Title L: Lest Clerics or Monks Involve Themselves in Secular Business

Latin source headnote: The council enumerates many secular businesses from which it commands clerics and monks to abstain. And they are fourteen, if they are counted correctly.

From the Council of Mainz.

There are many secular businesses, of which let us touch briefly upon a few, to which all carnal concupiscence pertains. Whatever a man seeks beyond what is just is shameful gain. To receive or even give unjust gifts. To hire someone for payment for some secular gain. To love contentions, lawsuits, or quarrels. To argue in secular courts, except in defense of orphans or widows. To be lessees of secular things or procurators. To be a jester in shameful word or deed, or to love secular jest. To love games of chance. To seek adornment unfitting to one’s profession. To wish to live in delights. To pursue gluttony and drunkenness. To have unjust weights or measures. To exercise unjust business.

Nevertheless, just business is not to be forbidden on account of diverse necessities, because we read that the holy Apostles engaged in business, and in the Rule of Blessed Benedict it is commanded that provision be made for those through whose hands the businesses of the monastery are administered. To follow dogs and birds for hunting, and to be engaged in any superfluous causes whatsoever. Behold, things such as these and similar things we altogether forbid to the ministers of the altar of the Lord, as well as to monks, concerning whom the Apostle says: “No one, serving as a soldier for God, involves himself in secular businesses.”

Latin source headnote: Clerics ought not to be ministers or procurators of lay persons; but if they act contrary and are detected in fraud, they are not assisted by the Church.

Pope Eugenius, to the Bishop of Lucca.

Moreover, you are to announce publicly to your priests and clerics that they are not to become ministers of lay persons, nor to exist as procurators in their affairs. But if afterward they presume to do this and, on the occasion of that administration, are detected in fraud concerning a pecuniary cause, it is unworthy that they be assisted by the Church, through whom it is established that scandal is generated in the Church.

Latin source headnote: Professed religious who go out to hear laws or medicine, unless they return to the cloister within two months, are excommunicated, and can act as advocate in no cause, and in choir, chapter, and other things they will be last, and without dispensation of the Pope they are not promoted.

Alexander III, in the Council of Tours.

The envy of the ancient enemy does not greatly labor to cast down the weak members of the Church, but it puts its hand to her more desirable ones and strives also to supplant the elect, Scripture saying: “His foods are the elect.” Indeed, it reckons that it accomplishes the fall of many where some more precious member of the Church has been brought down by its cunning. And hence surely it is that, transfiguring itself in its accustomed manner into an angel of light, under pretext of taking counsel for the bodies of ailing brothers and of treating ecclesiastical businesses more faithfully, it leads certain regulars out of their cloisters to read laws and weigh medical preparations.

Whence, lest under occasion of knowledge spiritual men again be involved in worldly actions, and fail in interior things from the very thing from which they think they provide for others in exterior things, with the assent of the present council we establish that no persons whatsoever, after a vow of religion and after profession made in some religious place, are to be permitted to go out to read medicine or worldly laws. But if they have gone out and have not returned to their cloister within the space of two months, let them be avoided by all as excommunicates, and let them be heard in no cause if they wish to furnish advocacy. But, having returned, in choir, chapter, refectory, and other things let them [always] exist as last among the brothers, and, unless perhaps from the mercy of the Apostolic See, let them lose hope of every promotion.

Latin source headnote: A cleric who is the general procurator or justiciar of a secular prince is to be deposed, and, if he is a religious, he will be punished more gravely.

The same, in the Lateran Council.

But neither let any cleric presume to exercise the procurations of villages or even secular jurisdictions under any princes and secular men, so that he becomes their justiciar. But if anyone should attempt to act against these things, because, contrary to the teaching of the Apostle saying, “No one, serving as a soldier for God, is to involve himself in secular businesses,” he acts secularly, let him be made alien from ecclesiastical ministry, because, neglecting clerical office, he immerses himself in the waves of the world so that he may please the powers [of the world]. We decree, however, that he is to be punished more rigorously if any one of the religious should dare to attempt any of the aforesaid things.

Latin source headnote: A cleric exercising a judgment of blood is deposed from office and benefice, and one having the office of a secular provost is excommunicated if after being warned he does not desist.

The same, to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

According to the Council of Toledo, it is not lawful for clerics constituted in sacred orders to conduct a judgment of blood. Whence we prohibit them either from carrying out mutilations of limbs themselves or from judging that they are to be inflicted. But if anyone should do any such thing, let him be deprived of honor and place. We command also, under threat of anathema, that no priest is to have the office of sheriff or secular provost. (And below: [cf. c. 7, On Life and Honorable Conduct III. 1.]) But if anyone should presume to act contrary to this and, having been admonished, should be unwilling to amend, let him be subject to excommunication.

Latin source headnote: It is not lawful for clerics or monks to engage in business for the sake of profit. This first. Monks cannot have leased possessions in their own name. This second. A church ought not to be conceded to lay persons under title of lease. This third.

