To Romanus the Defensor, on Rustica’s Will and a Monastery in Sicily

Gregory to Romanus, and so on. [a]

Our son Theodosius, abbot of the monastery founded by the late patrician Liberius in Campania, is known to have informed us of the following. The late illustrious lady Rustica, about twenty-one years ago, in the will she made, named her husband Felix as her heir in the first place, and charged him with founding a monastery in Sicily. But this was on a condition: if he did not, within the space of one year, pay all the legacies she had left to her freedmen, or establish the monastery as she wished, then the holy Roman church should have an undisputed claim to the share she was understood to have in the farm of Cumas, and should give help toward paying those legacies and building the monastery. [b]

So, since, as we are told, the bequeathed property has not yet been handed over in full to this monastery, and part of the estate is still being held back by her heirs, let your experience look into the case and examine it thoroughly. First, if under the terms of the will any inheritance comes in on which our church may have a claim, we want you to investigate it and establish it clearly, and to act for the benefit of the poor, as the course of the business may require. Then be immediately concerned to see that the cell is properly established and the bequeathed property recovered, so that the devout wish of the woman who made the will may be fulfilled on both counts, and those who unjustly hold the property may learn, by a just loss, the guilt of keeping what was not theirs to keep. With all energy, then, we want you both to look into this case and, with the Lord’s help, to bring it to a conclusion, so that the devout intention of the one who arranged it may at last take effect. But we also want you, as far as justice allows, to help this monastery in every way, so that lay people who ought to have given it the help of their support may not, as is claimed, have the power to do it harm in the name of the founder.