Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2023
Decree of the Lord Henry, bishop of Winchester, conservator of the Friars Minor: against the friars of Babwell, who pretend they are able to hear confessions in the town of Bury:
Henry by divine permission bishop of Winchester, to all and singular the sons of our holy mother the church whose business the foregoing touches, greeting, grace and blessing. We have recently heard in our presence the venerable and religious men, the abbot and convent of the exempt monastery of St Edmund of Bury, of the Order of St Benedict and diocese of Norwich (on the one hand) and the warden and friars of the convent of Babwell next to Bury (of the Order of Friars Minor, of the said diocese) on the other. A question was discussed among them, that is to say that the same abbot and convent, immediately subject to the most holy Roman church, were watching and are watching concerning these presents. From the sense of their privileges, they pertain to the same abbot and convent and their successors for their part, as manifestly appears by the supreme pontiffs … of grants. Then the aforesaid warden and friars of Babwell, having obtained privileges with permissions notwithstanding, assert and pretend that by the strength and by virtue of their privileges [granted] to the same friars by the Apostolic See in dubia, it was allowed to them to hear the confessions of anyone in this exempt place, immediately subject to the jurisdiction of the Apostolic See; and that they [could] thus absolve those confessing, with a licence of the holy abbot not having been sought at all on their part.
Upon this question, the aforesaid abbot and convent, as well as the aforesaid warden and friars, [and] we Henry the bishop and the conservator and custodian of the same Order of Friars Minor in England signal that urgency ought to be sought insofar as an end should be put to the aforesaid controversy. We therefore consider that there should be a moratorium and an end to whatsoever and whosoever's letters and controversies until they have been inspected and appointed by us, and until we have decreed and declared a perpetual peace in privileges.
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