[Constitutiones synodales ecclesiae Constantiensis, 1481]

and individual prelates of our city and diocese we exhort in the Lord that they provide the vicars of the churches, parishes, and those united and incorporated to their own tables within our diocese, with congruent prebends from which they may decently be sustained, pay episcopal and archidiaconal rights, maintain hospitality, and be able to support other incumbent burdens, as they are held to do by law. Otherwise, as they are bound by law, we will not omit to proceed regarding the deputation of such prebends, matters to be observed being observed.

Concerning institutions

Since in all sacred ministries, maturity of age, gravity of character, and knowledge of letters are to be required, by the present perpetual edict we prohibit that henceforth any secular or religious priest within our city and diocese should presume to rule or in any way officiate in any ecclesiastical benefice, with or without care of souls, without institution, investiture, induction, or license obtained from us or our vicar or otherwise lawfully and through sealed letters, and shown beforehand to the dean or his lieutenant. Unless the rector, vicar, or chaplain of said benefice resides therein personally, by whose name and consent someone as an associate in divine services may officiate there. We condemn him who acts otherwise, since he will not make the fruits his own, by the law itself to answer to our treasury for the fruits thus raised by him, and we decree them to be applied to that same treasury. We grant, however, that after a benefice has first begun to be vacant, the local dean may provide for divine services for the first month and no longer by himself or another whom he chooses, observing however the moderation expressed above concerning the office of the dean.

Since it was prohibited in the sacred Lateran Council to extirpate the detestable greed of some, that no one should receive different ecclesiastical dignities or parochial churches, and it was subsequently decreed that he who receives a benefice having care of souls annexed, if he previously had such, is deprived of it by the very fact. And if by chance he pretends to retain it, he should be despoiled of the other; indeed, if he holds it beyond a month, he is deprived of both, saving however the dispensation of the Apostolic See in these matters. And elsewhere the canon, rebuking such a vice of greed, asserts that such pluralists in benefices with care of souls deal with another's property because, by such retention, they do not belong to them by law, and thus he would commit theft in a way and robbery, not without grave danger to his soul and the souls of those hearing him. Therefore, so that such canons of the sacred general councils may be duly brought to execution, it is commanded by the decree of Gregory X in the sacred general council to the ordinaries of places that they should strictly compel their subjects, who presume to hold several dignities or churches to which the care of souls is imminent, or a parsonage an ecclesiastical benefice with care of souls or dignity with another benefice to which similar care is annexed, to exhibit the dispensation by such authority by which they assert themselves to canonically hold such churches, parsonages, or dignities, within a time to be determined by the judgment of the ordinaries. We, therefore, desiring to obviate the dangers of souls and to provide for this so that ecclesiastical benefices may be canonically possessed through the execution of the aforementioned, by this present statute we decree that henceforth from the publication of these presents, those holding several benefices with care, and several dignities and parsonages, or a parsonage and a dignity with another benefice with care, shall show their dispensations by whose authority they presume to hold them, and also their titles to the same, within the space of two months before us or our vicar in spiritual matters and under the penalties of law. Otherwise, lest those failing in titles and such dispensations, by occupying the benefices themselves unjustly, deal with the property of another, and consequently commit theft, and souls thereby be endangered...