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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 190.: Precept of Chlothar II, 584-628. - A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age

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Collection: Primary Sources
Subject Area: History

190.: Precept of Chlothar II, 584-628. - Oliver J. Thatcher, A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age [1905]

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A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age, ed. Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905).

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190.

Precept of Chlothar II, 584-628.

Notice the references to immunity, to grants of land to “churches and powerful persons” (lords and officials), and the implied right of such landlords to appoint judges for trial of cases among their tenants (private jurisdiction).

11. We grant to the churches the taxes from the fields and pastures and the tithes of swine, so that no collector or titheman shall enter the lands of a church to gather such dues for the royal treasury. Public officials shall not demand any services from the churches of clergymen who have acquired immunity from our father or grandfather.

12. Whatever has been given to churches or to clergymen or to any person through the munificence of our aforesaid predecessors of blessed memory is to belong to them in all security.

14. The property of churches, priests, and of the poor who cannot protect themselves, shall be under the protection of public officials until their cases can be brought to the king and justice be done; only in so far, however, as it shall not infringe on the rights of immunity which have been granted by former kings to any church or powerful person or to anyone else, for the keeping of peace and the preservation of discipline.

19. Bishops and powerful persons who have possessions in various regions shall not appoint travelling judges or any judges except such as belong to the county in which they serve.