Medieval Manuscripts in the d'Alzon Library: 1. Innocent VI Letter

Origin: Avignon (papal chancery), 1356

Provenance: Purchased in France and donated to the d'Alzon Library by Fr. Donat Lamothe A.A. ca. 2000.

Physical description: Parchment, 530 x 290 cm (excluding flap along bottom edge); 530 x 392 cm (including flap along bottom edge). Writing space 370 x 110 cm. Papal documentary script. As is typical of papal letters, the parchment sheet has been folded several times vertically and horizontally; the lowest horizontal fold is held in place by a hemp string that would have originally held the Pope's lead "bull" or seal, now missing. On the back of the parchment is a cursive description probably dating from the modern era. Mold has rendered significant parts of the text on both sides of the parchment illegible.

Further information: The littera apostolica is one of several types of documents issued by the papal curia during in the Middle Ages. Such letters were produced using a standard format. This format, along with the seal and the unique rhetorical formulas in the prose, helps to establish the document's authenticity.

Due to the mold, the text is not fully legible. Fortunately, a copy exists in the Vatican Apostolic Archives that the 17th-century Franciscan historian Luke Wadding transcribed in his Annales Minorum. Wadding's transcription is included below, amended with the formulaic salutation that he omitted.

In the letter, Innocent IV reprimands the recipients – bishops "wherever constituted" – for collecting procurations from monasteries of the Franciscans and Poor Clares. Visiting bishops were entitled to collect procurations from monastic houses; however, Franciscans were supposed to be exempt from this obligation due to their vows of poverty. Innocent therefore orders the bishops to cease collecting procurations from this order and return what they had already collected. The letter provides insight into ecclesiastical administration during the Avignon papacy (when the Pope resided in Avignon rather than Rome, 1309-1376) as well as 14th-century developments in the history of the Franciscan order.

Latin (Luke Wadding, Annales Minorum vol. 8, p. 466):

[Innocentius episcopus servus servorum dei.] Dilectis filiis nuntiis apostolicis ubilibet constitutis et substitutis ad ipsis. [Salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.] Licet vobis per alias nostras sub certa forma litteras dederimus in mandatis, ut Ecclesias & Monasteria, aliaque loca ecclesiastica, necnon Capitula, Collegia, & Conventus, ac personas eorum, secularia, & regularia, sancti Benedicti & sancti Augustini, nec non Cluniacen. Cistercien. Praemonstraten. & aliorum quorumcumque Ordinum, exempta dumtaxat, ac illa etiam, quae ex privilegio, vel consuetudine quoad visitationem Ordinariis non subsunt eorum, visitaretis, & ab Ecclesiis, Monasteriis, & locis, necnon Capitulis, Conventibus, Collegiis, & personis taliter visitatis, procurationes certo modo reciperetis in pecunia merita, quia tamen intentionis nostrae non fuit, nec est, quod vos loca, & Monasteria Fratrum, & Sororum Minorum, ac sanctae Clarae Ordinum ac Conventus & personas eorum, praetextu mandate praedicti visitare huiusmodi deberetis, universitati vestrae per Apostolica scripta mandamus, quatenus a visitatione locorum, & Monasteriorum Minorum, & sanctae Clarae Ordinum necnon Conventuum eorum praedictorum de cetero desistatis, & procurationes, si quas praetextu visitationis per vos factae in eis forsitan exegistis, restituere ipsis nullatenus differatis; obligations & promissiones factas vobis pro huiusmodi procurationum solution facienda vobis annullantes, quas nos etiam annullamus. Datum Avenione XIII. Kal. Junii. [Pontificatus nostri] anno IV [quarto].

English (trans. Dorgan):

[Pope Innocent, servant of the servants of God:]

Dear bishops and their substitutes wherever constituted,

Greetings and the pope's blessing.

Although by our other letters, we commanded in a specific manner that the churches and monasteries and other ecclesiastical places, as well as chapters, colleges, and convents, and their members, secular and regular, of the Benedictine, Augustine, Cluniac, Cistercian, Premonstraterian, and other orders, are exempt as far as this is concerned, you nevertheless visited those who, by privilege or custom with respect to the visitation by the ordinaries, do not come under them, and from these churches, monasteries, and places, as well as chapters, colleges, and convents, and their members, you would certainly receive procurations in proper money.

However, because it neither was nor is according our intention that you, on the pretext of the aforesaid mandate, ought to visit the monasteries of the Brothers and Sisters Minor, the orders of St. Clare, and the convents and members of them in this way, we order all of you by apostolic letter that you henceforth desist from the visitation of places and monasteries of Minors and of the Order of St. Clare, and likewise their aforesaid convents; and any procurations, which you may have demanded on the pretext of visitations made by you to them, are to be restored to the same, without you putting it off, annulling any obligations and promises made by you in exchange for the payment to be made for such procurations, which we also annul.

May 20 in the fourth year of our papacy [1356].