Decretals

“ In the 16th Nationality of the collection. century the Protestants, who wished to represent the forgeries in the light of an attempt in favour of the papacy, ascribed the origin of the False Decretals to Rome, but neither the manuscript tradition nor the facts confirm this view, which is nowadays entirely abandoned. Everybody is agreed in placing the origin of the False Decretals within the Frankish empire. ”

“ These Decretals are full of anachronisms. The consulships and names of consuls mentioned in them are confused and out of order; and, moreover, the true dates of the writers themselves, as Bishops of Rome, do not agree with those assumed in these letters.
“6. Their style is extremely barbarous, full of solecisms; and in them we often meet with certain words never used till the later ages. Also, they are all of one style! How does it happen that so many different Popes, living in divers centuries, should all write in the same manner?” ”

“ And hence the popes, who hold nothing in greater horror than these surprisals, have, by a letter of Alexander III., enacted an ecclesiastical statute, which is inserted in the canonical law, to permit the suspension of the execution of their bulls and decretals, when there is ground to suspect that they have been imposed upon. “If,” says that pope to the Archbishop of Ravenna, “we sometimes send decretals to your fraternity which are opposed to your sentiments, give yourselves no distress on that account. ”

“ The whole body of citizens or its majority alone is the human "legislator."
7. Decretals and decrees of the bishop of Rome, or of any other bishops or body of bishops, have no power to coerce anyone by secular penalties or punishments, except by the authorization of the human "legislator."
8. The "legislator" alone or the one who rules by its authority has the power to dispense with human laws.
9. The elective principality or other office derives its authority from the election of the body having the right to elect, and not from the confirmation or approval of any other power. ”

“ Though we cannot admit that the False Decretals were composed in order to enforce the rights of the papacy, we may at least consider whether the popes did not make use of the False Decretals to support their rights. It is certain that in 864 Rothad of Soissons took with him Canonical influence. to Rome, if not the collection, at least important extracts from the pseudo-Isidore ”

“ Hold, hold! cried Rhizotome; it is not yet time to clap. My sister Kate and my sister Ren had put the crepines of their hoods, their ruffles, snuffekins, and neck-ruffs new washed, starched, and ironed, into that very book of decretals ”

“ As for you other good people, I must earnestly pray and beseech you to believe no other thing, to think on, say, undertake, or do no other thing, than what's contained in our sacred decretals and their corollaries, this fine Sextum, these fine Clementinae, these fine Extravagantes. O deific books! So shall you enjoy glory, honour, exaltation, wealth, dignities, and preferments in this world; be revered and dreaded by all, preferred, elected, and chosen above all men. ”

“ Consult also vol. v. p. 156, in Elucidation IV.; also same volume, Elucidation III.
3. On p. 610, Ep. 2, sec. 1, observe the reference to the “statutes of Emperors,” where the wily forger forgot himself, as if the Cæsars of this date had legislated for the Christian Church. On the spirit of the ancient Canons, refuting all these Decretals, compare the Canons of Nicæa, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 15; of Constantinople, 2 and 3; of Ephesus, 8; and of Chalcedon, 9 and 28. To these Canons, against the claims of the Paparchy, the Church of England appealed at her Restoration. ”

“ I have so much fasted that I'm almost grown hump-shouldered. Come, then, let's go into the church, said Homenas; and pray forgive us if for the present we do not sing you a fine high mass. The hour of midday is past, and after it our sacred decretals forbid us to sing mass, I mean your high and lawful mass. But I'll say a low and dry one for you. I had rather have one moistened with some good Anjou wine, cried Panurge; fall to, fall to your low mass, and despatch. ”

“ Friar John began to paw, neigh, and whinny at the snout's end, as one ready to leap, or at least to play the ass, and get up and ride tantivy to the devil like a beggar on horseback.
Methinks, said Pantagruel, a man might have been more out of danger near the white of which Gymnast spoke than was formerly Diogenes near another. How is that? asked Homenas; what was it? Was he one of our decretalists? Rarely fallen in again, egad, said Epistemon, returning from stool; I see he will hook his decretals in, though by the head and shoulders. ”

“ King Darius, live for ever:
6:7. All the princes of the kingdom, the magistrates, and governors, the senators, and judges, have consulted together, that an imperial decree, and an edict be published: That whosoever shall ask any petition of any god, or man, for thirty days, but of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of the lions.
6:8. Now, therefore, O king, confirm the sentence, and sign the decree: that what is decreed by the Medes and Persians may not be altered, nor any man be allowed to transgress it. ”

“ And the King our lord, having agreed to this unanimous and uniform resolution and representation of all the knights deputies in the Cortes of the kingdom; he has been pleased, by his royal decree of the seventh of this month, to command it to be remitted to his supreme council, jointly with the writing of renunciation, ordaining that the tenor of the law be forthwith formed, extended, and disposed, with all the circumstances of clearness and strength, for its more inviolable and perpetual observation. ”

“ A Bill reserved for the signification of the King’s Pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within one year from the day on which it was presented to the Representative of the Crown for the King’s Assent, the Representative of the Crown signifies by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament/Oireachtas, or by proclamation, that it has received the Assent of the King in Council. ”

“ Upon ascending the throne, the King shall take an oath in the presence of the two Chambers to observe faithfully the present constitution. Article 23. The regent, before entering on the duties of that office, shall swear fidelity to the King and faithful observance of this constitution and of the laws of the State. Article 24. All the inhabitants of the Kingdom, whatever their rank or title, shall enjoy equality before the law. All shall equally enjoy civil and political rights and be eligible to civil and military office, except as otherwise provided by law. ”

