Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/175

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Charlemagne 139 Each steward shall have in his district good workmen, namely, blacksmiths, a goldsmith, a silversmith, shoemakers, turners, carpenters, sword makers, fishermen, foilers, soap makers, men who know how to make beer, cider, perry, or other kind of liquor good to drink, bakers to make pastry for our table, net makers who know how to make nets for hunting, fishing, and fowling, and other sorts of workmen too numerous to be designated. VI. CHARLEMAGNE'S IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT In the elaborate instructions for the missi we have the fullest statement of the tasks of government which devolved upon Charlemagne, and of the various offenses which he f oresavy and for which he deemed it especially necessary to provide. The most serene and most Christian lord emperor Charles 62. Extracts has chosen from his nobles the wisest and most prudent men, frora archbishops and some of the other bishops also, together capitulary with venerable abbots and pious laymen, and has sent them for the missi throughout his whole kingdom; through them he would have ^ 8 2 ^' all the various classes of persons mentioned in the following sections live strictly in accordance with the law. Moreover, where anything which is not right and just has been enacted in the law, he has ordered them to inquire into this most diligently and to inform him of it ; he desires, God granting, to reform it. And let no one, through cunning craft, dare to oppose or thwart the written law, as many are wont to do, or the judi- cial sentence passed upon him ; or to do injury to the churches of God, or the poor, or the widows, or the wards, or any Christian. But all shall live entirely in accordance with God's precept, justly and under a just rule, and each one shall be admonished to live in harmony with his fellows in his business or profession. The canonical clergy ought to observe in every respect a canonical life without heeding