Title IX: On Punishments

Under the old law, when an archbishop exercises his jurisdiction in his province, he can punish notorious persons who injure him, his messengers, and his household if his jurisdiction is impeded through this; otherwise he cannot, unless custom grants him more. But today he then punishes such injuries even if they do not impede his jurisdiction. This states the point.

Innocent IV.

The Roman Church. (And below:) It is lawful for the Archbishop of Reims, when visiting his province, by his own authority to punish for an injury of this kind—provided that it is notorious—those who then presume to injure him, his household, or others whom he directs throughout the same province for this purpose, and also, when he convokes a council, those who injure his messengers whom he sends for it or otherwise throughout the province itself while exercising his due jurisdiction, if on this occasion his jurisdiction is impeded in these matters; unless it is recognized that more belongs to him by the custom of the Church of Reims. By our special grant, there shall also be a free faculty for him and for other metropolitans in their provinces, while they thus exercise jurisdiction in them, to punish manifest and notorious offenses then inflicted upon them or their people, even if jurisdiction of this kind does not happen to be impeded thereby.

This decretal teaches in the presence of whom a degradation ought to be performed, of which garments, ornaments, books, and instruments the stripping is to be made in degradation, and which words the person degrading is to use. Johannes Andreae.

Boniface VIII, to the Bishop of Béziers.

Your fraternity asked us how degradation ought to be performed. Concerning this we respond to you in this manner: verbal degradation or deposition from ecclesiastical orders or grades is to be performed by the cleric’s own bishop, with the specified number of bishops defined by the canons assisting him in the degradation of clerics constituted in sacred orders, although the sentence of the proper bishop without the presence of other bishops suffices in the degradation of those who received only minor orders. But the actual or solemn degradation of a soldier of the heavenly army, that is, of a cleric, when there is to be a proceeding to it, shall be made like the discharge of one who serves in the armed military: the military insignia are taken from him, and thus, removed from military service, he is cast out of the camp, deprived of military fellowship and privilege.

Therefore, the cleric to be degraded, clothed in sacred vestments and holding in his hands a book, vessel, or other instrument or ornament pertaining to his order, as if he ought solemnly to minister in his office, shall be brought into the presence of the bishop. The bishop shall publicly take from him each thing individually—whether vestments, chalice, book, or any other things which were delivered or conferred upon him by the bishop according to the custom of clerics being ordained in his ordination—beginning from that vestment or ornament which had been given or delivered last, and, descending by degrees, shall continue the degradation as far as the first vestment which is given in the conferral of the tonsure. Then his head shall be shaved or shorn, lest a trace of the tonsure or clerical state remain upon him.

The bishop may use in a degradation of this kind certain words for terror, opposed to those which were pronounced in the conferral of orders, saying to the priest these or similar words in removing the chasuble: “We take from you the priestly vestment, and deprive you of priestly honor.” And thus, using similar words in the removal of the remaining insignia, in taking away the last thing which in the conferral of orders was first, he shall pronounce or say in the following or another similar manner: “By the authority of God almighty, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and by our own, we take from you the clerical habit, and depose, degrade, despoil, and strip you of every clerical order, benefice, and privilege.”

Although prison was devised for custody, someone can nevertheless be punished by the penalty of imprisonment perpetually or for a time. Johannes Andreae.

The same.

Although prison is known to have been specially appointed for the custody of the accused, not for punishment, we nevertheless do not disapprove if, after weighing with provident deliberation their excesses, persons, and other circumstances, you consign clerics subject to you who have confessed to or been convicted of crimes to prison perpetually or for a time, as you shall see to be expedient, to perform penance.

A punishment imposed upon someone and his descendants is not extended to descendants of the female line unless something else is expressed in the law or sentence. This states the point. Zenzelinus.

The same.

Whenever a punishment is imposed by a person or by law upon someone and his sons or descendants as far as a specified generation, the punishment itself affects only those who are recognized to descend through the male, not the female, line, unless something else is expressed in the law or sentence.

First, he punishes those who pursue, strike, or seize cardinals, and the associates of that crime. Secondly, their sons and grandsons. Thirdly, he adds a punishment for the pursuers themselves. Fourthly, what satisfaction they ought to make when they are absolved and what they obtain through absolution. Fifthly, concerning persons culpable only through counsel or simply favoring this crime. Sixthly, he permits the punishments to be extended to collateral relatives. Seventhly, he establishes concerning those who pursue clerics or religious of the household of the Pope or of the cardinals. Eighthly, he establishes concerning those who kill cardinals. Ninthly, he says that secular powers ought nevertheless to employ the legal penalties against such persons and also cause this constitution to be observed, and he imposes a punishment upon those acting contrary to it. Johannes Andreae.

The same.

