Excerpt from: Council of Quierzy, 858, Letter [15.6-7] to Louis II "the German", King of East Francia.

Excerpt from: Council of Quierzy, 858, Letter [15.6-7] to Louis II "the German", King of East Francia.

Written by Hincmar of Rheims (or under his authority) in 858 CE.

Source: MGH. Capitularia Regum Francorum, Vol. 2. Edited by Alfredus Boretius and Victor Krause. Hanover: 1890. p. 439-440

Translation: Charles West, Collaborative Hincmar Project, 2018.
Available at: Collaborative Hincmar Project blog [Archive] 

We must not and we do not wish to think of you as such a person that you wish to expand your kingdom at the cost of your soul, or that you wish to accept us for the assistance of the ecclesiastical regime and ruling, with such shame that we should be without the priesthood. For we shall be deprived of that priesthood if we hurry to hand over ourselves and our churches to you, against God and against the authority of reason. For the churches committed to us by God are not like benefices and royal property of that sort, that someone can give or take them without consideration and according to whim. For all that belongs to the church is consecrated to God. And whoever cheats the church of something, or takes it away, knows that he has committed sacrilege according to the holy Scripture. And we the bishops consecrated to the Lord are not such men that like secular men, we should commend ourselves in vassalage to anyone. But we commend ourselves and our churches to the defence and to the assistance of the rule in the ecclesiastical regime. Nor should we have to carry out any oath-swearing, which the evangelical and apostolic and canonical authority forbids us to do. It is abominable that any hand anointed by sacred oil, which makes the flesh and sacrament of the blood of Christ from bread and a mixture of wine and water through prayer and the sign of the cross, whatever it may have done before ordination, should after ordination to the bishopric expiate a secular sacrament.

And the tongue of a bishop, which through the grace of God is made the key of heaven, becomes wicked when, just like a secular person, the bishop swears an oath in the name of the Lord upon a holy object, and by the invocation of the saints. Unless perhaps (may it not happen) a scandal to his church should occur against him; and then he should act with moderation, just as, with the Lord guiding, the leaders of the church decreed by synodal discussion. And if at any time the oaths, having been demanded and performed by the bishops, are against God and ecclesiastical regulations, which by the Holy Ghost’s dictation were confirmed by the blood of Christ, then they are declared invalid by the pages of the Holy Scripture, and thereafter those who are demanding and performing [the oaths] require the medicine of salutary penance.

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Talem nempe vos debemus et volumus credere, ut nec vos regni augmentum cum animae vestrae detrimento velitis habere neque nos cum tali dedecore ad adiutorium ecclesiastici regiminis et gubernationis recipere, ut sine sacerdotio simus, quo privati erimus, si contra Deum et rationis auctoritatem nos ecclesiasque nostras vobis studuerimus committere. Ecclesiae siquidem nobis a Deo commissae non talia sunt beneficia et huiusmodi regis proprietas, ut pro libitu suo inconsulte illas possit dare vel tollere, quoniam omnia, quae ecclesiae sunt, Deo consecrata sunt. Unde qui ecclesiae aliquid fraudatur aut tollit, sacrilegium secundum sanctam scripturam facere noscitur. Et nos episcopi Domino consecrati non sumus huiusmodi homines, ut, sicut homines saeculares, in vassallatico debeamus nos cuilibet commendare — sed ad defensionem et ad adiutorium gubernationis in ecclesiastico regimine nos ecclesiasque nostras committere — aut iurationis sacramentum, quod nos evangelica et apostolica atque canonica auctoritas vetat, debeamus quoquomodo facere. Manus enim chrismate sacro peruncta, quae de pane et vino aqua mixto per orationem et crucis signum conficit corpus et Christi sanguinis sacramentum, abhominabile est, quicquid ante ordinationem fecerit, ut post ordinationem episcopatus saeculare tangat ullomodo sacramentum.

Et lingua episcopi, quae facta est per Dei gratiam clavis caeli, nefarium est, ut, sicut saecularis quilibet, super sacra iuret in nomine Domini et sanctorum invocatione, nisi forte, quod absit, contra eum scandalum acciderit ecclesiae suae: et inde sic temperanter agat, sicut Domino docente constituerunt rectores ecclesiae synodali consilio. Et si aliquando sacramenta ab episcopis exacta aut facta fuerunt contra Deum et ecclesiasticas regulas, quae Spiritu sancto dictatae et Christi sunt sanguine confirmatae, irrita sanctae scripturac paginis declarantur, et exigentes atque facientes medicamento exinde salutaris poenitentiae indigent.