1451.
4 Id. Dec.
(10 Dec.)
St. Peter's, Rome.
(f. 250d.) |
Declaration etc., as below. The recent petition of the prior and convent of the Carthusian house of Jesus of Bethle[h]em, Schene, in the diocese of Winchester, contained that Henry V, in the court of peers and parliament of the realm of England, with the consent of the said peers and lords spiritual and temporal and commons, then assembled in the said parliament, resumed the manors of Leuesham and Grenewych in the diocese of Rochester, and their appurtenances, from the abbot and convent of the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter, Ghent (Ganden.), in the diocese of Tournai, who held them from him in fee, and granted them to the said prior and convent and house, which he himself had founded and built; that, after they had held them in peace for several years, the said abbot and convent impetrated from the present pope letters, as below, suggesting to him that the said manors had belonged to them from time immemorial and that the said prior and convent had intruded themselves; that the general synod of Basel committed the cause which arose between the parties, first to the late Branda, bishop of Porto, then resident at Basel, at the instance of the abbot and convent, and afterwards to James Clant, a canon of St. Severinus's, Cologne, one of the judges of causes then held at Basel, the latter of whom, after Eugenius IV's transfer of the said synod from Basel to Ferrara, by a definitive
sentence adjudged the said manors to the said abbot and convent, removed the said prior and convent from their occupation, restored the abbot and convent, and condemned the prior and convent in the fruits etc. received from the said manors and in costs, which latter he subsequently taxed at 200 florins of the camera of good gold and just weight; and that, it being further suggested to the pope by the abbot and convent that they feared lest, whilst the suit had been pending, others had intruded themselves or might do so, he ordered the bishop of Bergamo and the officials of Besançon and Tournai to cause the aforesaid to be executed, restoring the abbot and convent and removing the prior etc.;
under pretext of which letters of the pope (impetrated or rather extorted from him by the said abbot and convent when he had left Rome on account of the pestilence and was residing in Spoleto), and of the consequent processes, the abbot and convent caused the prior and convent to be admonished to obey the said sentence, under pain of sentence of excommunication and other sentences, censures etc., and upon their disobedience caused them to be declared to have incurred the said sentence of excommunication etc. and to be publicly proclaimed excommunicate etc., and molested them in other ways and daily do so. At the petition therefore of the said prior and convent, the pope (seeing that the said letters are [for reasons given] against the style of the chancery) declares null the said letters executory, as having emanated against the pope's knowledge and the said style (fn. 4) , and also the processes and censures made through them etc., absolves conditionally (pro potioris cautele suffragio) the said prior and convent etc. from the said sentences of excommunication etc., dispenses them on account of irregularity contracted, if any, and rehabilitates them, and inhibits the above bishop and officials from proceeding to execute the above sentence or the pope's said letters, etc. Ad fut. rei mem. Romanus pontifex cum naturam. (Poggius. | l. F. de Laude. Constantinus.) [In the margin:Oct(obris). 5½ pp. See Monasticon, VI, pp. 31–33, and Cal. Pat. Rolls, Henry VI, 1422–1429, p. 222.] |