Title XV: On the Office of a Legate

Legates who are not cardinals cannot confer benefices by right of legation without a special mandate, but legates who are cardinals can properly do so. John Andrew.

Innocent IV. The debt of our office keeps watch over remedies for subjects, because while we shake away their burdens and remove scandals, we rest in their repose and are cherished in peace.

Therefore, by the present enactment we decree that legates of the Roman Church, however full a legation they hold, whether they have been sent by us or claim the dignity of legation for themselves by pretext of their churches, have from the office of legation itself no power to confer benefices unless we have judged that this should be specially granted to someone. We will that this not be observed concerning our brothers discharging a legation, because just as they rejoice in a prerogative of honor, so we will that they exercise a more ample authority.

A legate has ordinary jurisdiction; hence his office does not expire through the Pope’s death. This is what it says. John Andrew.

Clement IV, to S., Cardinal Priest of the Title of Saint Cecilia, Legate of the Apostolic See. Regarding legates to whom the office of legation is committed in definite provinces, so that there they may uproot and destroy, build and plant, as ordinaries of the provinces committed to them, after the likeness of proconsuls and other governors to whom definite provinces have been decreed for governance, by the present edict we declare that the office of legation committed to you by our predecessor by no means expired through his death.

When a legation has ended, reservations made by legates and every proceeding had concerning them expire, unless those benefices, already vacant, have then been conferred. Finally, it is said that while one reservation made by him is pending in a collegiate church, or concerning a benefice pertaining to someone’s collation, the legate cannot make another in the same church or concerning a benefice pertaining to the collation of the same person; and he decrees void what is done contrary to the foregoing. John Andrew.

Boniface VIII. By the present edict we declare that reservations of any benefices made by a legate of the Apostolic See by authority of his legation, and decrees interposed concerning them, as well as denunciations, prohibitions, and any proceedings had concerning them by him or by executors deputed by him—provided that the collation of those benefices, already vacant, has by no means been proceeded to—are by that very fact wholly deprived of force when his legation ends, and that those executors cannot thereafter confer benefices so reserved.

Furthermore, desiring to restrict reservations of this kind, through which prelates and churches are sometimes excessively burdened, we prohibit a legate, after he has determined that some reservation is to be made in a cathedral or collegiate church, from making any other in that same church while the first is pending. Nor, after he has elsewhere reserved some benefice pertaining to the collation of any person, is he in any manner to reserve for himself another benefice pertaining to that person’s collation for as long as the reservation of the other is pending. Whatever it happens is attempted contrary to the foregoing provisions does not by that very fact subsist in force.

Legates cannot reserve or confer cathedral, regular, or collegiate churches. The same applies to dignities of cathedral churches that are the greatest after the bishops, if their prelates ought to be assumed through election; and an act done contrary to this is void. — § 1. A delegate cannot commit to someone the power to receive the resignation of a benefice and afterward confer it, and he decrees void an act done or to be done to the contrary. This is what it says. John Andrew.

The same. With provident deliberation we have judged that it should be prohibited that any legate of the Apostolic See, however full a legation he is known to hold, reserve in any way to his own ordering, collation, provision, election, or disposition cathedral, regular, or collegiate churches, or dignities of those cathedral churches to which the persons preferred to them, who are the greatest in their chapters after the bishops, have to be assumed by way of election. Nor is he in any way to intermeddle in ordering, conferring, or disposing of them, or in any manner to place an obstacle preventing those to whom it pertains from being able to elect or postulate freely when they become vacant. We decree by that very fact void and empty whatever has been done contrary to this.

§ 1. We further prohibit that the legate himself grant to anyone, generally or specifically, that he can receive the resignation of benefices from those who, holding them within that legation, wish freely to resign them into his hands, and then confer those benefices upon suitable persons, since through this a way could be opened, contrary to the Lateran Council, to benefices that will become vacant. We decree that a grant that it happens is attempted contrary to this, and whatever has followed from it or on account of it, has absolutely no strength of force, willing that this be extended not only to future business but also to past business still pending.

A legate’s collation is vitiated by silence concerning an earlier benefice. Zenz says this.

The same. A collation of a benefice made to you by a legate of the Apostolic See is of no moment if mention was not made in it of another benefice that you previously held.