To the Lord of the world, the ruler and restorer of liberty, the senate of the city of Rome, Flavius Theodoric, King. There has come to us, conscript fathers, a suggestion concerning the utility entrusted to the Church, and the gracious ordinance of your sacred assembly has struck the hearts of our mildness. And although, after the venerable synod, your ordinance of judgment alone may suffice for decrees of this kind, nevertheless, for your sake we have given a response in the present oracles by way of consolation; that it be lawful to no prelate of any Church whatsoever, under any alienation, plainly to assign the usufruct of his own property by contract to whomever he may have wished — preserving equity.
For neither ought the property bestowed to be frustrated by the mere will of the pontiff or of the clergy — property owed to all foreign sojourners or to the estate of the Church. For what is so profane as that, on the part of the giver, his judgment should be violated? While whatever anyone has wished to pertain to the Church, private [or: perverse] persons should claim it through the contract of a usufructuary person. Therefore if anyone shall presume the things forbidden by wicked daring, and shall desire to retain beyond the usufruct, the property alienated by the bishop or clergy as a gift shall straightway, together with its fruits, be reclaimed by the venerable prelate. And the rest. Given on the fifth day before the Ides of March, at Ravenna; Venantius, most distinguished man, being consul (in the year of Christ 507).