Letter 20
To the most noble Grimoald,
I have been thinking, in the long evenings when the day's business is done, about the kingdom and what it needs to thrive. Not in the way that a political theorist thinks about it — I have never had that kind of mind — but in the practical way of a bishop who has been managing a piece of it for fifteen years.
What I conclude, over and over, is that the health of the kingdom depends on the health of the church, and the health of the church depends on the support and good faith of men like you. Not because the church cannot function without secular support — in some ways adversity has always strengthened it — but because the enormous work of pastoral care, education, care of the poor, and maintenance of the institutional fabric of Christian life requires resources and stability that only the relationship with secular power can provide.
The Carolingian family's commitment to the church is the most important political fact in this kingdom, from my perspective. I want to say that directly to one of its leading members rather than leaving it unsaid.
And in return — this I also want to say directly — the church's prayers for your family are not merely formal. They are the prayers of men and women who believe that God governs history and who think that what your family is trying to build deserves to prosper.
Your servant and friend in Christ,
Desiderius
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.