Folia Theologica 3. (1992)

Charles Duggan: Decretal letters to Hungary

DECRETAL LETTERS

23

Prodanus in fact occurs in the list of bishops of Zagreb in the relevant period.

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WH 616, JL — , Cott. 4.61, Pet. 3.65. Ungarische Jahr. 141-42 no. 1; Századok 7 410-11 no. 2, 1163/4-72.

X. To the bishop of Split/Spalato

Super eo quod a nobis

Alexander III to the archbishop of Split/Spalato concerning bigamists and simoniacs in ordinations, and uncanonical marriages

The decretal Super eo quod, a letter of Alexander III in response to questions raised by the archbishop of Split/Spalato, was treated in three sections in its transmission through the collections. The first and second dealt respectively with bigamists and simoniacs involved in ordinations. In the case of the former, those who ordain them must be deprived of their power and office of ordination, and bigamists receiving orders must be deprived of them, but dispensation is possible in the case of the ordainer. As for simoniacs, the pope replies that he cannot give a certain answer to the recipient, unless he is more surely informed of the circumstances. Some may be ordained simoniacally, without themselves being aware of the fact, and these can remain in their orders, since they are not simoniacs. The third part of the letter, which was not transmitted to the Decretales, throws light on uncanonical marriages in the fourth and fifth degrees of consanguinity. Because of the hardness of the people’s hearts — propter duritiam populi — the archbishop can overlook such uncanonical marriages in silent discretion.

The full text of the letter, which perhaps throws light on the state of religious observance in the society of the region at that time, is known from archival sources only, but a slightly truncated version appears integrally in Cass, and 1 Rot., and in component chapters (abc) in Sang, (c), 1 Comp, (abc) and the Decretales (ab). On the evidence of the Kassel and Rouen manuscripts, the decretal apparently first found its way into the collections from the papal registers, or from an archival source derived from them, since the former preserves the inscription Idem (= Alexander III) in registro spalaten. archiepiscopo, and the latter originally read