Letter 5009: King Theodoric to the Landowners of Feltre [Feltria, in the Veneto foothills].

9. King Theoderic to the landholders of Feltria. [1] A public necessity ought to be discharged by the devoted service of many, since it is not fitting that a few should undertake what is clearly to the advantage of very many, lest the royal commands, grown lukewarm, should slacken while a useful matter is entrusted to those without the means to bear it. Our authority has therefore ordered a city to be built in the district of Tridentum [Trent]. [2] But since the smallness of the territory cannot sustain the magnitude of the work, our solicitude has provided for this: that, having received suitable payments, all of you who are joined by neighborhood should jointly take up the measured stretch of the walls, so that, with the assistance thus furnished, what is perhaps recognized as impracticable for a few may be carried out more securely; this, of course, on the condition laid down that no one be excused from these burdens, from which not even the house of God is exempted.

VIIII. POSSESSORIBUS FELTRINIS THEODERICUS REX. [1] Necessitas publica multorum debet devotione compleri, quia non decet paucos suscipere quod constat plurimis expedire, ne regia iussa tepefacta lentescant, dum res utilis delegatur infirmis. in Tridentina igitur regione civitatem construi nostra praecepit auctoritas. [2] Sed quia territorii parvitas magnitudinem operis non potest sustinere, hoc sollicitudo nostra prospexit, ut acceptis mercedibus competentibus pedaturam murorum omnes in commune subeatis qui vicinitate iungimini, quatenus accommodato solacio securius impleatur, quod paucis inexplicabile fortasse cognoscitur: hac scilicet condicione definita, ut nullus ab his oneribus excusetur, unde nec divina domus excipitur.