# Constitutions allow the church to receive bequests, creating a public legal person

Date: 321

## The fact

Constantinian constitutions transmitted in later codes allowed the church to inherit, making a cult a durable legal property-holder.

It is one event.

## Context

A bequest rule can fund hospitals and can fund a wealthy clergy. This stores the cohesion of a legal person that can outlive a donor.

[Constantine the Great](/people/constantine-the-great)’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Later-coded constitutions on bequests to the Catholic Church. A legal person can also accumulate. Medium confidence.
Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers date the row.

## Evidence and sources

Grenoble code pages and Cambridge independently treat church bequest law as Constantinian-era.

Official or archival record: Roman law texts including Codex Theodosianus extracts — Grenoble (https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/; Université Grenoble Alpes / Droit romain).

## Significance

A cult that may inherit is a [social-cohesion](/drivers/social-cohesion) institutional path of medium confidence.

A bequest rule is not Donatist coercion.

A cult that may inherit is a social-cohesion institutional path of medium confidence.

## What is established and what is not

Established: later codes transmit church-bequest constitutions in his name. Not established: a unique charity series for 321.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Constantine the Great.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date, signatory, or non-occurrence; a demonstrated forgery; or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of other causes.

They are not a public rating.

## People

- Constantine the Great: https://factrail.ai/people/constantine-the-great

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-ancient-history/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/co-church-legal-personality