Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/283

250 he may accomplish the ruin of the souls, shall be utterly exterminated from the Christian world. Any emperor, kings, dukes, princes, marquises, counts, and temporal lords by what other name soever entitled, who shall grant a place within their territories for single combat between Christians, shall be thereupon excommunicated, and shall be understood to be deprived of jurisdiction and dominion over any city, castle, or place, in or at which they have permitted the duel to take place, which they hold of the church; and if those places be held as a fief, they shall forthwith be escheated to their direct lords. But those persons who have fought, and those who are called their seconds, shall incur the penalty of excommunication, and the forfeiture of all their property, and of perpetual infamy, and are to be punished as homicides, according to the sacred canons; and if they have perished in the conflict itself, they shall for ever be deprived of ecclesiastical sepulture. Those also who have given counsel in the case of a duel, whether touching right, or fact, or have in any other way soever persuaded any one thereunto, as also the spectators thereof, shall be bound by the bond of excommunication, and of perpetual malediction; any privilege soever, or evil custom, though immemorial, notwithstanding.

CHAPTER XX.

Matters appertaining to Ecclesiastical Law are recommended to Secular Princes.

The holy synod being desirous that ecclesiastical discipline may not only be restored amongst the Christian people, but that it also may be for ever preserved sound and safe from all manner of hindrances; besides those things which it has ordained respecting ecclesiastical persons, has thought fit, that secular princes also be admonished of their duty; trusting that they, as Catholics, whom God hath Allied to be the protectors of holy faith and Church, will not only grant that to the Church her own right be restored, but will also recall all their own subjects to the reverence due towards the clergy, parish priests, and the superior orders; nor permit that their officials, or inferior magistrates, through