“ In the antient times, before the division of the courts, the chancellor was a very considerable officer of the curia regis. It was his business to [305] write and seal with the great seal the diplomata, or chartæ regis, what we now call letters patents; to issue all writs, either for founding the jurisdiction of the curia regis, and the bringing causes into that court, that by the antient law belonged to the courts in the country; or those to the nobles, to summon them to attend the commune concilium, or parliament. ”

“ In Articuli super Chartas; when the Great Charter was confirmed, at the Request of his Prelates, Earls and Barons, we find these Passages. 1. Nevertheless the King and his Council do not intend by reason of this Statute to diminish the King’s Right, &c. 2. And notwithstanding all these things before-mentioned, or any part of them; both the King and his Council, and all they that were present at the making of this Ordinance, will and intend that the Right and Prerogative of his Crown shall be saved to him in all things. ”

“ When the subject of discussion in a civil matter involves the examination of accounts, or by the absence of witnesses out of the kingdom, or by other reasons it happens that the Assizes cannot render justice, then the cause may be either commenced in the Court of the Pretor, or be brought there, and appeal shall be had from the Pretor to the Chancellor, and from the Chancellor to the Senate, whether upon the facts or upon the judgments rendered, as well upon the principle as upon the form, the whole in the manner which the legislature shall determine upon. ”

“ And, as to the terms of the original contract between king and people, these I apprehend to be now couched in the coronation oath, which by the statute 1 W. & M. st. 1. c. 6. is to be administred to every king and queen, who shall succeed to the imperial crown of these realms, by one of the archbishops or bishops of the realm, in the presence of all the people; who on their parts do reciprocally take the oath of allegiance to the crown. ”

“ This royal court or Parliament was, however, not a Legislature in our modern sense of that word. It was rather a convention, in which, by a voluntary compact between the king as supreme suzerain and the greater seigneurs as his feudatories, an ordonnance or an impost was established, either throughout the entire kingdom, or in some seigneuries apart from the rest. From any such compact any seigneur might dissent on behalf of himself and his immediate vassals or, by simply absenting himself, might render the extension of it to his own fief impossible. ... ”

“ Such an agent could cope with podestà and bishop, and even an unruly populace rarely ventured a resort to temporary violence. The statutes of the republics, as we have seen, were modified and moulded to adapt them to the fullest development of the new power, under the excuse of facilitating the extermination of heresy, and the Holy Office became the ultimate expression of the serviceable devotion of the Mendicant Orders to the Holy See. ”

“ It is much more your Lordship's duty that you should attend to this business than it is to prevent the king and his encomenderos from enjoying what in justice they ought to, because they do not give you ministers or because they have not them. Your Lordship can remedy and provide for this only in one of three ways—either as a protector of the Indians, or as bishop, or as one who has a special commission for it from his Majesty. ”

“ The barons shall chuse five and twenty barons of the realm, whom they will themselves, upon whom it shall be incumbent, that with all their might they observe and keep, and cause to be observed and kept, the peace and liberties which the King has granted to them, and confirmed by his charter ”

“ We absolve, at the same time, the electors, princes, and states, and all that belong to the empire, particularly the members of the supreme tribunal, and other magistrates of the empire, from those duties by which they were united to us as the legal chief of the empire, according to the constitution. ”

“ Constitutions or systems of government, themselves local reservoirs of executive and legislative power, have been founded in every part of the globe, and often remodelled and amended, sometimes by Acts passed with assent of the Imperial Parliament, but far more often by Letters Patent and Orders in Council which require no such assent. Newly-annexed peoples are governed by proclamations. ”

“ Anyone in the realm may take oath that, for the accomplishment of all the aforesaid matters, he will obey the orders of the said twenty-five barons and distress us to the utmost of his power; and we give public and free leave to everyone wishing to take oath to do so, and to none will we deny the same. Moreover, all such of our subjects who do not of their own free will and accord agree to swear to the said twenty-five barons, to distrain and distress us together with them, we will compel to do so by our command in the aforesaid manner. ”

“ But in law the king was sole judge, the vassals and prelates being only advisers. During the 12th and at the beginning of the 13th centuries the curia regis continued to discharge these functions, except that its importance and actual competence continued to increase, and that we frequently find in it, in addition to the vassals and prelates who formed the council, consiliarii, who are evidently men whom the king had in his entourage, as his ordinary and professional councillors. ”

“ II. And we wish that if any judgments be given henceforth against the provisions of the aforesaid charters, by justices and other officials of ours who hold pleas before them contrary to any point contained in the charters, they shall be undone and held as nought.
III. And we wish that these same charters under our seal be sent to the cathedral churches throughout our kingdom, {112} and remain there; and that they be twice a year read before the people. ”

“ If the legislative body is not assembled, the regent shall cause a proclamation to be published in which shall be ex- pressed his oath and the promise to repeat it as soon as the legislative body shall be assembled.
13. As long as the regent has not entered upon the exercise of his functions, the sanction of the laws remains suspended; the ministers continue to perform under their responsibility all the acts of the executive power. ”

“ To permit or forbid, with the consent of the Cortes, the publication of decrees of ecclesiastical councils and pontifical bulls containing provisions of general import; if they relate to particular affairs or matters involving the concerns of government, the advice of the council of state shall be taken; and if they relate to or involve subjects of litigation, the supreme tribunal of justice shall take cognizance thereof, and decree upon the same according to law; 16. To appoint and remove from office, the ministers of state and others. Art. ”