Title — Liber Sextus
Title IX: On the Property of a Church Not to Be Alienated
Chapter I
A perpetual alienation made from the property of a vacant church without prior deliberation and without just cause has no force. John Andrew.
Innocent IV.
Some time ago—(And below:) The said archdeacon, however, answered in opposition that those tithes ought not to be restored to that church, bringing forward a certain ordinance made by the Bishop of Dulmen with the consent of his chapter, containing among other things that the same bishop, observing that the revenues of the Archdeaconry of Dulmen were so meager and slight that they did not suffice to support its burdens, granted the aforesaid tithes to that archdeaconry. (And below:) But because in a grant of this kind the aforesaid church, while vacant, lacked a lawful defender, who ought first to have been appointed for it by the same bishop; and because the solemn and diligent deliberation required in such perpetual grants and alienations of ecclesiastical property was not held in it, we, with the counsel of our brothers, decree that the ordinance and grant itself possesses no force, especially since there was no evident necessity or utility for which it ought to be made, taking care judicially to adjudge the said tithes to that church as belonging to it.
DE REBUS ECCLESIAE NON ALIENANDIS.
Perpetua alienatio, facta de rebus ecclesiae vacantis non praecedente tractatu et sine iusta causa, non valet. Ioann. Andr.
Innocentius IV.
Dudum (Et infra:) Dictus vero archidiaconus ex adverso respondit, illas decimas illi ecclesiae restitui non debere, proferens in medium ordinationem quandam episcopi Dul-mensis * de consensu capituli sui factam, inter alia continentem, quod idem episcopus, attendens, proventus archidiaconatus Dulmensis adeo fore tenues et exiles, quod non sufficiebant ad eius onera supportanda, praefatas decimas archidiaconatui memorato concessit. (Et infra:) Quia vero * in concessione huiusmodi praedicta ecclesia, quum vacaret, legitimo caruit defensore, qui sibi prius ab eodem episcopo debuerat deputari; quia etiam tractatus solennis et diligens, qui in talibus concessionibus perpetuis et alienationibus rerum ecclesiasticarum exigitur, non fuit habitus in eadem: ordinationem et concessionem ipsam , praesertim quum evidens necessitas, quare fieri deberet, vel utilitas non subesset, de fratrum nostrorum consilio decernimus non valere, dictas decimas ipsi ecclesiae, tanquam pertinentes ad eam, sententialiter adiudicare curantes.
Chapter II
First, it prohibits churches, their immovable goods, or their rights from being subjected to laymen without the consent of the chapter and the Pope's license. Secondly, it annuls contracts hereafter made contrary to this, whatever confirmation fortifies them. Thirdly, it punishes prelates who act contrary to this, clerics who do not oppose it, and laymen who compelled or shall compel those prelates to do so. Fourthly, it commands that laymen not usurp beyond what is owed through such contracts in the case in which they have force, and it imposes a penalty. This states the point. John Andrew.
Gregory X, in the General Council of Lyons.
By this most carefully considered edict we prohibit each and every prelate from submitting, subjecting, or placing under laymen the churches committed to them, or the churches' immovable goods or rights, without the consent of their chapter and the special license of the Apostolic See—not by granting the goods or rights themselves in emphyteusis, or otherwise alienating them in the form and cases permitted by law, but by establishing, acknowledging, or professing that they hold them from those laymen as from superiors; or by declaring themselves their advocates, as is commonly called avoher in certain regions; or by establishing those laymen perpetually, or for no short time, as patrons or advocates of the churches or their goods.
We decree that all contracts concerning such alienations that happen to be celebrated without such license and consent, even those fortified by the addition of an oath, penalty, or any other confirmation whatsoever, and whatever has followed from them, are so entirely without force that they neither confer any right nor even furnish a basis for prescription. Nevertheless, we establish that prelates who act otherwise are suspended by the fact itself from office and administration, and that clerics who, knowing that something has been presumed contrary to the aforesaid prohibition, neglect to denounce it to a superior are suspended for three years from receipt of the benefices that they hold in the church thus burdened.
