Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/253

Rh who presides at the election, whether it be the bishop, or other superior, shall not enter the enclosures of the monastery, but shall listen to, or receive the votes of each, at the little window in the gates. In other matters, the constitution of the respective orders, or convents, shall be observed.

CHAPTER VIII.

In what manner the Regulation of Monasteries which have not Ordinary Regular Visitors is to he instituted.

All monasteries which are not subject to general chapters, or to bishops, and which have not their own ordinary regular visitors, but have been accustomed to be governed under the immediate protection and direction of the Apostolic See, shall be bound, within a year from the end of the present council, and thenceforth every third year, to form themselves into congregations, according to the form of the constitution of Innocent III., in a general council, which begins In singulis; and shall there depute certain regulars to deliberate and ordain touching the manner and order of establishing the aforesaid congregations, and the statutes therein to be observed. But should they be negligent in these matters, it shall be lawful for the metropolitan, in whose province are the aforesaid monasteries, to convoke them for the aforesaid purposes, as the delegate of the Apostolic See. But if, within the limits of one province, there be not a sufficient number of such monasteries for the establishing of a congregation, the monasteries of two or three provinces may form one congregation. And when the said congregations have been established, their general chapters, and the presidents or visitors elected by them, shall have the same authority over the monasteries of their own congregation, and over the regulars dwelling therein, as other presidents and visitors have in other orders; and they shall be bound to visit frequently the monasteries of their own congregation, and to apply themselves to the reformation thereof; and to observe what things soever have been decreed in the sacred canons, and in this sacred council. Also, if, at the instance of the metropolitan, they