The intense veneration with which relics were regarded, however, caused them to be generally adopted as the most effective means of adding security to oaths, and so little respect was felt for the simple oath that, ere long, the adjuncts came to be looked upon as the essential feature, and the imprecation itself to be divested of binding force without them. Thus, in 680, when Ebroin, mayor of the palace of Burgundy, had defeated Martin, Duke of Austrasia, and desired to entice him from his refuge in the stronghold of Laon, two bishops were sent to him bearing the royal reliquaries, on which they swore that his life should be safe. Ebroin, however, had astutely removed the holy remains from their cases in advance, and when he thus got his enemy in his power, he held it but a venial indiscretion to expose Martin to a shameful death.[55] How thoroughly this was in accordance with the ideas of the age is shown by the incorporation, in the canons of the church, of the doctrine that an oath was to be estimated by its externals and not by itself. The penitential of David, dating from the latter half of the sixth century, provides that perjury committed in a church shall be punished by a fine of four times the value of that for which the false oath was taken,[56] but no penalty is provided for false swearing elsewhere. As the theory developed itself this tacit condoning of such perjury was boldly declared to be good ecclesiastical law, and the venerable code of morality which passes under the name of Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury assumes that a false oath taken on a consecrated cross requires, for absolution, three times the penance necessary in cases where the oath had been taken on an unconsecrated one, while, if the ministration of a priest had not been employed, the oath was void, and no penalty was inflicted for its violation.[57] In a similar mood the penitential known as that of Gregory III. provides that three years’ penance will absolve for perjury committed on a consecrated cross or on the hand of a bishop or priest, while seven years are requisite if the oath has been taken on the gospels or on an altar with relics.[58] This rule took its final shape in the canon law, which provides one year’s penance for perjury committed on an unconsecrated cross, and three years’ for that on a consecrated one, or on the hand of a bishop.[59]