those who once were their dear survivors. [2] Hence for some men sorrows turn to profit, and by a pitiable lot of men's prayers the gain of those who trade upon human death increases. Yet let it be on this condition: that under this occasion the assessment not be unjust, lest the wretched be compelled, amid the bitter and grievous burdens of their grief, to bewail the wasting of their means, and, bound by an unholy obligation, be either pressed to lose their patrimonies for the dead or rather, grieving, to cast their beloved bodies into the meanest pits. Let there be a measure in accordance with the will of those who ask, since pity itself acts on behalf of the buyers. For he ought to be injured less upon whom more, for the duty of piety, seems to be imposed.

XVIIII. COMMONITORIUM. DANIELI THEODERICUS REX. [1] Decet ut palatio nostro servientibus iustis commodis consulamus, quia fructuosus esse debet publicus labor, ut, quamvis obsequia nobis gratuita iure debeantur, servitia tamen per moderata compendia provocemus. et ideo artis tuae peritia delectati, quam in excavandis atque ornandis marmoribus diligenter exerces, praesenti auctoritate concedimus, ut, te rationabiliter ordinante, dispensentur arcae quae in Ravennati urbe ad recondenda funera distrahuntur, quarum beneficio cadavera in supernis humata sunt, lugentium non parva consolatio, quando animae tantum de mundi conversatione discedunt, corpora vero dulces quondam superstites non relinquunt. [2] Hinc quibusdam veniunt dolores ad pretium, et miserabili sorte votorum crescit mercantibus de humana morte compendium. ita tamen, ut non sit iniqua sub hac occasione taxatio, ne cogantur miseri inter acerba luctuum gravia plorare dispendia facultatum et nefanda devotione constricti aut urgeantur patrimonia pro mortuis perdere aut dilecta corpora vilissimis foveis potius dolentes abicere. sit modus in voluntate poscentium, quando ipsa miseratio pro ementibus facit. nam minus debet laedi, cui amplius pro pietatis officio videtur imponi.