Title XVI: On the State of Regulars

Nuns who have professed tacitly or expressly cannot leave the enclosures of the monastery, nor can others enter to them, unless a legitimate cause and the superior's license intervene. This states the point. — § 1. In a monastery of non-Mendicants, as many sisters ought to be received as can be maintained without want, and reception beyond that number has no force. This states the point. Dominicus. — § 2. Abbesses bound to secular princes to render an oath of fealty shall, if they cannot swear through a procurator, swear by personally leaving the monastery and shall return to the monastery without delay. Dominicus. — § 3. Temporal lords are compelled by ecclesiastical censure to admit abbesses to litigate through procurators in their courts; ecclesiastical judges ought to admit their procurators in temporal and spiritual matters. Dominicus. — § 4. Ordinaries of places ought to procure enclosure by their own authority in monasteries subject to them, and by apostolic authority in exempt monasteries; jurisdiction over exempt persons in other cases is not attributed to them on this account. This states the point. Dominicus.

Boniface VIII.

Desiring to provide salutarily for the dangerous and detestable state of certain nuns—who, having loosened the reins of honor and shamelessly cast aside monastic modesty and the reserve of their sex, sometimes run about outside their monasteries through the dwellings of secular persons and frequently admit suspect persons within those monasteries, to the burden and offense of him to whom by their spontaneous will they vowed their integrity, to the reproach of religion, and to the scandal of many—we decree by the present constitution, to remain perpetually unalterably in force, that each and every nun, present and future, of whatever religious order or institute, existing in any parts of the world, ought hereafter to remain under perpetual enclosure in her monastery. Accordingly, no nun who has professed religion tacitly or expressly shall or can for any reason or cause have the faculty hereafter to leave the monastery itself—unless perhaps it is manifestly established that one of them suffers from so great and such a disease that she cannot dwell with the others without grave danger or scandal. Nor shall any access or entry to them be open in any way to a dishonorable person, or even to an honorable person, unless there is a reasonable and manifest cause and the special license of the person to whom this belongs, so that, entirely separated from public and worldly sight, they may thus serve God more freely and, with opportunity for wantonness removed, more diligently guard their hearts and bodies for him in all holiness.

§ 1. Indeed, so that this salutary statute can be observed more conveniently, we strictly prohibit any persons hereafter from being received as sisters in monasteries of non-Mendicant orders beyond the number that can be maintained without want from the goods or revenues of the monasteries themselves, decreeing as invalid anything done otherwise.

§ 2. But when an abbess or prioress of any monastery is required to render homage or an oath of fealty for a fief that the monastery itself holds from some prince or temporal lord, she can lawfully leave the monastery in that case with an honorable and suitable company, unless she can arrange with him to render it through a procurator. Once the homage has been done or the oath of fealty rendered, she shall return immediately to the monastery as soon as she conveniently can, so that nothing whatever is done in fraud of residence or remaining in the cloister.

§ 3. Furthermore, lest nuns have cause or occasion to wander, we ask, require, and beseech secular princes and other temporal lords through the bowels of the mercy of Jesus Christ, nevertheless counseling them in remission of their sins, to permit the abbesses, prioresses, and any nuns whatsoever who manage the care, administration, or business of their monasteries, by whatever names they are designated, to litigate through procurators in their tribunals or courts, lest those nuns have to wander in order to appoint procurators—who in some regions are called attorneys—or for other matters of this kind. But if any presume to act contrary to this and refuse to obey an exhortation so reasonable and holy, since it is contrary to law that women, especially religious women, be compelled to litigate personally, departs from the path of honor, and introduces danger to souls, they shall be compelled to this by their ecclesiastical ordinaries through ecclesiastical censure. We enjoin bishops and all other superior and inferior prelates that they likewise cause the causes or business that the aforesaid nuns have to conduct before them or in their courts—whether homages, oaths of fealty, lawsuits, or anything else—to be conducted and treated through the nuns' procurators.

§ 4. And because it would be of little use to establish laws unless there were persons to commit them to due execution, under adjuration of the divine judgment and threat of eternal malediction, in virtue of holy obedience, we strictly command all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops that each of them, in his own city and diocese, take care by his own authority to provide, in monasteries of nuns subject to him by ordinary law, and by authority of the Apostolic See in those belonging immediately to the Roman Church, for suitable enclosure to be constructed diligently, where it does not exist, at the expense of the monasteries themselves and from alms of the faithful that they shall procure for this, and for the nuns themselves to be enclosed as soon as they conveniently can. Abbots and other prelates, exempt as well as nonexempt, of any churches, monasteries, and orders whatsoever shall do the same in monasteries of this kind subject to them, if they wish to avoid the severity of divine indignation and ours. They shall restrain contradictors and rebels through ecclesiastical censure, appeal being set aside, invoking for this, if necessary, the aid of the secular arm. By this, however, the ordinaries of places are not to believe that any jurisdiction or power is attributed to them in exempt monasteries with regard to other matters.