EMPERORS VALENTINIAN, THEODOSIUS, AND ARCADIUS AUGUSTI TO TATIANUS, PRAETORIAN PREFECT. According to the precept of the Apostle, no woman shall be transferred to the society of deaconesses unless she is sixty years of age and has the desired offspring at home. Then, after she has sought a curator for her children if their age should so require, she shall entrust her goods to suitable persons, to be managed diligently and conscientiously. She herself shall receive only the income from her landed estates, which she shall have full power to keep, to alienate, to give, to sell, or to bequeath, as long as she lives or when she is departing to her fate, and her will is unrestricted. She shall expend none of her jewels and ornaments, none of her gold and silver and other embellishments of a sumptuous home, under the pretext of religion. Rather, she shall transfer in writing all her property intact to her children or next of kin or to any other persons whatsoever, according to the judgement of her own free will. However, when she dies, she shall designate as heirs no church, no cleric, or no pauper. For her will shall necessarily lack all force if it should be composed by the decedent contrary to the prohibition concerning the persons specifically mentioned above. Furthermore, if anything should be extorted from the decedent by the aforesaid persons, nothing shall be bestowed on clerics, to the fraud of Our venerable sanction, by secret trust, through cunning artifice or the disgraceful connivance of any person. Rather, they shall be deprived of all the goods which they had coveted. Moreover, if anything is revealed to have been transferred in writing through a letter, codicil, gift, or testament, or finally, in any way whatsoever, to those persons whom We have excluded by this sanction, such deed of transfer shall not be cited in court. On the contrary, according to the limitation prescribed by this statute, that person shall succeed as heir through intestacy who understands that he is entitled to the goods, provided that he acknowledges that he is a child or proves that he is a near kinsman; or finally, if either by chance or by will he is found to be an heir, a legatee, or a beneficiary of a trust for all or for a portion of the goods, by an open codicil; he shall enjoy the gift of his fortune, the reward of his knowledge, and, after the above-mentioned persons have been disqualified and rejected, he shall assume the authority of an heir over the hereditary substance.

1. Women who cut off their hair, contrary to divine and human laws, at the instigation and persuasion of some professed belief, shall be kept away from the doors of the churches. It shall be unlawful for them to approach the consecrated mysteries, nor shall they be granted, through any supplications, the privilege of frequenting the altars which must be venerated by all. Moreover, if a bishop should permit a woman with shorn head to enter a church, even the bishop himself shall be expelled from his position and kept away, along with such comrades. Not only if he should recommend that this be done, but even if he should learn that it is being accomplished by any persons, or finally, that it has been done in any way whatsoever, he shall understand that nothing will exonerate him. This shall indisputably serve as a law for those who deserve correction and as a customary practice for those who have already received correction, so that the latter may have a witness, and the former may begin to fear judgement. GIVEN ON THE ELEVENTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF JULY AT MILAN IN THE YEAR OF THE FOURTH CONSULSHIP OF VALENTINIAN AUGUSTUS AND THE CONSULSHIP OF THE MOST NOBLE NEOTERIUS [=21 June 390].

 

(trans. Pharr 1952: 444-445; lightly adapted)