Letter 2030: A personal exemption does not prejudice public law, because a ruler is permitted to be generous, and royal...

King Theoderic to Faustus, Praetorian Prefect. [1] A personal exemption does not prejudice public law, since although it is permitted that the prince be a bestower of benefits, royal munificence cannot be confined within the rules of a fixed statute. Let trifling anger be restrained by the most severe ordinances; let impatient ambition be curbed by law; clemency has no law, nor ought she, being benign, to follow within narrow bounds the one whom it befits to be praised without end. [2] The defenders of the most holy church of Milan therefore desire, on behalf of the expenditures for the poor, which are poured out under a piling-up of profit, that it ought to be granted to them that one man from among the merchants of their own city, discharging the office of an advance-buyer and exempted from the burdens of trade, should be bound to fulfill what he undertakes. For they remind us that we granted this to the church of Ravenna as well, moved by a reasonable allegation, and they beseech that this example of piety be transferred to their own advantage too. [3] And therefore your illustrious and most exalted magnificence shall assign to them one man, whom they shall be seen to have chosen for themselves, with the public convenience preserved in the case of the other merchants, which is customarily contributed by the whole corporation; and he shall carry on the commerce of his trade in such a way that he pays nothing of the monopoly-tax, nor of the siliquaticum [a sales tax of one twenty-fourth levied on transactions], nor of the gold-tax, nor sustains any burden whatsoever from the trading permitted to him. For why should we delay to grant that from which we can suffer no losses?

XXX. FAUSTO PPO THEODERICUS REX. [1] Non praeiudicat iuri publico personalis exceptio, quia beneficialem esse principem licet nec intra regulas constituti potest munificentia regalis artari. ira levis coerceatur gravissimis institutis: inpatiens ambitio iure refrenetur: clementia non habet legem nec debet sub angustis terminis benigna sequi, quem decet sine fine laudari. [2] Defensores itaque sacrosanctae Mediolanensis ecclesiae pro expensis pauperum, quae sub lucri exaggeratione funduntur, unum sibi ex negotiatoribus urbis suae desiderant oportere praestari, qui proemptoris functus officio, exceptus negotiationis oneribus debeat implere quod suscipit. hoc enim nos et Ravennati ecclesiae commemorant motos rationabili allegatione tribuisse, quod pietatis exemplum ad suum quoque commodum supplicant transferendum. [3] Et ideo illustris et praecelsa magnificentia tua, salva in aliis negotiatoribus commoditate publica, quae ab universo corpore consuevit inferri, unum eis, quem sibi visi fuerint eligere, deputabit, qui ita commercium negotiationis exerceat, quatenus nec monopolii nec siliquatici nec aurariae aliquid pensionis impendat vel quodlibet gravamen ex permissa nundinatione sustineat. cur enim illud tardemus annuere, unde nulla possumus damna sentire?