168 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. II. 



Thus in 321 Constantine conferred upon any one the fullest power to 

 bequeath property to the church, a privilege not previously possessed, — 

 and it seems to have been construed as extending to every kind of 

 property real as well as personal. A short time ('326) afterwards he 

 issued another edict restraining the wealthy from seeking admission to 

 the ranks of the clergy, a profession that had become exceedingly 

 advantageous from the immunity from public duties they enjoyed under 

 a previous law (320) and he assigns as a reason for it "that the wealthy 

 should bear the burdens of the State, and the poor be sustained by the 

 wealth of the clergy." 



Valentinian in 454, after reciting that he had a humane desire to 

 provide for the indigent and to endeavour to secure maintenance for 

 them, directs that the provision of various kinds which had been made 

 to the churches till that time at the public expense should be continued, 

 forbade any one to diminish it, and confirmed the liberality for the future. 

 And in the following year (455^ he authorized widows, deaconesses, and 

 converted virgins to bequeath their property to the church, to a temple 

 dedicated to a martyr, to an ecclesiastic, to a monk, or to the poor. At 

 a later period however Justinian considered this inoperative as to persons 

 who had been consecrated in a monastery, as by the consecration their 

 property belonged to the monastery and therefore they could not 

 bequeath it. 



The Emperor Leo in 470 by a most elaborate constitution prohibited 

 the alienation of the property of the church whether moveable or 

 immoveable, even though the bishop, all the clergy, and the steward 

 (trustee) of the property should consent to it ; for it was as necessary to 

 preserve the property of the church as the church itself; as the mother 

 of religion, and of faith is perpetual, so should her patrimony be preserved 

 in perpetuity, — and by a sweeping clause he declared that the money 

 produced by the sale should belong to the church, and the property 

 itself be recovered, with all its fruits and accretions in the intermediate 

 period, — the steward was to be dismissed and he and his heirs bound to 

 compensate the church for any damages, — the notaries who drew the 

 instruments were to be condemned to perpetual exile, — and the judges 

 who approved of the sale were to lose their offices and forfeit all 

 their property. Justinian extended this to the property of all pious 

 institutions. It was to be observed in perpetuity as to all property 

 derived from the Emperors. The other property of the foundations 

 might be sold to pay pressing debts, first applying the moveables, and 

 then, with many precautions, the immoveables. The monastery itself 

 could not be sold. The steward and his relatives could in no way 



