and their blood be demanded from our hands, we will effectively proceed to the execution of the aforementioned sacred constitutions regarding them, those months having lapsed.

Here follows concerning testaments and last wills

Since in certain places of our city and diocese, as we have learned, a detestable corruption is observed, namely that both cleric and layman, when established on the bed of sickness, cannot ordain legacies beyond a certain limited and expressed sum, neither to proper places nor to ecclesiastical persons for the remedy and salvation of his soul. Considering that the aforementioned custom is contrary to sacred canons and secular laws, since all laws proclaim that the last will and the last testament of a man should remain immutable, and there is nothing that is owed more to men than that the free style of their supreme will should exist, we utterly condemn this same custom, which is hateful to God and an enemy to souls and good morals, by the authority of this wholesome sanction. We firmly ordain that to those whom the laws do not prohibit from the making of testaments, whether they are in health or established on a bed of sickness, there shall be free power to bequeath, dispose, and ordain from the goods bestowed upon them by God to pious places and ecclesiastical persons, provided that they do not trespass against their legitimate heirs. Wishing and strictly commanding that all clerics and laymen hindering the legacies or wills of the deceased be compelled by sentences of excommunication upon persons and interdict upon places, the canonical monition having been given beforehand, to desist from such impediments.

To the same

We have heard with sorrow that the testaments and last wills of the faithful, both clerics and laymen, especially legacies and bequests made for the salvation of souls and for pious uses, are sometimes hindered and retarded in many ways in our city and diocese, in many places, through the perverse machinations of men and sometimes through intervening and opposing negligence. Since therefore the last will or the last testament of a man must be preserved by law, and the free style of the supreme will of a reasonable man should exist, and it pertains to our pastoral office to provide for such things and to defend a testament by both laws, we strictly inhibit all ecclesiastical and secular persons subject to our jurisdiction, under threat of divine judgment and the sentence of excommunication which we pass in these writings after a six-day monition has preceded, that they should not hinder, neglect, or retard the testaments and last wills of the faithful, ecclesiastical or secular persons whom the laws do not prohibit from the making of testaments, especially those extending to pious uses and the salvation of souls, and their due execution. Nor should they intermeddle with the cognition of testaments and the causes of the same and those moved for the occasion of them for the time being, but should remit such causes to us and our officials having the ordinary jurisdiction.

Concerning parishes and parishioners

A grave complaint has been brought to us that some, not content with their own rights and boundaries, presume to receive parishioners of another rashly for divine services against canonical sanctions, and since they are not the judges of said parishioners, they receive neither the power of binding nor loosing into them, yet making themselves judges in the penitential forum, dangerously...