EMPERORS VALENTINIAN, VALENS, AND GRATIAN AUGUSTI TO DAMASUS, BISHOP OF THE CITY OF ROME. Ecclesiastics, ex-ecclesiastics, and those men who wish to be called by the name of continents shall not visit the homes of widows and female wards, but they shall be banished by the public courts, if hereafter the kinsmen, by blood or marriage, of the aforesaid women should suppose that such men ought to be reported to the authorities. We decree, further, that the aforesaid clerics shall be able to obtain nothing whatever, through any act of liberality or by a last will of those women to whom they have attached themselves privately under the pretext of religion. Everything that may have been left by the aforesaid women to any one of the aforesaid ecclesiastics shall be ineffective to such an extent that they shall not be able, even through an interposed person, to obtain anything either by gift or by testament. Furthermore, if by chance after the admonition of Our law the aforesaid women should suppose that anything ought to be bestowed on the aforesaid men, either by gift or by last will, such property shall be appropriated by the fisc. If, on the other hand, the aforesaid men should receive anything through the will of the aforesaid women, to whose succession or property they are assisted either by the civil law or by benefit of the edict, they shall take it as near kinsmen. READ IN THE CHURCHES AT ROME ON THE THIRD DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF AUGUST IN THE YEAR OF THE CONSULSHIP OF VALENTINIAN AUGUSTUS AND THE THIRD CONSULSHIP OF VALENS AUGUSTUS [=30 July 370].

 

(trans. Pharr 1952: 443-444)