“No cleric shall utter or dictate a sentence of blood, or exercise capital jurisdiction, or be present where it is exercised. Nor shall a cleric write or dictate letters concerning judgements of blood. Nor shall a subdeacon, deacon or priest practise surgery involving cutting or cautery.”—Ibid. Cap. 9 (Concil. Lateran. IV).
The German prince-bishops, who had haute et basse justice, did not invest their judges with power to pronounce sentences of blood, but procured commissions for them from the emperor, as otherwise they were deemed blood-guilty and were deprived of their office. The secular princes were under no such obligation.—Schwabenspiegel Cap. cxi (Senckenberg, Corp. Jur. German, II, 140).—See also Schwäbisches Lehenrecht cap. xvii (Ibid. II, 17, 18).
A cleric uttering a sentence of blood, causing mutilation or death, becomes irregular and, on this account, although he does not ipso jure forfeit his benefices, yet he is to be deprived of them by the Ordinary or forced to resign them.—Thesaurus, De Pœnis ecclesiasticis, s. v. Judicis laici munus, cap. 2.—Cf. Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, s. v. Irregularitas, Art. I, n. 11; Art. II.
[530] Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary, Rubr. XLII (Philadelphia, 1892).—Archivo hist, nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 110, n. 31, fol. 4.—A commentator of the seventeenth century argues that clerics who seek to gain this indulgence become irregular if the wood they bring actually aids in burning the heretic.—Jac. a Graffiis Decis. aureæ Casuum Conscientiæ P. II, Lib. ii, Cap. 19, n. 3.
[531] Bullar. Roman. I, 611.
[532] Astesani Summæ de Casibus Conscientiæ, Lib. I, Tit. lviii. Art. 4.
[533] Cap. 18, Tit. ii in Sexto, Lib. V.
[534] Relacion de la Inquisicion Toledana (Boletin, XI, 300).
[535] Boletin, V, 404.
[536] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 132, n. 31.