2577

June 5. Lyons. Pope Innocent IV writes to the archbishop of Tyre, relating that a petition from the bishop and chapter of Beirut claimed that, in the serious quarrel that once arose over diocesan borders between them, on the one side, and the bishop and chapter of Sidon, on the other, which was litigated for a long time before the addressee’s predecessor, the late P[ierre de Sergines], their metropolitan, on his ordinary authority, the case was not brought to an end, because of the lack of proof on both sides, since that land was once occupied by the Saracens. To avoid permanent litigation or continuing grounds for new dispute or scandal, the pope orders the addressee, the metropolitan of both sides, to go in person to the disputed region and establish the borders of the diocese via a friendly agreement or in some other way as he sees fit, implementing his decision without appeal and carrying out the papal mandate in such a way that both bishops and chapters are content and neither side applies its scythe to the other’s harvest.