Letter 14: To my dear brother Caesarius,

To my dear brother Caesarius, The relationship between the church and the Frankish nobility is one that I want to discuss with you at greater length than a letter allows, but let me sketch the problem as I see it. The Frankish noble families provide the church with much of its material support — they build churches on their estates, they make substantial donations to monasteries, they support the education of clerical candidates from their households. This is genuinely good and we should be grateful for it. The problem is the string attached. The noble family that builds a church expects influence over who serves in it. The noble family that funds a monastery expects a relationship with the monastery that goes beyond the prayers of the monks — expected hospitality, expected advocacy at court, expected treatment of family members who take the habit as something between honored guests and administrators rather than as ordinary members of the community. These expectations are not always unreasonable. But they create a dependency that can compromise the church's independence on exactly the matters where independence matters most. I do not have a solution. I raise it because I think you face the same pressure and I am curious how you handle it. Desiderius