I Became the illegitimate son of a duke

72 – Ecclesiastical Disposition (2)

“Priest, this is the offering for this time.”

“Ohh…! Come in, you won’t even have to look at the contents.”

The shabby man puts the cart at the door of the church and greets the overweight priest, who greets him warmly. The priest laughs, but the grin is very grotesquely distorted because of the fat on his cheekbones.

After that, the servants from the church move the entire cart to the barn, and the man looks at the cart and the servants with dry eyes, then moves his gaze to the priest.

“Huh? Why don’t you come in and pray?”

“That… Priest.”

The priest suddenly looked at the man who was hesitant and tilted his head in puzzlement.

Your attitude seems to have something to say to me, but what does this faithful worker who has been paying his offerings without saying a word for years suddenly get a gust of wind and want to talk to me?

“What’s going on?”

“Well… Next month the votives may be in short supply…”

“…Why?”

“Because her wife was ill, she spent a lot of money this time, and she even had a thief break into her house…”

Ah… I thought this worker would last a long time.

It’s a banal story and an excuse.

“Oh, is your wife all well?”

“That… Not yet. They say you have to take medicine for a long time, but the medicine is not cheap…”

So, since the medicine is expensive, please look at the situation with me, is this it?

Ha ha ha ha…

I guess I’ve become very, very shallow.

Do you look down on me just because the lowly people mixed up their words? You can’t do that.

“Look.”

“Yes, priest…”

“So shouldn’t we do more dedication?”

“…Yes?”

“If you run out of offerings, God will not hear your voice. That means her wife may leave you.”

“Yeah, but I can’t buy medicine with a donation…”

“Above all, what will become of your wife if she does not show endless faith in the Lord? Even if she dies, she will not go to heaven.”

“I can’t…”

At the words of the priest, the man’s spirit gradually dries up.

Until she comes to this place, she is the man who promised the priest that he will definitely get her tax cut.

And the priest nodded her head in great satisfaction seeing her man trembling like that.

Now I just need one more dagger.

“Listen carefully. The moment gold and silver treasures jingle into the offering box, your wife’s soul will soar to heaven.”

“I, I will… Somehow, surely…”

“Then, of course it should be. Come on, stabilize your mind and body with prayer and go.”

“Yes…! Priest, thank you so much… I almost got in trouble.”

Tsk, bother me.

Can’t pay? Isn’t that what it means to make money? If you don’t have money, you can bring the crops you harvested.

And… Fufu… What smells so bad?

Anyway, the smell is very disgusting because farmers are always touching sh*t and rolling around in the dirt.

“Hey, hurry up and escort him to the prayer room.”

“Yes, priest.”

I need to drop this guy soon.

It’s already expensive clothes, but you can’t get rid of the nasty smell, right?

As the man heads to the shabby prayer room set aside outside the church, the priest frowns as he crumples his face, which he had been forced to cover.

“Whoa… Let’s go.”

“Yes.”

The lowly thing tried to climb on me, and this terrible smell, and I feel very bad today.

Tonight, I need to relieve my stress with this cute kid.

…………

“…What?”

What did I just hear?

The author, who looked down at me and didn’t like any of them with his attitude and gaze, spoke words that I couldn’t understand.

“I will say it again. This church is violating the church decrees and its annexed decrees among the church laws, and we must dispose of the ecclesiastical decrees it possesses beyond the scope specified by the law.”

“What do you mean, you’re breaking the law? Not a single city belongs to this church.”

This is the first time.

Are you breaking the law? And that annoying ecclesiastical law?

The church territory that the church can own is only agricultural land, and because of that, the church is not the only one who is dissatisfied with the city.

Some clever guys buy up all the land around the city and then charge a hefty toll on the wagons going in and out of the city to literally swallow it up, but it seems like too much of a risk, I’ve never done that before?

Where in the world is there a priest who works as hard as I do for peasants and yells at me for breaking the law?

“No. The church should only own farmland to grow the crops it needs.”

