Title XII: That Ecclesiastical Benefices Be Conferred Without Diminution

Latin source headnote: The rubric suffices for the summary, or the summary is thus according to the Abbot: A secret collation of a benefice, although suspect, is valid, provided that it is otherwise proved to have been lawfully made. This it says, and it is a notable case; nevertheless it does not pertain to the title, nor do all hold this without distinction, but the greater part concludes with this summary.

Innocent III, to the Archbishop of Milan.

So that our judgment may proceed from the countenance of God, and our eyes may see equity, we ought to walk along the royal road and turn neither altogether to the left nor to the right, judging the great as the small, because with God there is no acceptance of persons. [Indeed, it had come to our hearing by the report of many that the chancellorship of the church of Milan had been vacant for more than a year, whence according to the statutes of the Lateran Council its donation had devolved upon us. But wishing to defer to you with accustomed dignity, we earnestly requested and commanded you benignly to confer that chancellorship upon our beloved son Henry of Settala, our subdeacon and a canon of the church of Milan, well deserving with you and suitable for obtaining this office; and if after receipt of our letters you should establish anything concerning that chancellorship contrary to the right acquired for us from the Lateran decree, we decreed it null and void. But, having received our letters, you are said to have answered, as is declared from a public authentic instrument, that you had not conferred that chancellorship upon another because its proceeds were exceedingly necessary to you on account of the burdens of debts; nevertheless, after our letters had been opened and their tenor inspected, you would answer on the next day what you believed ought to be answered. Furthermore, as we learned from another instrument, after you heard the tenor of our mandate, changing your speech, you said that you could not confer that chancellorship upon our aforesaid subdeacon according to our mandate because, with the proceeds reserved to yourself, you had granted that chancellorship to Henry of Lampugnano ten months previously. And when this variation of your answers became known to us from authentic writings, although according to the Apostle we are ready to avenge all disobedience, nevertheless, still wishing to defer to you—to whom both when constituted in a lesser office and, as pleased the Lord, promoted to greater things, we deferred in many and great matters—we commanded you to send to our presence a suitable proctor who should lawfully show us in your name that you had donated the said chancellorship to a suitable person in canonical manner and at the time belonging to you. The said H. of Lampugnano, to whom the donation was said to have been made, should also, if he wished, approach our presence to defend his justice.

Therefore, coming to the presence of our apostolate, our beloved sons G., your proctor, and the often-mentioned H. endeavored manifoldly to excuse you concerning the variation of the answers, although credence is not easily derogated from public instruments, and according to the nature of things it could scarcely have been sufficiently shown that you had by no means answered what was said, even if perhaps it could have been shown that you had answered something else. But they produced before us two witnesses who, having been sworn, said that in the recently past January a year had elapsed since the Chancellor of Milan paid the debt of all flesh; and in the following May, when the kinsmen of Henry of Lampugnano repeatedly and vehemently pressed you to confer the chancellorship upon him, and you answered that you could not lack the proceeds of the chancellorship, nevertheless, after much insistence, it was obtained that you should retain the proceeds of the chancellorship and confer its right upon the aforesaid Henry. Therefore, with four present, among whom were the two aforesaid witnesses, in a more private chamber of your palace you invested that H. with the chancellorship by a book according to the aforesaid tenor, and received fidelity from him, prohibiting all of them from revealing that word to anyone. One of the aforesaid witnesses also added that, after our mandate had come to you and H. himself had already returned from Bologna, you, in his sight, solemnly and publicly delivered the seal to him, commanding him to exercise the office of chancellor; the other witness also asserted this from hearsay, and your same proctor answered that he believed it to be true. Henry also confessed the fact but denied the solemnity of the fact.]