The same, to the Bishop of London.

According to the statutes of our predecessors, under threat of anathema we prohibit monks or clerics from engaging in business for the sake of profit, and monks from having farms in their own name either from clerics or from lay persons, and lay persons from holding churches at farm.

Latin source headnote: Incorrigible monks are expelled from a monastery, and the monastery will be reformed with brothers of another order if it cannot be reformed with monks of the same order.

The same, to the same.

It has been reported to our ears that the monks of H. live secularly and corrupt others by their example. And therefore we command that, with appeal removed, you compel them to observance of the monastic rule, or, if with rash daring they resist you, after they have been expelled, introduce into it brothers of another order if the aforesaid monastery cannot be reformed in its own order, so that the just may eat the labors of the impious and those men at last, covered with shame, may return to the observance of their order.

Latin source headnote: Clerics in sacred orders are to be compelled, through subtraction of benefices, to desist from exercise of the office of notary.

Innocent III, to the Bishop of Ascoli.

As we received from your report, when our venerable brother the Bishop of Ostia, formerly passing through your city, gave you a command that you bind with the bond of excommunication the priests, deacons [and subdeacons] whom he found there indiscriminately exercising the office of notary, and those who received public instruments from them, you, although you did this, afterward [nevertheless] dissembled concerning the subdeacons from the command of the said bishop, until you considered that the Apostolic See should be consulted as to how you ought to proceed against them and others constituted in sacred orders. Wherefore we command your fraternity by apostolic writings that, with appeal set aside, through subtraction of [their] benefices you forbid clerics constituted in sacred orders the office of notary. [Given at the Lateran, on the sixth day before the Kalends of December, in the fourteenth year of our pontificate. 1211.]

Latin source headnote: A cleric ought neither to dictate nor pronounce a sentence of blood, nor to exercise anything else through which there is a tendency toward vengeance of blood, nor ought he to furnish assistance in a vulgar purgation.

The same, in the General Council.

Let no cleric dictate or pronounce a sentence of blood; neither let him exercise vengeance of blood nor be present where it is exercised. But if anyone on the occasion of a statute of this kind should presume to inflict any loss upon churches or ecclesiastical persons, let him be restrained through ecclesiastical censure. Nor let any cleric dictate or write letters to be sent for vengeance of blood; whence in the courts of princes let this responsibility be committed not to clerics but to lay persons. Likewise, let no cleric be placed over routiers or crossbowmen, or men of blood of this kind; nor let a subdeacon, deacon, or priest exercise any art of surgery which brings burning or cutting. Nor let anyone bestow a rite of any blessing or consecration upon a purgation by boiling or cold water or glowing iron, the prohibitions concerning single combats or duels previously promulgated nevertheless remaining intact.

Latin source headnote: The constitution of the Council of Tours, punishing religious who hear laws or medicine, is a canon of a sentence incurred by the act itself, and those falling under it ought to be punished by the ordinaries. This first. Second, it extends the said constitution to those having dignities and personatus, and to priests.

Honorius III.

Upon the watchtower—(And below: [cf. c. 5, On Masters V. 5.]) Indeed, although the grace of the other sciences is deceitful and their beauty also vain, since the grain of the elect and the wine bringing forth virgins, according to the Prophet, is good above all things and is beautiful, nevertheless, because certain regulars, rejecting cloistral silence and the law of the Lord, converting souls and giving wisdom to little children, which they ought to have loved above gold and topaz, go away after the footprints of the flocks and turn themselves unlawfully to embrace the handmaids who desire the applause of peoples, against religious persons going out from cloisters to hear laws or medicine, our predecessor of happy memory Alexander formerly established in the Council of Tours that, unless they returned to the cloister within the space of two months, they were to be avoided by all as excommunicates and were to be heard in no cause if they wished to furnish advocacy. But, having returned, in choir, refectory, chapter, and other things let them exist as last among the brothers and, unless perhaps from the mercy of the Apostolic See, let them lose hope of every promotion.

But because some of such persons, on account of the diverse opinions of certain persons, assumed something of an excuse, we, wishing that such persons henceforth incur by the act itself a sentence of excommunication, by strictly commanding order that such persons, with the obstacle of appeal removed, be publicly announced as excommunicated and liable to the aforesaid punishments, both by the diocesans and their chapters and also by the other bishops in whose dioceses they study in this manner. [But because we desire the study of theology to be enlarged, so that, after the place of its tent has been enlarged, it may make its cords longer, so that the Catholic faith may be surrounded by an impregnable wall of warriors through whom it may be able to resist those ascending from the opposite side, we wish and command that this be extended to archdeacons, deans, plebani, provosts, cantors, and other clerics having personatus, as well as also to priests, unless they desist from these things within the aforesaid space, and that, with appeal set aside, it be firmly observed. For since there are many, etc. Given at Viterbo, on the tenth day before the Kalends of December, in the fourth year of our pontificate. 1219.]