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144 and judged contentions arising among them. It was the bishop, too, who administered Church property, and this property was of large extent. Never were donations to the Church more abundant than in the Merovingian period. The benefactors of the Church were, first, the bishops themselves; Bertramn of Mans left to his see thirty-five estates. Then there were the kings, who hoped to atone for their crimes by pious donations, and rich laymen who to provide for the salvation of their souls despoiled their heirs. All property acquired by the Church was, according to the canons of the councils, inalienable. The Church always received and never gave back. In addition to landed property, the Church received from the kings certain financial privileges, such as exemption from customs-dues and market- tax. Often, too, the sovereign made over to the Church the right to levy dues at specified places. Further, since Moses had granted to the tribe of Levi, that is to say to the priests, the right of levying tithes upon the fruits of the earth and the increase of the cattle, the Merovingian Church claimed a similar contribution, and threatened with excommunication anyone who should fail to pay it. The tithe was generally paid by the faithful, but it was not made obligatory by the State. It only acquired that character in the time of Charles the Great. All this property was theoretically in the charge of the bishop of the diocese. He was required to divide it into four parts, one for the maintenance of the bishop and his household, one for the payment of the clergy of his diocese, one for the poor, and one for the building and repair of churches. Little by little, however, property became attached to secondary parishes and even to mere oratories.

The bishop had great influence within his city as well as in the State. In the city he acted as an administrator and carried out works of public utility. Sidonius of Mainz built an embankment along the Rhine, Felix of Nantes straightened the course of the Loire, Didier of Cahors constructed aqueducts. The bishop thus took the place of the former municipal magistrates, whose office had died out; he received the town to govern (ad gubernandum), by the end of the Merovingian period certain cities are already episcopal cities. The bishop maintains the cause of his parishioners before the officials of the State, and even before the king himself; he obtains for them alleviation of imposts and all kinds of favours. The bishops' protection was especially extended to a class of persons who formed as it were their clientage — widows, orphans, the poor, slaves, and captives. The poor of the city were formed into a regularly organised body, their names were inscribed on the registers of the Church, and they were known as the matricidarii.

The bishops and the clergy in general enjoyed important legal privileges. From 614 onwards the clergy could only be judged on criminal charges by their bishops; the bishops themselves could only be cited before councils of the Church. But, still more important,