Question II

GRATIAN. PART I. But concerning the chapels possessed by them, Pope John proves that they are to be governed by priests through their institution, writing to Isaac, Bishop of Syracuse.

Having seen the letters of your charity, from which it is sufficiently perceived with how much zeal you show reverence to this holy see, we rejoiced not a little. Now, therefore, concerning those things on which you consulted us, we give kindly a considered counsel to our most beloved brother. For your pious gentleness referred to us the question whether churches handed over to monks for their quiet by holy councils and catholic bishops ought to be instituted through priests ordained and invested by them. Your fraternity also added that no small dispute and sedition had arisen between clerics and monks from this cause; no one doubts that this is done by the instigation of the crafty enemy. For he has a thousand ways of doing harm, and we are not ignorant of his cunning. For from the beginning of his fall he strives to rend the unity of the church, to wound charity, to infect the sweetness of holy works with the gall of envy, and in every way to overturn and disturb the human race. For he greatly grieves and blushes that men formed from muddy matter maintain on earth the charity which he could not have in heaven. Hence it is fitting, insofar as it is granted to our frailty, that we fortify all approaches against his harmful craftiness, lest death enter through our gates. § 1. Therefore, after the counsel of many brothers has been diligently sought, we decree that henceforth churches handed over to monks are to be instituted through their own priests. For divine and secular laws provide that the institution belongs to him whose possession it is; and if charity was ready in giving that which is greater, let holy largesse be readier in conceding that which is lesser. For it was a greater thing to give possession than it is to grant investiture. How will the rights of the possessor be acknowledged, and the revenues of his own property be rendered to him, where what is his is given through another and, whenever the other wills, is taken away? It belongs to human custom to revere him by whose judgment and will one is now raised up, now cast down. Hence it happens that the priest becomes more inclined to serve the bishop’s interest, and thus by a certain feigned authority the bishop draws back to himself what he had given piously and religiously. Thus, therefore, he is deprived of the reward which he had obtained: both because with feigned charity he takes away what he had given, and because, made excessively credulous by the words of depraved priests who love discord and schisms, he endeavors by a certain usurpation to take away altogether, after the fraud has been uncovered, what he had previously contrived under a false appearance to gain. Turning away their cunning and the persuasions of the crafty enemy, we henceforth grant them full license to be the investers of their own churches, yet in such a way that, if they shall presume to act contrary to the priesthood, they are punished by the judgment of a synod, and the offenses of the priests are cut away by the happy sword of the bishop. PART II. GRATIAN. By this authority the investiture of their churches is conceded to monks. But Pope Urban II appears contrary, saying:

We admonish and command that the giving of tithes to God not be neglected at all, which God Himself established are to be given, because it is to be feared that, if anyone withholds from God what is owed to Him, God may perhaps through his sin take away his necessities from him. ]

[PALEA.

Likewise Pope Nicholas II, sole letter, c. 5. We command that tithes and first fruits, or offerings of the living and the dead, be faithfully rendered by laymen to the churches of God, and that they be in the disposition of the bishops. Let those who shall retain them be separated from the communion of holy church. ]

[PALEA.

Likewise Pope Leo. Let no one receive tithes belonging to another. ]

[PALEA.

For one who is unwilling to render to God the tithes which he has retained, and does not endeavor to render to a man what he unjustly took away from him, does not yet fear God and does not know what true penance and true confession are. Such a man cannot perform true almsgiving. ]

Indeed, because certain monks contend that they may take away from bishops their right, we establish that in the parochial churches which they hold they are not to place priests without the counsel of the bishops; but let the bishops, with the consent of the abbots, commit the care of the parish to a priest, so that priests of this kind render an account to the bishops concerning the care of the people, but show due subjection to the abbot concerning temporal property pertaining to the monastery, and thus the rights of each are preserved. The same: § 1. In parochial churches let priests be appointed by the bishops who shall answer to them concerning the care of souls and those things which pertain to the bishop.

Likewise from the council held at Flavigny. It is to be established that the churches of any monks whatsoever situated in the individual parishes are, as is fitting, divinely subjected to the governance of the bishops and show them the services owed. GRATIAN. Behold, Pope Urban forbids the investitures of parochial churches to be made by monks, which Pope John conceded to them. But that statement of Pope John is to be understood concerning those chapels which, with all their right, are conceded to monks by bishops. This statement of Urban, however, is to be understood concerning those which abbots build on their own estates in their villages or fortresses.