# Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils

DISCIPLINARY DECREES
OF THE
GENERAL COUNCILS
TEXT, TRANSLATION, AND COMMENTARY
BY REV. H. J. SCHROEDER, O.P.
B. HERDER BOOK CO.
15 & 17 SOUTH BROADWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO. AND 33 QUEEN SQUARE, LONDON, W. C. 1937
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed in U. S. A.
NIHIL OBSTAT
Fr. Norbertus Georges, O.P.,
Fr. Humbertus Kane, O.P.
IMPRIMI POTEST
Fr. Terentius Stephanus McDermott, O.P.,
Prior Provincialis
NIHIL OBSTAT
Sti. Ludovici, die 6. Aprilis, 1937,
F. J. Holweck,
Censor Librorum
IMPRIMATUR
Sti. Ludovici, die 7. Aprilis, 1937,
✠ Joannes J. Glennon,
Archiepiscopus
Copyright 1937 B. HERDER BOOK CO.
Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton and New York
PREFACE
This book was not written for specialists. Such an undertaking, covering the first eighteen general councils, is beyond the mental and physical resources of a single lifetime, nor could it be compressed within the covers of a single volume. Indeed, a study of any one of the great outstanding councils, based on documentary sources and built up with the aid of printed and unprinted material, giving at the same time the historical background of its decrees, would require the better part of a single working career. Its purpose is to make readily available to the clergy, students, and educated laity, in one volume and in an English dress, the disciplinary decrees enacted by the Church in her general councils up to and exclusive of the Council of Trent. So far as the writer is aware, it is the first time that a work of this kind has been undertaken in any language. Outside the large collections of Labbe and Cossart, Hardouin, Mansi, and others, which are available mostly in university and large public libraries only, we have, of course, the nine volume Conciliengeschichte of Bishop Hefele, recently translated into French and augmented by the Benedictine H. Leclercq (18 volumes). Hefele's history is still the standard work on the councils. For the ordinary private library, however, and for the classes of readers concerned, it is too large a work. It covers not only the general councils but also national and provincial councils and diocesan synods up to the sixteenth century, and embraces history of dogma, canon law, liturgy, ecclesiastical history and discipline, and political history. It has furthermore the disadvantage of being in a foreign language. The present work, therefore, is intended to supply a want, a want indeed so long felt that no apology is needed in the attempt to meet it.
Needless to say, the task was by no means an easy one, for in some respects it meant the breaking of new ground. Decrees were not always easy to translate and to interpret. That I have everywhere succeeded in doing so correctly, is a claim which I am not conceited enough to make. The commentaries on the decrees required an extraordinary amount of reading and study. They give the why and wherefore of the decrees, the historical background, without which many would be unintelligible to readers of today. For, after all, the full scope and import of a conciliar decision, whether of a dogmatic or disciplinary nature, can be grasped only when studied in the light of the conditions and forces that produced it. Unfortunately, from an historical viewpoint some of the ​general councils, important ones too, have been sadly neglected. Thus far the five councils of the Lateran and the two of Lyons have been treated in a stepmother fashion. Even the Fourth Council of the Lateran, presided over by the great Innocent III, one of the greatest and most influential ecclesiastical assemblies, has to date received only scant consideration from the historian. A conciliar decree may be brief, simple, and unassuming; yet, what a wealth of interesting historical material lies buried and forgotten in its background! To keep this book within a reasonable compass, I have added commentaries to those decrees only that required them for the purpose of elucidation.
The arrangement of the work is the same throughout. First is given a historical sketch of the council; this is followed by a digest of the decree, the decree itself, and the commentary where one is given. For purposes of convenience I have added the text of the decrees. The Greek text is that edited by Lauchert, Die Kanones der wichtigsten altkirchlichen Concilien, Freiburg i.Br., 1896. The Latin text of the Eighth General Council I have taken from Catalani, Sacrosancta concilia oecumenica. From the same work and from Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des conciles, with reference to the Friedberg edition of the Corpus Juris Canonici, is taken the text of the following councils; while that of the Councils of Basle and the Fifth Lateran is taken from the Conciliorum collectio of Hardouin.
The Author
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