Therefore, because after our prohibition you presumed to deliver the bull to him, although you ought at least to have deferred [that] delivery until you consulted our good pleasure, we commanded our beloved sons I., Archdeacon of Milan, and O. Lento, a canon of Milan, etc. (cf. c. 56, On Appeals, II. 28.) [But we tolerated for a time, so that the merits of the business might become more fully known to us, the investiture that was said to have been made secretly through a book, although ecclesiastical benefices are not to be conferred by a clandestine donation, as Truth testifies, saying: “He who does evil hates the light.” Moreover, because the office of the aforesaid chancellorship was alleged to be spiritual or annexed to a spiritual thing, since the chancellor by his office ought to do many things that are known to be spiritual, and for this reason it was said that it ought not to have been conferred under the aforesaid tenor, since the Apostle commands abstinence from every appearance of evil; and because also the aforesaid Henry of Lampugnano, although received as a brother for a prebend that would become vacant, was nevertheless asserted not to be an ordinary, and for this reason the chancellorship ought not to have been conferred upon him, since by law or custom it ought to be committed only to an ordinary, as he is written to be Chancellor not of the Archbishop of Milan but of the church of Milan, nor when the see is vacant does the chancellor lose his office—for not even the seal itself is changed when the pontiff is replaced—we thought that inquiry into these matters should be committed to the aforesaid I., Archdeacon of Milan, and O. Lento, canon of Milan, commanding them by apostolic writings that, every contradiction and appeal ceasing, having God before their eyes, grace and fear being set aside, without acceptance of persons, they should inquire most diligently into the truth concerning the foregoing; and, lest the truth be concealed, should compel by ecclesiastical censure the witnesses who were named to them, if they withdrew themselves through favor or fear, to bear testimony to the truth; and should send to the Apostolic See under the testimony of their letters whatever they found concerning all these things, so that, sufficiently instructed through their inquiry, we might better decide the business itself.

But they, faithfully executing the apostolic mandate, summoned the ordinaries of the church of Milan and compelled them under penalty of excommunication to tell under the sanctity of an oath the truth they knew concerning the foregoing articles from the fact of the chancellorship; they transmitted to our presence their attestations reduced to writing and fortified with a seal. They also interdicted the administration of the seal to the same H., as we received from their letters, according to the form of our mandate and by the counsel of wise men. And when the often-mentioned H. of Lampugnano presented himself to our sight with Roger his father on this account, we granted him free and benign opportunity to plead for himself in a common audience. Through his advocate he proposed that the aforesaid delegates, without an inquiry, despoiled him of execution of the seal contrary to the tenor of our mandate, since delivery of that seal had not been made after the second mandate; and therefore in the first place he petitioned that restitution be made to him. He endeavored manifoldly to excuse the form of the grant, alleging that simoniacal depravity in no way intervened in retention of the fruits: both because the office of chancellorship is neither spiritual nor annexed to a spiritual thing—for although the chancellor performs certain things that are known to be spiritual, as is clear from the attestations, he nevertheless does not perform them by the office of chancellor but by mandate of the archbishop, as is proved from the statements of the witnesses—and because he bought and sold nothing, since simony is described as the deliberate cupidity of selling or buying a spiritual thing or a thing annexed to a spiritual one; especially since before the delivery you separated the fruits, and thus retained for yourself what was yours, not receiving another's. He also alleged that he was suitable for obtaining the chancellorship, since by mandate of the Roman Pontiff he was instituted as a canon of the church of Milan, having a voice in the chapter and a place in the choir, and was admitted as a true and full canon in the deliberations and contracts of that church. Nor was it an obstacle that he did not have a full prebend, since, as was proved by the statements of the witnesses, the archdeaconry of that church, concerning which it is in no way doubted that it is a dignity and spiritual office, had sometimes been granted to one who did not have a full prebend. But the fact that, according to the testimony of certain persons, for sixty years it had been granted only to an ordinary with a prebend from the number of twenty canons, who are properly called ordinaries, could not harm him, since no prejudice was thereby generated against you preventing you from being able to confer the same chancellorship upon one who was not of the number of twenty, especially a canon. He alleged further that, even if an agreement to retain the proceeds for a time had intervened—which he nevertheless denied—between you and his parents, nevertheless he himself had been invested with the aforesaid chancellorship purely and simply; and therefore such an agreement ought not to harm him, since his parents gave or promised you nothing on his behalf.]

