18 - Of Conferring Ecclesiastical Benefices Without Loss

Summary

Traders There must be no trade in ecclesiastical offices are to be punished.

Every statement of the laws is in vain, unless the scandalous and excessive greed of some people (who twist the good intentions of the law to suit themselves), is restrained by other certain bonds of penalties. For since it was most clearly determined by our ancestors that revenues and fruits sufficient to maintain their status should be supplied to the ministers of churches from those places to whose government they have been appointed, in these more recent times such great greed on the part of many patrons has appeared that they amass wealth from wherever they can, so that when they appoint to benefices they reserve a part of the revenue either for themselves or for their dependants.

The many forms which trade in ecclesiastical offices takes.

Some people collect the fruits of their benefices themselves and reserve all their revenues either for themselves or by covenant for their dependants, setting aside certain fixed stipends for the ministers of the church, which moreover are much smaller than the size of the benefices would suggest. Others, somewhat more generous, reserve for themselves by covenant only that land which can be valued and is commonly called glebe. Some take over houses and buildings which were normally granted to ministers, while almost all the others either collect an annual pension from their unfortunate ministers, or else deduct the tithes which they owe according to the ratable value [of the lands], or add some [particular] catch, either open or secret, to their [particular] benefices, to such an extent that there are none who confer benefices whole and unencumbered, with complete right to free enjoyment of all their privileges, on the ministers of the churches.

Pacta in muneribus sacris interposta non valere.

Superiorum igitur difficultatum ut aliqua possit esse levatio, volumus et iubemus ut sive beneficia, sive quaecunque sint аliquае dignitates ecclesiasticae, gratis condonentur, nee quicquam in illis sit Ulla ratione praecisum; et quicquid [u/i]110 modo pactum aut conventum fuerit inter patronos ipsos, et illos quorum futura beneficia vel dignitates sunt, sive sit inter illos solos actum, sive per alios irrepserit, utrinque suam ad id operam interponentes, omnia huiusmodi pacta et conventa vel ab ipsis vel ab aliis, illorum respectu, quacunque ratione vel iam instituta, vel quae posthac instituentur, prae[42a]sentis auctoritate legis tolli praecipimus et ad nihilum recidere.