Laymen who have hitherto compelled prelates or chapters of churches, or other ecclesiastical persons, to make submissions of this kind shall be bound by a sentence of excommunication unless, after suitable admonition and with the submission that they exacted by force or fear remitted, they leave in their liberty the churches and ecclesiastical goods thus subjected to them. Those who hereafter compel prelates or the same persons to do such things, of whatever condition or status they may be, shall likewise be bound by a sentence of excommunication.
Moreover, from contracts concerning the aforesaid matters hitherto entered into with such license and consent intervening, or those that happen to be entered into in the future, or on their occasion, laymen shall not usurp anything beyond what is permitted by the nature of the contracts themselves or by the law applied in them. Those who act otherwise shall, unless after lawful admonition they desist from such usurpation and also restore the things that they usurped in this manner, by that very fact incur a sentence of excommunication; and from that time proceedings may freely be taken, if necessary, to place their land under ecclesiastical interdict.
Primo prohibet submissionem ecclesiarum, suorum immobilium bonorum vel iurium fieri laicis absque consensu capituli et licentia Papae. Secundo cassat contractus, quacunque firmitate vallatos, contra hoc de cetero faciendos. Tertio punit praelatos contra facientes, et clericos non contradicentes, et laicos, qui ipsos praelatos ad hoc compulerunt vel compellent. Quarto praecipit, laicos per tales contractus, eo casu, quo valent, ultra debitum non usurpare, et poenam apponit. H. d. Ioann. Andr.
Gregorius X. in concilio generali Lugdunensi .
Hoc consultissimo prohibemus edicto, universos et singulos praelatos ecclesias sibi commissas, bona immobilia seu iura ipsarum laicis submittere, subiicere seu supponere absque capituli sui consensu et apostolicae sedis licentia speciali, non concedendo bona ipsa vel iura in emphyteusin, seu alias alienando in forma et casibus a iure permissis, sed constituendo, vel recognoscendo, seu profitendo ab illis ea tanquam a superioribus se tenere, seu ab ipsis eadem advocando, prout in quibusdam partibus vulgariter dicitur „avoher ,“ vel ipsos patronos vel advocatos ecclesiarum seu bonorum ipsarum perpetuo aut ad tempus non modicum statuendo. Contractus autem omnes, etiam iuramenti, poenae vel alterius cuiuslibet firmitatis adiectione vallatos, quos de talibus alienationibus sine huiusmodi licentia et consensu contigerit celebrari, et quicquid ex eis secutum fuerit, decernimus adeo viribus omnino carere, ut nec ius aliquod tribuant, nec praescribendi etiam causam parent. Et nihilominus praelatos, qui secus fecerint , ipso facto ab officio et administratione, clericos etiam , qui, scientes contra inhibitionem praedictam aliquid esse praesumptum, id superiori denunciare neglexerint, a perceptione beneficiorum, quae in ecclesia obtinent sic gravata, triennio statuimus esse suspensos. Laici vero, qui praelatos vel capitula ecclesiarum seu alias personas ecclesiasticas ad submissiones huiusmodi faciendas hactenus compulerunt, nisi post competentem monitionem, (remissa submissione, quam per vim vel metum exegerant), ecclesias et bona ecclesiastica eis submissa taliter in sua libertate dimittant; illi vero , qui de cetero praelatos, vel personas easdem ad talia facienda compulerint, cuiuscunque sint conditionis aut status, excommunicationis sint sententia innodati. Ex contractibus praeterea super praemissis, (huiusmodi licentia et consensu intervenientibus,) hactenus initis, vel quos in futurum iniri contigerit seu occasione illorum, laici ultra id, quods ex nafura contractuum ipsorum vel adhibita in illis lege permittitur, aliquid non usurpent. Qui vero secus egerint, nisi legitime moniti ab huiusmodi usurpatione destiterint, restituendo etiam ea , quae taliter usurparunt, eo ipso sen-tententiam excommunicationis incurrant, et extunc ad supponendum terram ipsorum, si opus fuerit, ecclesiastico interdicto libere procedatur.