Adhering to the footsteps of our predecessor Pope Honorius III of happy memory, with certain things added and withdrawn, with the common counsel of our brothers we establish by this constitution, to remain perpetually in force, that if anyone hereafter falls into this kind of sacrilege, so that he has pursued a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church in a hostile manner, struck him, or seized him; or was an associate of the one acting; commanded it to be done or ratified the deed; gave counsel or favor; or afterward knowingly received or defended the same person, then, like one guilty of the crime of injured majesty, he shall be perpetually infamous, and likewise publicly renounced as an enemy and placed under ban. He shall be incapable of testament, so that he neither has free capacity to make a testament nor is called to anyone’s goods by testament or intestacy, so that, repelled from every succession and confounded by public rejection, he may find less readily a successor to his malice. His dwellings shall be made desolate, and, so that there may be no one to inhabit them, all his buildings shall be given over to ruin; and so that perpetual ruin may testify to a perpetual mark of infamy, they shall at no time be repaired. No one shall be bound to repay debts to him or to answer him in judgment. Whatever is found among his goods shall be applied to the ownership of the fisc or the commonwealth, so that he may transmit none of them to descendants, but rather that his goods may in a certain manner be condemned with him.

If he holds any fiefs, leases, office, or spiritual or temporal benefice from any churches, he shall be deprived of them by the law itself, and they shall freely return to the churches in such a way that the rectors of the churches may dispose of them according to their will. But if any of the aforesaid persons has a son or sons, grandson or grandsons descending in the direct line, beneficed with any benefice, even if he or they have obtained pontifical dignity, they shall be deprived of them by the law itself, with hope of promotion entirely removed. To none of such sons and grandsons descending from them through the male sex shall the gate to any ecclesiastical or worldly dignity or honor be opened, nor shall there be an ascent to the government of any place. The faculty of postulating shall be denied them; the notariate, judgeship, and every other public office or ministry shall be interdicted to them. In judgments their assertion against anyone shall find no faith and no credibility, so that they are rendered entirely unworthy of testimony. Ascent to orders shall be prohibited to them; access to a benefice or ecclesiastical office shall be denied. And, so that their infamy may be more notorious, no approach to legitimate acts shall lie open to them; no gate shall be opened to them concerning any of the aforesaid things, every hope of dispensation being removed.

We likewise add to the present sanction that, from the aforesaid pursuit as from the laying on of violent hands, anyone shall incur by the fact itself a sentence of excommunication; and both the pursuer and the other aforesaid participants in so great an evil, for as long as they continue in their contumacy, shall be publicly denounced as excommunicated on every Sunday and feast day, with bells rung and candles lit, throughout all the churches of the place in which so great a crime was attempted, and also of neighboring cities and dioceses. They cannot obtain the benefit of absolution from anyone other than the Roman Pontiff, except only when constituted at the point of death.

But when they are to be absolved, first they shall give sufficient and suitable security that they will obey the punishment to be imposed and, with the Lord’s aid, perform the penance to be enjoined; then, on Sundays and solemn days, throughout all the principal churches of that place and of neighboring places, they shall proceed naked before the people, wearing only loincloths and carrying rods in their hands, with which they shall be publicly scourged throughout the same churches. They shall afterward go overseas and perform penance there for at least three years, and shall not afterward return from there without a special license of the Apostolic See. But when such a person has merited the grace of reconciliation, after obtaining the benefit of absolution, license shall be granted to him to prosecute an injury to himself and his people, and recovery from later-acquired goods of those debts which were contracted shall not be denied him.

We have not deemed it proper to omit this: if anyone is culpable in the aforesaid matters by bare counsel or simple favor, the judge shall measure the punishment of such a person from his fault, so that vengeance may proceed according as the excess shall require. Moreover, because it is fitting that the severity of vengeance be extended more widely by reason of the unspeakable crime, that the measure of blows overflow on account of the enormity of the faults, and that it not be content with the customary punishments, we establish that the circumspection of the Roman Pontiff may extend the punishments contained in this our constitution to collateral relatives—namely, the brothers, nephews, and grandnephews of such persons—as reasonable circumstances shall counsel.

We have also judged it fitting that this be joined to the aforesaid things: if anyone should presume to afflict any cleric or religious of our household or of the cardinals with any of the aforesaid excesses, the punishment shall be proportioned to the delict, so that, with vengeance corresponding equally to the excess, rash hands which reverence for God, us, or our brothers does not restrain may henceforth be restrained from offense by fear of vengeance. But if anyone, by himself or through another, kills a cardinal—which God forbid—or gives cause of death, then beyond what the aforesaid things contain, the power of jurisdiction shall rise against him and the rigor of vengeance shall leap upon him in such a way that, against the support of life, he invokes the solace of death, while living a spectacle of punishment, not of fault; of vengeance, not of offense.

Through this we do not remove from secular powers the faculty of using against such persons the laws which Catholic princes enacted against sacrilegious persons. For what place of government can be safe, what ruler will enjoy security, if the Roman Church, which by the Lord’s disposition is the head and teacher of all churches, is subjected to these misfortunes? If her special sons are exposed to dangers of this kind? What son of the Church, what zealot of the faith, would not be touched by so great an insult and moved by so harsh a confusion? Indeed, if he is a son he will grieve; if faithful, he will be injured when the mother of the faith is injured.

Therefore, if a prince, senator, consul, podestà, other lord, or rector does not cause the tenor of the present constitution to be observed against the aforesaid presumptuous persons, both he and his officials shall by the fact itself incur a sentence of excommunication within a month after the matter has come to their knowledge. But any city other than Rome which has given counsel, aid, or favor to the person or persons acting or presuming such things, or has not deemed that persons offending in this way should be punished within at least a month, as the enormity of so great a crime shall require and the faculty is available to it, shall by the fact itself be deprived of pontifical dignity and what is above it, and shall nevertheless remain interdicted.