Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages/Book III/The Institution of the Jubilee
IX.
THE INSTITUTION OF THE JUBILEE, 1300.
("Bullarium Eomauima. Ed. Taurinensis." Vol. iv. p. 156.)
Bishop Boniface, servant of the servants of God, in perpetual memory of this matter.
The relation of the ancients is trustworthy, to the effect that, to those going to the famous church of the Prince of the Apostles in the City, great remissions and indulgences of their sins have been granted.
1. We therefore who, as is the duty of our office, do seek and most willingly procure the salvation of individuals, considering each and all such remissions and indulgences as valid and helpful, do confirm and approve them by apostolic authority; and do also renew them and furnish them with the sanction of the present writing.
2. In order, therefore, that the most blessed apostles Peter and Paul may be the more honoured the more their churches in the City shall be devoutly frequented by the faithful, and that the faithful themselves, by the bestowal of spiritual gifts, may feel themselves the more regenerated through such frequenting: we, by the mercy of almighty God, and trusting in the merits and authority of those same ones his apostles, by the counsel of our brethren and from the plenitude of the apostolic power, do concede, in this present year and in every hundreth year to come, not only full and free, but the very fullest, pardon of all their sins to all who in this present year 1300, counting from the feast just past of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in every hundredth year to come, shall reverently go to those churches, having truly repented and confessed, or being about to truly repent and confess.
3. Decreeing that those who wish to become partakers of such indulgence conceded by us, if they are Romans shall go to those churches on at least thirty days, consecutively or at intervals, and at least once in the day; but, if they be pilgrims or foreigners, they shall in like manner go on fifteen days. Each one, however, shall be the more deserving and shall more efficaciously obtain the indulgence, the more often and the more devoutly he shall frequent those churches. Let no man whatever infringe this page of our decree, or oppose it with rash daring. But if any one shall presume to attempt this he shall know that he is about to incur the indignation of almighty God and of His blessed apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at Rome, in St. Peters, on the 23rd day of February 1300, in the sixth year of our pontificate.