Prooemium

The Sixth Book

Of the Decretals of Lord Pope Boniface VIII

Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons, all the doctors and scholars dwelling at Bologna: greeting and apostolic blessing.

Presiding over the governance of the sacrosanct Roman Church, which the unsearchable depth of divine providence, by an immutable disposition, has set above all churches and has willed to hold the chief teaching authority of the whole world, we are troubled by continual cares and pressed by constant meditation, so that, according to the office of stewardship entrusted to us, we may devote ourselves with the unremitting zeal of solicitude, insofar as it shall have been granted to us from on high, to the advantages of our subjects, in whose prosperity we indeed prosper. For we embrace willing labors for their repose, and sometimes pass sleepless nights, so that we may remove scandals from them and, insofar as is possible for us, repress—now by the clarification of ancient laws, and now by the promulgation of new ones—the disputes that human nature, ever hastening to bring forth new forms, daily strives to devise.

Indeed, after the volume of decretals compiled as providently as usefully by our predecessor Pope Gregory IX of happy memory, certain decretals were said to have been issued successively by him and by other Roman Pontiffs concerning various matters; concerning some of these, whether they were decretals and who their authors were was anxiously doubted in judicial proceedings and in the schools. We, having been called by the disposition of heaven to the summit of the supreme pontificate and having been urgently petitioned concerning this by many, desired, with divine grace assisting, for the public benefit, entirely to remove this sort of ambiguity and uncertainty, which was bringing loss to many, and to make clear which of these decretals ought to be retained and which ought thereafter to be rejected. Therefore, through our venerable brothers William, Archbishop of Embrun, and Berengar, Bishop of Béziers, and our beloved son Master Richard of Siena, vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church and doctor of both laws, we caused decretals of this sort to be reviewed more diligently. Finally, many of them having been cut away entirely because they appeared either to be temporary, contrary to themselves or to other laws, or altogether superfluous, and the remainder having been placed under their proper titles—some of them abridged, some changed in whole or in part, and many corrections, subtractions, and additions having been made in them as we saw expedient—we ordered them to be brought together into one book with certain of our constitutions. In these constitutions many salutary things are established for the correction of morals and the repose of subjects, which, with God’s favor, will bear abundant fruits in the house of the Lord, and many doubts frequently arising in judicial proceedings and outside them are decided.

We have judged that this book, which is to be joined to the other five books of the aforesaid volume of decretals, should be called the Sixth, so that the same volume, comprehending with this addition the sixfold number of books—which is a perfect number—may impart a perfect form in matters to be done and discipline in morals. Nor was it without reason that in this matter we omitted to observe the practice of our predecessors, who, when they newly promulgated certain constitutions, ordered them to be placed in the series of the ancient ones. For we did this lest innumerable books have to be destroyed and others newly made, not without the greatest losses, labors, and expenses.

Therefore, by apostolic writings we command your whole body that, receiving with ready affection this book, arranged with great maturity and transmitted to you under our seal, you henceforth use it in judicial proceedings and in the schools, and that you no longer receive or hold as decretals any decretals or constitutions promulgated by any of our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, after the publication of the aforesaid volume, except those that are inserted or specifically reserved in this book.