for their personal appearance, nor with dogs or hawks or other things which portend licentiousness: we exhort your prudence in the Lord that those who have decided to undertake so holy a work shall not strive after these things, but shall show zeal and diligence with all their strength in the matter of arms, horses and other things with which they may fight the infidels. But those who are oppressed by debt and begin so holy a journey with a pure heart, shall not pay interest for the time past, and if they or others for them are bound by an oath or pledge in the matter of interest, we absolve them by apostolic authority. It is allowed to them also when their relations, being warned, or the lords to whose fee they belong, are either unwilling or unable to advance them the money, to freely pledge without any reclamation, their lands or other possessions to churches, or ecclesiastical persons, or to any other of the faithful. According to the institution of our aforesaid predecessor, by the authority of almighty God and by that of St. Peter the chief of the apostles, conceded to us by God, we grant such remission and absolution of sins, that he who shall devoutly begin so sacred a journey and shall accomplish it, or shall die during it, shall obtain absolution for all his sins which with a humble and contrite heart he shall confess, and shall receive the fruit of eternal retribution from the Remunerator of all. Given at Yetralle on the Calends of December.
VI.
DECREE OF THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 1179 A.D. CONCERNING PAPAL ELECTIONS.
(Doeberl, iv. p. 253.)
Concerning the election of the supreme pontiff. Although, for the sake of avoiding discord at the election of a supreme pontiff, clear enough decrees have emanated from our predecessors,—nevertheless, since often, after their promulgation, the church has suffered grave disunion through the audacity of wicked ambition: we, also, by the counsel of
