Title — Decretals of Gregory IX
Title XIII: On Tournaments
Chapter I
Latin source headnote: Tournaments ought not to be held, and penance is granted to one wounded in them; but if he dies, ecclesiastical burial is denied to him if he entered with the intention of fighting; it is otherwise if he entered for another cause, as, for example, to exact debts owed to him. It says this together with the following chapter.
From the Lateran Council.
Adhering to the footsteps of our predecessors of happy memory, Pope Innocent and Pope Eugenius, we prohibit the holding of those detestable markets or fairs, which are commonly called tournaments, in which knights are accustomed to assemble by agreement and rashly engage one another for the display of their strength and boldness, whence the deaths of men and dangers to souls often result. But if any of them shall have died there, although penance is not to be denied to him when he asks for it, nevertheless he is to lack ecclesiastical burial.
DE TORNEAMENTIS.
Torneamenta fieri non debent, et vulnerato in eis conceditur poenitentia; sed, si moritur, denegatur ei sepultura ecclesiastica, si accessit animo pugnandi; secus, si accessit alia causa, ut puta ut debita sibi exigeret. Hoc dicit cum cap. sequ.
Ex concilio Lateranensi. Felicis memoriae Papae Innocentii et Eugenii praedecessorum nostrorum vestigiis inhaerentes, detestabiles illas nundinas vel ferias, quas vulgo torneamenta vocant, in quibus milites ex condicto convenire solent, et ad ostentationem virium suarum et audaciae temere congredi, unde mortes hominum et animarum pericula saepe proveniunt, fieri prohibemus. Quodsi quis eorum ibi mortuus fuerit, quamvis ei poscenti poenitentia non negetur, ecclesiastica tamen careat sepultura.
Chapter II
Latin source headnote: It says the same as in the preceding chapter.
Alexander III, to the Bishop of Anagni.
You should know that it has come to our hearing that, when a certain man had gone to a place appointed for tournaments for the sake of seeking his debts from certain knights whom he thought would come there, it happened that he was crushed and died when the horse on which he was sitting fell violently and heedlessly upon him; but beforehand he received the Lord's body and was anointed with the anointing of holy oil. Wherefore, because he received death at a tournament, he is barred from the burial of the faithful. But we, considering that ecclesiastical burial ought to be forbidden only to those as we believe who, entering tournaments solely with the intention of doing so, die there, command your fraternity that, if it shall be established to you that the aforesaid I. came to the aforesaid tournament not with the intention of taking part in the sport but of receiving what was owed to him, although he died there by an accidental event, you cause his body by ecclesiastical dispensation to be delivered for burial, especially if he received the Lord's body and was anointed with the anointing of holy oil.
Idem dicit, quod in superiori cap.
Alexander III. Anatensi Episcopo.
Ad audientiam nostram noveris pervenisse, quod, quum quidam ad locum, deputatum torneamentis, causa requirendi sua debita a quibusdam militibus, quos eo venturos putabat, accessisset, accidit, ut violenter et inconsiderate ab equo, in quo sedebat, super eum cadente compressus et mortuus est, sed prius dominicum corpus suscepit, et sacri olei unctione perunctus est. Unde pro eo, quod in torneamento mortem accepit, a sepultura fidelium prohibetur. Nos vero attendentes, quod his tantum, sicut credimus, ecclesiastica sepultura debeat interdici, qui, ad torneamenta animo id faciendi tantum accedentes, decedunt ibidem, fraternitati tuae mandamus, quatenus, si tibi constiterit, quod praefatus I. ad praedictum torneamentum non animo ludendi, sed percipiendi credita, pervenisset, licet ibi fortuito casu obierit, corpus eius dispensatione ecclesiasticae tradi facias sepulturae, maxime si dominicum corpus susceperit, et sacri olei fuerit unctione perunctus.