Abstract

This chapter moves to examine the consequences of the ‘failure’ of such disability tests and of clerics’ disclosures of impairment in petitions. In such cases, gracious papal letters sometimes allowed for the relaxation of ecclesiastical regulations to accommodate the disabled cleric's conditions, if he himself desired to remain in the clergy and was deemed capable enough. The process of supplication was used to improve clerics’ lives by adapting existing statutes to their personal situations.

Keywords: Coadjutors; Monastic Rules; Transfers; Mobility

The cover of the book you have in your hands, reader, represents a sick bishop, bedridden, who dictates his wishes to a notary, located at the bottom of his bed, as close as possible to the viewer. Behind the sick man stands another bishop, who helps him to write the letter, and, on the right, the recipient of the letter, the Pope. From this iconographic representation, and from the text that inspired the illustration, we can determine that the sick bishop is addressing a supplication to the Pope in order, no doubt, to delegate some (if not all) of his attributions to his colleague, who will become coadjutor or substitute bishop. Indeed, the preamble to cause 7 of Gratian's Decree, illustrated here, speaks of what a bishop overwhelmed by a long illness should do:

The text continues with chapter 1, ‘the pain of the body does not deprive the bishop of his honour’, which is exemplified in the miniature since the bishop is depicted in his sickly state, certainly, but still wearing all the attributes worthy of his office. Whether he is in the process of relinquishing some of his prerogatives or abdicating altogether, it is indeed the act of supplication of a sick bishop who seeks to adapt his duties to his physical condition that is depicted here.

This chapter expands on issues raised in earlier chapters, to consider in depth the accommodations offered and/or authorized by the pontifical institution that allowed impaired clerics to remain in the clergy. Through the supplication process, the Curia facilitated the inclusion of disabled petitioners, by adapting regulations to their personal situations.