4 - Papal Licence of Pope Alexander IV for the Friars to Establish an Oratory and Cemetery Within the Banleuca of Bury St Edmunds, 17 February 1256/7 [Bl Ms Harley 645, Fol. 209r]
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2023
Summary
Alexander the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our beloved sons the Friars Minor in England, greeting and the apostolic blessing! Since the brothers of the order have held tightly their poverty with honour for the Lord's name, as with an unbreakable chain, by the goodness of the church they are worthy of receiving our counsels, who are recognised as promoting the honour of God and of souls as aforesaid. From our calling we have sanctioned any show of favour.
The petition shown by your hand to us contained this: that you have settled so that we might regard the salvation of souls in the town called that of St Edmund the king which is situated in the region of the diocese of Norwich. The house of the aforesaid order of friars … we have accepted all things inasmuch as the salvation of souls is dear to us. We wish, concerning this, to provide appropriately that in the sites of selling of the faithful it should be granted to you that they should be without any visitation in this place. And we permit, in order to conform to this, one house in perpetuity … an oratory, and containing in the same place an indult to the same order, granted by the Apostolic See, to have, possess, or …
Notwithstanding that the abbot and convent of the monastery of the same town of the Order of St Benedict have obtained a temporal and spiritual jurisdiction immediately subject to the Roman church … in the same, and also an indult for the same [granted] directly from the Apostolic See [to the effect] that no religious men [should be allowed] to build or have built cemeteries, a church or a chapel within their habitation; and let it so be, aside from an approval, mandate or whatever other grant whatsoever granted, by which this grace might be impeded or deferred, and concerning which there ought to be full and express mention (either by word or to the word) in our letters. Let this or that be contrived by no … loss of measure of feet, by that daring in time which thus … an unworthy man has presumed, with this having been accepted … of the Lord and about to be called and … of the Apostles knows his own measure.
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- The Franciscans in Medieval Bury St Edmunds , pp. 59 - 60Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023