There was a time in the unhappy epoch of the feudal ages in which ecclesiastics were possessed in various countries with the principal functions of the magistracy: the authority of the lords of the lay fiefs, so formidable to the sovereign and oppressive to the people, has been since bounded; but a portion of the independence of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions still exists. When will sovereigns be sufficiently informed and courageous to take back from them the usurped authority and numerous privileges which they have so often abused, to annoy the flock which they ought to protect?
It is by this inadvertence of princes that the audacious enterprises of ecclesiastics against sovereigns themselves have originated. The scandalous history of these attempts has been consigned to records which cannot be contested. The bull "In cœna Domini," in particular, still remains to prove the continual enterprises of the clergy against royal and civil authority.
Extract from the Tariff of the Rights Exacted in France by the Court of Rome for Bulls, Dispensations, Absolutions, etc., which Tariff was Decreed in the King's Council, Sept. 4, 1691, and Which is Reported Entire in the Brief of James Lepelletier, Printed at Lyons in 1699, with the Approbation and Permission of the King. Lyons: Printed for Anthony Boudet, Eighth Edition.
1. For absolution for the crime of apostasy, payable to the pope, twenty-four livres.
2. A bastard wishing to take orders must pay twenty-five livres for a dispensation; if desirous to possess a benefice, he must pay in addition one hundred and eighty livres; if anxious that his dispensation should not allude to his illegitimacy, he will have to pay a thousand and fifty livres.
3. For dispensation and absolution of bigamy, one thousand and fifty livres.
4. For a dispensation for the error of a false judgment in the administration of justice or the exercise of medicine, ninety livres.
5. Absolution for heresy, twenty-four livres.
6. Brief of forty hours, for seven years, twelve livres.
7. Absolution for having committed homicide in self-defence, or undesignedly, ninety-five livres. All in company of the murderer also need absolution, and are to pay for the same eighty-five livres each.