laymen has increased to such a pitch that, neglecting the authority of the bishops, they institute clerks in churches and remove them when they please, and distribute property and other possessions of the Church mostly at their own option, and dare to harass the churches themselves, as well as the people, with tallages and exactions, we do enact that, from henceforth, if they shall be guilty of the same, they shall be visited with excommunication. The priest also, or clerk, who shall receive a church from laymen, without the authority of his own bishop, shall be deprived from the communion ; and if he persists, then he shall be deposed from his ecclesiastical office and orders. And, further, inasmuch as some laymen compel ecclesiastical persons, and even bishops themselves, to abide by their judgments, those who shall do so in future we do order to be cut off from all intercourse with the faithful. "We do also forbid, on peril of their souls, laymen withholding tithes, under any circumstances, making over the same to other laymen. And if any person receives the same, and does not restore them to the Church, he is to be deprived of Christian burial. That manifest usurers shall not le admitted to the communion at the altar. " Inasmuch as in almost every place the crime of usury has become prevalent, so much so, that many, neglecting their usual business, adopt usury as their lawful occupation, and do not consider how the same is condemned by the pages of both Testaments, we do therefore enact, that manifest usurers shall not be received to communion at the altar, nor shall any of them receive Christian burial, or even an oblation, if he shall die in this sin. And he who shall have received such, offering, or have given Christian burial to such usurer, is both to be compelled to return what he has received, and is to remain suspended from the duties of his office until such time as, in the judgment of the bishop, he shall have given satisfaction. Of the wills of clerks. "AVhereas, in the duties of brotherly love, we seem in especial bound to those from whom we know that we have received benefits, on the other hand, certain of the clergy, after having received considerable property from their churches, presume to