Pope Honorius III (1219-1222) - 342 

world and are hastening toward conversion, and you can let them stay without anyone contradicting this. Also, we forbid any of your sisters from leaving this place or departing from your cloister after they have made their profession in your Church. Nor shall anyone dare to keep one who has gone without a warrant of your common letters; nor may others be allowed to enter your Cloister apart from those for whom you shall have had a special permission. However, the dedications of your Churches, the consecration of Abbesses, the ordinations of clerics who are to be promoted to Sacred Orders, and other ecclesiastical sacraments, you are to receive from the diocesan Bishop provided he wants to give you these freely and without any disorder. Otherwise, it is lawful for you to choose anyone you prefer, to go to our Bishop, and one who is in communion with the Apostolic See; by the authority of the Apostolic See he can give you what you request. However, should the present Abbess of this place come to you, or any one of your sisters to succeed her, there is to be no cunning of trickery or violence suggested, unless when the sisters by a common consent, or a number of sisters of more discreet counsel, according to the fear of God and the Rule of Blessed Benedict, discern she is to be elected. Also, they are to present the election to the Roman Pontiff, or to the Legate sent by the Pope, or to the one whom the Roman Pontiff has so commissioned, by whom the grace of confirming and blessing the one elected is given. Also, we forbid any Bishop, any other Ecclesiastic or secular person to infringe on your exemptions, either by obtaining a custom or in any other way daring to take anyone away from you, or to presume to place an interdict on your Church or sentences of excommunication. However, when there is a general Interdict, you may close the doors, exclude the excommunicated and those under interdict, not sound the bells, and celebrate the Divine Offices in a quiet voice. However, in a special way we forbid you to presume in any way to admit in life or in death to divine service those who are usurers, excommunicated, or heretics, or those suspected of heresy and are named by the Bishop of Perugia as being under interdict; nor may you hold a burial except for your own and for other persons who have been committed to your service. As a token of this exemption received from the Apostolic See, you will pay annually to the Roman Pontiff one gold coin. Therefore, we decree that it is not lawful for anyone to disturb rashly the

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Clare of Assisi: Early Documents, p. 342