patristic · letter · c. 450 · Latin
An excommunication in the form of a letter. Coroticus' soldiers had raided newly baptised converts, killing some and selling others to the Picts, and Patrick writes to shame the Christians who trade with them: he asks that it be read aloud before them all. It is the earliest surviving European text to condemn slaving in these terms, by a man who had been a slave.
Addressee is a British warlord the dataset does not hold as a person, so he is named in the addressee column rather than linked.
To: the soldiers of Coroticus, and the Christians who tolerate them