ABSTRACT
Flight was one form of liberation. The approved form, however, was manumission, several forms of which were evidently available. A special case of manumission concerned seigneurs who tried to provide their slaves to their proprietary churches as priests. Since Canon Law clearly required that priests be freemen, this practice was strongly discouraged by the Church which had a reasonable desire to exclude conflicting authority from its ranks. One form of manumission seems to have been exceptionally difficult in Carolingian Bavaria, the purchase of freedom by a slave from their own resources or 'peculium'. In addition, manumission was viewed as an act of piety, but very few conveyances of property to churches include any mention of it. However, the 'penny men' were clearly a Frankish importation. These were slaves who were freed by an apparently ancient Frankish custom where a penny was batted or tossed over the head of the slave in the presence of a royal official.
