Title — Liber Sextus
Title XIII: On Prescriptions
Chapter I
For prescriptions, good faith suffices where the common law or a presumption is not against the person prescribing; otherwise, a title ought to be alleged and proved, unless it is a prescription of such a kind that no memory of the contrary exists. This is what it says. John Andrew.
Boniface VIII. A bishop who proposes that he has lawfully prescribed the churches and tithes that you reclaim from him, although they are situated in your diocese, must, since the common law operates against him, allege and prove a title for a prescription of this kind. For although good faith suffices for one who prescribes an ecclesiastical thing if the common law is not contrary to him and there is no presumption against him, nevertheless, where the common law is contrary to him or there is a presumption against him, good faith does not suffice; rather, a title is necessary that furnishes the possessor with a cause for prescribing, unless a prescription of so long a time is alleged that no memory of the contrary exists.
DE PRAESCRIPTIONIBUS.
De praescriptionibus sufficit bona fides, ubi ius commune vel praesumptio non est contra praescribentem; alias debet allegari titulus et probari, nisi sit praescriptio, cuius contrarii non exstat memoria. H. d. Ioann. Andr.
Bonifacius VIII .
Episcopum, qui ecclesias et decimas, quas ab eo repetis, proponit, (licet in tua sint constitutae dioecesi,) se legitime praescripsisse, allegare oportet, (quum ius commune contra ipsum faciat,) huiusmodi praescriptionis titulum et probare. Nam licet ei, qui rem praescribit ecclesiasticam, si sibi non est contrarium ius commune, vel contra eum praesumptio non habeatur , sufficiat bona fides; ubi tamen est ei ius commune contrarium, vel habetur praesumptio contra ipsum: bona fides non sufficit, sed est necessarius titulus, qui possessori causam tribuat praescribendi; nisi tanti temporis allegetur praescriptio, cuius contrarii memoria non exsistat.
Chapter II
One deprived by the law itself or by sentence of goods that he holds from the Roman Church or other churches does not prescribe them against the Roman Church in a period shorter than one hundred years, or against other churches in a period shorter than forty. But children of heretics who were thought Catholics prescribe paternal goods against the Roman and other churches in a period of forty years, and the same applies to strangers. John Andrew.
The same. If any persons, because their faults or excesses committed require it, have been deprived by sentence or by the law itself of goods that they hold from the Roman Church or other churches, we decree that, when those goods are afterward at any time apprehended or occupied, no lapse of time is to stand in the way of those churches, although human laws appear to establish other periods concerning this, unless a prescription of one hundred years has lawfully been completed against the Roman Church itself or one of forty years against other churches.
If, after the death of heretics who were thought to be Catholics while they lived, their goods have been possessed in good faith for the space of forty years by their Catholic children or grandchildren, or by any strangers, we decree that they are not thereafter to be troubled concerning such goods, even if they ought to come to the Roman Church, although those whose goods they had been are now discovered to have been heretics.
Privatus ipso iure vel per sententiam bonis, quae tenet a Romana vel aliis ecclesiis, illa minori spatio centum annorum contra Romanam, vel quadraginta contra alias non praescribit. Filii autem haereticorum, qui catholici putabantur, bona paterna contra Romanam et alias ecclesias praescribunt spatio quadraginta annorum, et idem in extraneis. Ioann Andr.
Idem.
Si qui, exigentibus culpis vel excessibus ab eisdem commissis, bonis, quae a Romana vel ab aliis tenent ecclesiis, sint per sententiam vel ipso iure privati: statuimus, ut in apprehendendis vel occupandis postea quandocunque bonis eisdem nullus, licet leges humanae super hoc alia tempora statuere videantur, ipsis ecclesiis temporis lapsus obsistat, nisi contra ipsam Romanam ecclesiam centenaria, vel contra ecclesias alias quadragenaria praescriptio legitime sit completa. Si post mortem haereticorum, qui, dum viverent, catholici putabantur, bona ipsorum a catholicis eorum filiis vel nepotibus aut extraneis quibuscunque spatio XL. annorum fuerint bona fide possessa: sancimus, eos super bonis huiusmodi, etiamsi ad Romanam pervenire deberent ecclesiam, in hoc casu non esse ulterius molestandos, quanquam illi, quorum bona fuerant , nunc detegantur haeretici exstitisse.