Letter 9190: I need you to locate Adeodatus, who bears this letter, and to look into the matter of a structure he has built on...

Gregory the Great (Wisigothic)Anthemius|c. 600 AD|Pope Gregory the Great|To Anthemius (recipient)|AI-assisted
property economics

Adeodatus, the bearer of the present letter, informed us that many years ago he erected a building on ground belonging to our church under this condition: that he should pay two solidi each year to the ecclesiastical account, and that after his death the ground itself, together with the building set upon it, should pass without any question to your church. But because he asserts that he has come into such poverty that he cannot pay out those same two solidi each year, as he had promised, and on this account has asked that one be remitted to him, let your Experience [the addressed official] take care to ascertain the matter. And if he is plainly poor, as he asserts, we wish half the portion of our charge to be remitted, so that each year he pays no more than a single solidus, since both the burden of his age and his poverty show that the obligation he requests ought to be lightened for him. Let it therefore be your concern to observe this, yet in such a way that, by all vigilance, your watchfulness carefully preserves the ownership of the ground and of the building set upon it for the church after his death.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.

Latin / Greek Original

Indicavit* nobis'* Adeodatus praesentium latoF° aiite multos annos in solo se iuris
ecclesiae noBtrae hac'^ condicione aedificium posuisse, ut duos Bolidos annis singuliB
ecclesiasticae rationi peraolveret' et post eius obitum solum ipsum cum imposito aedi-
ticio ad tuB ecclesiae Bine dubitatione aliqua remaneret". Sed quia in tantam se aaaerit
pauperiem per^enisse, ut eosdem duos solidos, sicut promiserat, sing^ulis non possit
annis impendcre et ob^ hoc unum'' sibi petiit relaxari, experientia tua curet addiscere.
Et si pauper, ita ut asserit, manifeste est, nostrae praestationis partem mediam re-
laxatam volumua, ut annis Hingulis non amplius quam solidum unum exsolvat, quia'
et actatis sonium et pauperies eius indicat, ut onus ei, quod postulat, debeat relevari.
Ita ergo hoc scrvare studii tui sit, ut tamen proprietatem soli atque impositi aedificii
post obitum ipsius ecclesiae sollicite^ ommno vig;ilantia cuDcta conservet'.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern gregory great retranslated v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/gregoriiipapaer00churgoog

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