Title II: On Calumniators

Latin source headnote: A subdeacon who calumniously accuses a deacon is deprived of the subdiaconate, publicly chastised with lashes, and sent into exile.

Gregory, to Anthemius the Subdeacon.

Since crimes that are brought against innocent persons, and especially against consecrated men, are to be punished more severely, consider how culpable you all are who sat in the cause of John the deacon, since no suitable penalty from your decision chastised Hilary, his accuser. [Nor should you believe this to be suitable for your excuse: that our brother and fellow bishop Paschasius alone is said to have deferred it when you, as though wishing to judge, were present. For if zeal for rectitude had flourished in you, one person could more easily have been reasonably persuaded by many than many could without cause have been delayed by one.] Therefore, because the evil of such great wickedness ought not to pass without worthy vengeance, we command that the same H. first be deprived of the office of the subdiaconate, which he unworthily exercises, and, having been publicly chastised with lashes, be deported into exile, so that the punishment of one may be the correction of many, etc.

Latin source headnote: A denouncer who fails in proving the crimes is suspended from office and benefice until he purges his innocence.

Innocent III, to the Bishops of Zamora, Segovia, and Ávila.

When the beloved son, the scholasticus of Palencia, had approached the Apostolic See and had reported to us various excesses concerning his bishop, we committed examination of the excesses charged to our venerable brother, formerly Bishop of León and now Archbishop of Compostela, and to the beloved sons, the Abbots of Valbuena and Mataplana in the diocese of Palencia. [After the truth had been more fully investigated through witnesses concerning twofold simony, dilapidation, absolution of those falling under the canon of a sentence promulgated, the fact that he disdained to defer to appeals interposed to us, and also the fact that he held a dignity vacant in his own hands beyond the time established in the Lateran Council, and that he furtively took away a certain instrument in which episcopal rights are distinguished from the rights of canons, and concerning certain other matters, they faithfully transmitted the inquiry itself to us with the depositions of the witnesses.] But when we diligently examined the course of the affair and the statements of the witnesses, and were unable to understand that anything among the aforesaid matters had been sufficiently proved, we decree, on the counsel of our brothers, that the same bishop is to be absolved from the charges, commanding you by apostolic writings that you suspend the aforesaid scholasticus from office and benefice until he has canonically purged his innocence, namely that he did not proceed to propound crimes of this sort with the intention of calumniating, so that others, terrified by a similar penalty, may not readily leap to the defamation of their prelates. [But if not all, etc. Given at the Lateran on the fifth day before the Ides of May, in the tenth year, 1207.]