“Isn’t that so? There is only farmland here.”

“Only the farmland necessary for the church, I mean.”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve said this… What?”

It was only then that the priest, who had become too fat to move around, noticed something strange about the messenger’s words.

The church should own only the agricultural land necessary for the church.

The converse of this is that churches should not own farmland that is not needed by the church.

“…What are you talking about? Those farmlands are what the church needs.”

“According to the financial audit, it is judged that more than 90% of the donations are not needed for the maintenance of the church, excluding the donations.”

“No, so they are needed to keep the church going! And… What? A financial audit?”

A financial audit?

Doesn’t that mean the illegitimate son got the documents related to my church somewhere?

Burgon, no, all the churches in the kingdom of Rotaring must be under the command of Bishop Armand?

“Financial audit? You are an official of King Lotharing.”

“Yes.”

“Then how can secular power try to invade the kingdom of God?”

Look at this brazen thing.

I can’t believe you’re still maintaining an arrogant attitude without twitching an eyebrow in spite of my holy affairs. It’s really the same.

“This clearly defames the realm of the church. Aren’t you afraid of God?”

“Of course God is scary.”

After saying that, the official turns around and walks toward the door, and the priest, seeing his back, is a bit dumbfounded.

A guy who acted so arrogantly is going to lose his temper over something like this? Something weird

“But… You’re not afraid. Hey! Come in!”

“What a fuss!!”

After saying that, the official standing in front of the door poked his head out the door and shouted.

The priest then realizes that something is going wrong and tries to stop the management by shouting, but it is too late.

Kwaaang!

“Wow…!?”

A group of soldiers armed with armor and swords rushes through the door of the church with a terrifying spirit, and the priest who sees them instantly turns blue.

The priest, who always took a superior attitude towards poor peasants and officials, now only breathes lightly and trembles all over like a rat near his death.

…………

“I knew about it… But seeing it in person made me feel pretty bad.”

“Yes indeed.”

I haven’t even received all the result reports yet, but my territories have already doubled.

From nob le mtl dot com

My God, did the church ever have this much land? How much is all this missing tax?

“For now… I will continue to employ the peasants who worked as tenants in the Church Territory. Places that were simply neglected as hunting or gathering grounds without tenant farmers will be left alone until they find useful uses later.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I will tell the officials that.”

“Also, since churches that have lost their land may do something to the peasants, for the time being, each church will have to deploy soldiers little by little in the name of maintaining public order.”

Anyway, these greedy bastards, they’ll be rambling that the peasants took my land, or they’ll still do something to get a tribute from the peasants.

To prevent such a situation, the deployment of soldiers is essential.

“Wouldn’t a Church that felt threatened do something? For example, ask His Holiness to excommunicate His Majesty.”

“Excommunication… Well…”

To be honest, the possibility is high. Isn’t that the pope who thoughtlessly declared a crusade against heretics in the empire?

I have already given the emperor mercenaries and money, and he has been taken away from the emperor by receiving all the crowns.

No matter how hard the working-level staff under my command try to stop Seonghwang, saying that we need to look at the situation, I will be excommunicated in an instant if Seonghwang makes up his mind.

If I were to be excommunicated, the servants and servants in the castle would be all right thanks to Ines’ tight management, but the vassals and nobles could be very upset.

No matter how corrupt a church is, a church is a church, and faith is faith.

“First of all, I have to send a letter to Seonghwang explaining the situation here. Roughly, to prevent heresy, the corrupt churches are cleansed or something.”

“You’ve already done this. Will it be a letter?”

“Of course, you have to show your own sincerity.”

From the standpoint of the Seonghwangcheong, which receives tremendous funds from churches around the world, even a simple bribe will not send a message.

In that case, it should be something other than money.

“We should ask Seonghwangcheong to establish an Archdiocese of Rotaling Province.”

“…!”

From nob le mtl dot com

My words caught Leclerc’s breath.

The Archdiocese of the Province is one of the deadliest enemies of secular monarchs who want to wield power to their heart’s content.