Furthermore, you alleged that, since no one ought to be condemned without an accuser, and nothing concerning that business was transacted in the form of a judgment, the depositions of the witnesses could not generate prejudice against you. But because this allegation appeared to touch our person, we thought it worthy to explain more fully the cause and order of the committed inquiry, lest anyone suspect in any way that we proceeded wrongly in this business, especially since the reason to be assigned ought to benefit posterity. For since it is settled law that, when the claimant does not prove, the person sued ought to be absolved even if he has furnished nothing, it could appear that maliciously or indiscreetly we imposed upon you, who were sued by us, the burden of proof concerning the three foregoing articles, namely, that you should show that you had donated the aforesaid chancellorship to a suitable person, in canonical manner, and at the time belonging to you. Furthermore, since the donation was secret and therefore not free of suspicion, and a year had already elapsed while no chancellor at all appeared, we not undeservedly believed that, according to the statutes of the Lateran Council, donation of the chancellorship had devolved upon us, and therefore we could have conferred it without fault, since, although we hold the place of God on earth, we nevertheless could not divine hidden things. Therefore, because against that which at first sight was justly presumed in our favor—especially since you answered the first time that you had conferred the chancellorship upon no one—we granted you the faculty of proving on your behalf, it was not a burden but a grace, and proceeded not from malice but from benignity. You also furnished cause for the mandate that we commanded credibility to be made to us concerning the canonical manner, since you often intimated to us by your letters and finally proved through witnesses that, with the proceeds retained to yourself, you had granted the aforesaid office. From this we were not undeservedly suspicious against such a grant, since it was also openly alleged that you had committed it to a person to whom, according to the custom of the church of Milan, it ought not in any way to have been committed. And therefore we, who not so much from plenitude of power as from the duty of office can and ought to inquire into the truth concerning the excesses of subjects for their correction, especially since you furnished the cause and occasion, committed the inquiry to be made.

Therefore, after all things that were to be proposed in our hearing had been diligently heard, we deliberated with our brothers, and in that deliberation found you to have been culpable principally in three things: concerning the contrariety of your response, because not only to us, who, although unworthy, hold the place of Jesus Christ, but to no one should you knowingly have given contradictory answers; concerning carnality of mind, because not from carnal affection but by discerning judgment ought you to have dispensed an ecclesiastical office and benefice to the more suitable person; and concerning the dishonor of the act, because it was not lawful by any pact or agreement, under the aforesaid mode or tenor, to grant the bare office and retain the proceeds for yourself, since also in the Lateran Council it is forbidden that anyone, in conferring an ecclesiastical benefice, presume to retain a part of the proceeds for his own uses, and elsewhere it is found provided in the canon that ecclesiastical benefices ought to be conferred without diminution. Hence we believe that a distinction must be drawn as to whether he who gives a spiritual benefice receives its proceeds before the donation. For if he himself did not receive the proceeds before the donation, but another did, and from the donation it follows that he himself receives the proceeds, there is no doubt that simoniacal depravity intervenes concerning these things. But if he himself received the proceeds before the donation, we believe also that a distinction must be drawn: whether before the donation he establishes that the proceeds be retained by him for a time for a just and necessary cause; or whether he agrees with the one who receives the benefice, or with any intermediary, that, when that office has been granted, he retain the proceeds for himself. For we believe the first member to be lawful, but we say that the second is not lawful, lest we open a way to those who endeavor to cloak their depravity. [But because, etc. (cf. c. 9, On the Office of the Archdeacon, I. 23.) Given at Perugia, on the ninth day before the Kalends of October. 1198.]