“Wherefore, let marriages of servants be exempt from that fear which has hitherto hung over them: and from the issue of this order, let the parents have their children. It shall not be competent for the lords of the estates to strive by any subtle arguments either to take away those who contract marriage, or their children. For he who shall presume to do any such thing shall incur the risk of losing that estate for which he attempts to claim those colonists. “Epilogue. That therefore which has been good in our view, and is declared by this sacred pragmatic form, let your magnificence provide to have carried into execution, and the cohort which obeys you, as also he who for the time being shall hold the same magisterial office. To the end, then, that this edict may produce its effect and continue in force, let him who may at any time violate its enactments be liable to a penalty of three pounds of gold. “Given at Constantinople, on the kalends of May, our most pious lord Justinian being Augustus, and the most renowned Basil being consul.” To rectify this, it became a principle, where an estate was large and the colonists numerous, to confine the choice of the servants within the bounds of the property; and thus marriage had its full sanctity, and families remained without separation. We have an instance of the exercise of this right, by Pope St. Gregory, in a document found in lib. x. indic. v. epist. 28. * * * * * GREGORIUS, Romano Defensori. _De filiis Petri defensoris extra massam in qua nati sunt non jungendis._ Petrus quem defensorem fecimus, quia de massa juris ecclesiæ nostræ, quæ Vitelas dicitur, oriundus sit, experientiæ tuæ bene est cognitum. Et ideo quia circa eum benigni debemus existere, ut tamen ecclesiæ utilitas non lædatur: hac tibi præeptione mandamus, ut eum districte debeas admonere, ne filios suos quolibet ingenio vel excusatione foris alicubi in conjugio sociare præsumat, sed in eâ massâ, cui lege et conditione ligati sunt, socientur. In quâ re etiam et tuam omnino necesse est experientiam esse sollicitam, atque eos terrere, ut qualibet occasione de possessione cui oriundo subjecti sunt exire non debeant. Nam si quis eorum exinde, quod non credimus, exire præsumpserit; certum illi est quia noster consensus nunquam illi aderit, ut foris de massâ in quâ nati sunt, aut habitare aut debeant sociari, sed et superscribi terram eorum. Atque tunc sciatis vos non leve periculum sustinere, si vobis negligentibus quisquam ipsorum quidquam de iis quæ prohibemus facere qualibet sorte tentaverit. * * * * * “GREGORY to the Proctor Romanus. “_Of not marrying the children of Peter the Proctor, without the limits of the estate upon which they were born._