To Venantius, Bishop of Luna, on Christian Slaves Held by Jews

Gregory to Venantius, bishop of Luna. Many have reported to us that Jews living in the city of Luna keep Christian slaves in servitude. This has seemed to us all the more offensive because your fraternity’s toleration of it troubles us. For it was your duty, because of your position and out of regard for the Christian religion, to leave no opening for simple souls to serve Jewish superstition, not through persuasion but, in a way, by right of authority. So we urge your fraternity that, according to the course laid down by the most pious laws, no Jew be allowed to keep a Christian slave in his possession. If any are found in their power, let their freedom be secured to them by the protection of the law. As for any who are on the estates of Jews: though they themselves are free of legal obligation, yet since they have long been tied to working those lands, as bound by the terms of their tenure, let them go on working the farms they are used to, paying their dues to those persons and doing everything the laws require of tenant farmers or those born on the land, except that no further burden is to be laid on them. If any of them wishes to stay in this servitude, or any wishes to move elsewhere, let the one who moves consider that he will have lost his rights as a tenant farmer by his own rashness, even though by force of law he has got rid of his servitude. In all these things, then, we want you to act so wisely that you may not be a guilty shepherd of a torn flock, and your too little zeal may not make you blameworthy before us. [a]